Whoa- interesting statistic I got about people and their ISP's

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Was this person paying you $19.95 for your services?

There's different levels of service depending on your purchase price you see...

When I started, it was $489/yr, which is only double what your product costs. By the time I left that company, due to market pressure our price was down to $389/yr. Your ISP charges $240/yr. Probably not the magnitude of difference you expected.

So again, if you're going to treat your customers like they're only worth $19.95 why would you be shocked when they left?

How much did they pay for the application to begin with though? That price sounds like they bought a service contract.

Also, you're getting off the subject. The topic is customers are leaving ISP's because of something wrong on their end (phone line problems, spyware, virus, bad/old hardware, etc) and blaming their ISP for the problems.

Now that you mention it, I'm reminded there was a $100 higher price for the first year to begin. When the price dropped to $389/yr we dropped the extra up front cost. And I give it as a yearly price because we treated it like a subscription, they paid a fee and we delivered a monthly CD containing our software. They were not buying a service contract, they were buying our software and we simply provided service above and beyond what many companies feel they should provide their customers.

I am most definitely not getting off the subject, we provided a good/service for our customers. When they encountered problems with our good/service even if it was not our fault, we fixed it for them. Somebody screwing up their network settings was a problem on their end and I could very easily have told them to ah heck off, but I didn't. Had I not fixed their problem, then it's quite likely they would have blamed it on our software even though it wasn't our fault, exactly they way they blame you when you don't fix your customers problems. Instead, they thought I was a minor deity and when I attended trade shows to run our booth, people would come up to talk to me and thank me. It was kind of funny, like trading old war stories I'd have attorney's come up and ask me if I remembered talking to them on such and such a date about a problem they had, and how if I hadn't helped them fix it they wouldn't have been ready for court the next morning.

My company made plenty of profit and picked up lots of customers based on word of mouth of the quality of our product and the service with which we stood behind it. I was making more money per year at 22 than most people ever make, so the extra service we provided wasn't breaking the company. Your dismissive attitude is likely common in your industry, and the very reason people don't have any loyalty to your service. I guess that's the difference between old fashioned businesses who pride themselves on happy customers versus mega-corporations who only want your money if it doesn't require any hard work.

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
My ISP was at fault for a problem, but I never cancelled.. too lazy to go through all the hassle of switching ISPs.
MY DSL speeds started varying one day based on net traffic. ISP insisted it was on my end, trying different things for over an hour with no help. The problem even showed up on two different computers.
I talked to the manager. He tested my line and said he detected that I had 10 megabytes of bandwidth going through, and everything is as good as ever, which is obviously impossible as my line is only rated at 3mbps, let alone 10MBps. The manager called the call office about the issue. They checked on it and couldn't find the source of the problem. They finally gave up and told me that speeds aren't guaranteed, and can vary by 15%. But the problem is, that it's slower by over 70%. I brought up that point, and he just kept repeating what he said.
Verizon DSL sucks.

Now see, this is what I'm talking about. What they did there is test the resistance of the phone line you were using from the central office to the Dmark on your building. They said it has the capacity for a 10Mb signal- which means that your lines to the outside of the building are about as clean as they can get. The maximum speed you can be provisioned and the max the line can carry are completely different.

When you get a DSL signal, the telco sets up a standard profile, which in your case sounds like it was something like 3000 down/512 up (or something close). Then, they have to adjust the signal strength in order for you to receive this signal (called Relative Capacity, or RelCap). If your relcap starts getting above 80% or so, your DSL may become unstable. High relcaps can be caused by a bad/incorrectly installed/missing filter, a new phone device, being too far from the central office, or a wiring problem inside or outside of the house. It sounds like your relcap jumped up, so they had to lower your speed to stabilize it.

When you sign up for a DSL package, they do have a speed range in which they will guarantee. If you had a sudden drop in signal that forced them to lower the speed to maintain stability, but that speed is still within the agreed range, there's not much they can do about it. Did they have you unplug all of your phones and then check your signal, or try plugging the modem directly into your DMark to see where the problem lies?

So, in short, they did nothing wrong, and it is not their fault that your speed was dropped. They're still sending the same signal they always have (as they do with all of their customers). Something has happened on the receiving end that changed the ammount of signal received, so you have to troubleshoot that.

Ok, so explain to me why the speeds only drop during peak hours, and is perfectly fast during early morning(1AM to 9AM)?
I don't care if the problem is on my end or not, I just want it fixed. If the problem is on my end, I would be happy to rectify it.
I'm getting random speeds from 500kbps to 1500kbps during peak hours. That's nowhere near 15% of 3000kbps.
I would be interested in hearing a logical explanation how this can be caused by my end.

What do you consider peak hours? You'd be suprised at what they are with DSL since it's an "always on" connection. If your speeds are changing during the day, it may have to do with atmospheric conditions affecting the lines outside of the house. When it's warmer during the day, the lines expand and maybe aggrivate a short or a bridgetap somewhere on your street. Verizon should be able to determine this by looking at your relcaps at different times of the day.