[asterisk-biz] VoicePulse pricing encourages large number of accounts was: VoicePulse engaged in very dubious business practices

[trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Fri, 2006-06-02 at 20:11 -0400, Paul wrote:
> I would hope to get that type of rate and have it handed to me via
> ethernet. I have had many setup fees waived for myself and my clients
> the last few years. I would hope to get the same treatment on a 100mps feed.
> 
> Anyway, that cuts the cost per 64k to $1.875 a month. Of course there
> will be people who insist on ulaw over sip or untrunked iax2. I always
> find it amazing that people would expect to get reliability and quality
> at $2.50 a month per channel.


There is still one part of the business equation that is missing.  While
that is true for a channel that is pegged 24/7, most calls arent.
Although business customers tend to generate more calls than
residential, and business customers tend to all do it during the same
hours, many people who get phone service get it so they have it when
they need it and dont intend on using it 24/7.  Again this depends on
the type of user is getting the service, a call center will likely have
more traffic than a craft shop in the middle of nowhere.  Alternatively
a pizza place, while a business, is likely to have higher phone volume
around lunch and dinner times, which can offset to some degree other
business traffic that subsides perhaps a little bit during those times
since people arent working.

With that said, the same individual channel can be used for more than
one person per month.  Thus the cost per customer channel can be lower
since there is some contention rate that is normally allowed.  The trick
is to know what that contention rate should be without impairing your
customers ability to call.  After all you dont want to have tons of
unused bandwidth that will never be used, but you dont want to run out
of any either.  

It used to be a 6:1 contention rate was perfectly fine for a nice
blending of customer types, but again the indivudal customers that you
have will dictate what the contention rate can be.  At that rate it
would be $0.3125 ($0.625 for 3:1) per customer per month per channel
based on your math.  This makes the $2.50 channel a little more of a
reality, given that there will also be contention rate on the PSTN
interconnection and all the other costs.  But again that only works if
1. you have a large customer base, or 2. you are doing it as an initial
loss leader to get customers and intend on raising rates later.

Remember while we may joke about 'unlimited' service, we all know that
at least 99.9% of people who use the term 'unlimited' dont mean it.
Instead they mean 'some amount we wont tell you but if we decide you
exceeded that amount we can cancel your service, backbill you or
potentially other things'.  




-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
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http://www.trxtel.com we pay you to terminate calls with us!
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