🚀 go-pugleaf

Mathew Grimm wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 11 Jan 1997 09:47:25 -0500, Jim Freeman <jfreeman@athens.net>
> wrote:
> 
> >Mathew Grimm wrote:
> >> I did not agree with the startup charge; in fact, I almost didn't join
> >> because of it.  They allowed me (I can't remember exactly how many)
> >> days to try the service and only then did I get charged.  I wasn't
> >> saying that NEGIA is absolutely the best ISP in the area.  I simply
> >> don't know this.  I tried Interlinks and AthensNET.  NEGIA is the best
> >> ISP in the area that I have tried to this day.
> >
> >Just wanted to follow-up on this post to with the clarification of the
> >ISPs in the area, since not all ISPs are listed in the above remarks.
> >
> >The following companies are ISPs based in/or around the Athens area.
> >
> >Listed in alphabetical order: ;-)
> >
> >Athens ISP http://www.athens.net
> >AthensNET http://www.athensnet.com
> >Interlinks  http://www.ilinks.net
> >NEGIA http://www.negia.net
> 
> Sorry Jim, didn't mean to leave you out.  I never even gave Athens ISP
> a second glance when I saw your non-competitive price structure.
> 
> Mathew


Mathew,

As far as company policy, I personally know that the pricing structure
of Athens' Isp is based on costs in providing service (not on external
factors).  If other companies use the same pricing guidelines and they
can offer a lower price -  more power to them.  Athens' Isp offers its
services at the level of quality that the company is dedicated to at the
best price it can afford.

Since we are on the subject, let me discuss ISP pricing a little more
because I think that there are some interesting trends in the market.

We have customers who spend 350+ hours on the Internet per month (this
is roughly 1/2 of all hours in a month).  Taking just one item alone
(the incoming telephone line), the price for providing service to that
customer is approx. $12.00 per month.  Offering 'unlimited' access for
$19.00 per month cannot be profitable for a company with numerous users
of this profile.  The incoming telephone line is, of course, not the
only expense involved in supporting the customer: hardware, T-1 to net,
customer support, sys admin, etc.

As a company, we would rather not provide what I would term Lowest
Common Denominator service
($19.00/Unlimited/BusySignal/OutofBandwidth/NoTechSupport), but rather
to provide the highest quality service we can to customers who are
looking for something a bit more.

At Athens' Isp, we occasionally get sales calls from customers who think
that our prices are too high, but on average we do very well.  Over the
past year when prices dropped by more than 50% at some companies, we
have not seen any reductions in our new subscriptions / advertising
dollar ratios.  

Charging customers fair prices for service has allowed Athens' Isp to
continue to improve service over the past year.  For example, Athens'
Isp has recently installed PRI telephone service to position ourselves
for the upcoming 56K modem technologies (by Rockwell, Lucent, and USR). 
Athens' Isp believes that this type of commitment to new technologies is
important to customers and inherently a part of the ISP business.

I read an excellent article in BOARDWATCH magazine about the ISP
business and how to get the best Internet service available recently.

I would recommend it to anyone interested in how their ISP operates,
what its costs are, and how everything pans out in the end.

Please check out, http://www.boardwatch.com/isp/fallisp/intro1.htm for
the article over the Web.

BTW, the directory contains all important pieces of information about
ISPs in the 706 area code, including a bandwidth/port factor that they
call 'Q' which is explained in the intro1.html document.

Cheers,
-- 

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 Jim Freeman | Athens' Isp, Inc. | Systems Administator
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