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Pricing Home Network Service

Members of the ISP-Marketing list discuss the headaches and cash benefits of offering home networking as a value-added service.

[December 10, 2001]

On the ISP-Marketing list in November, EA queried,

"Is anyone offering 'home networking' as a value add to subscribers? Now that many people have more than one PC in their home, this could be a good opportunity. Any thoughts?"

A number of respondents warned that the support costs can be prohibitive:

[ML recalled] "We dabbled in this a little bit. We found that we became a help desk for every application that was being run, every printer that needed new toner or didn't print, and every Microsoft Office task that could be answered by using the help function in Word. I am not saying that there isn't a good market for this service; I just don't have the patience of a saint that I think is required to make it work effectively."

[BK observed] "When you touch their network, you own all the problems associated with it. I thought it would be cool to get into wireless networking in homes, but after doing one for a customer as a favor, all I can say is, no way. There are too many unknowns."

[MS added] "I know of many companies that went out of business trying to provide this service."

Others suggested that, as long as you anticipate the support costs in advance, it can be worthwhile:

[CS noted] "I do this all the time for small business, though we haven't yet marketed it to the home user. The only way it works is to charge a monthly fee for support up front. We tell the customer that we are willing to support anything besides the network, but that it is not included in the monthly service fee. We charge per computer: on average, $29.99 per month. High school techs work great for this, as they are good and inexpensive. Try using a local high school for internships."

[JB added] "I have a couple of friends that do this: they make good money at it, as long as they observe these rules: home PC support is $75 per hour, and business support requires a minimum commitment of $99 per month, which includes 1.5 hours of support."

[BK agreed] "If you staff for this, and lay down the game rules in the beginning, I believe it could be a money maker."

— End