First off, 83% of our members do not support a bandwidth cap.
Secondly, 82% of our members would rather have a flat rate, best effort service than a tiered service.
Finally, though the company as a whole is eking out a modest
profit, when we separated the profits from our software development and hosting
business from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) side of the business, we
found that the ISP is incurring substantial losses each and every month.
Secondly, 82% of our members would rather have a flat rate, best effort service than a tiered service.
With these three items in mind, we’ve looked at our existing
offerings and adjusted our prices to be more inline with our costs and our
competition.
Throughout this process we have kept our customer’s
preferences in mind. We plan to continue
to operate the network with no bandwidth caps and flat rate pricing. Service will continue to be offered on a best
effort basis. That means you’ll get the
best speeds and latencies that we can offer at your location. No artificial caps and no tiered services.
We will, however, continue to use our egregious user
software to manage network traffic for the benefit of the most possible users.
We are, however, going to be separating our services based
on how they are delivered. We feel it is
fundamentally unfair to charge someone with a WiFi only connection the same
rate as someone with a 1 Gbps fiber link.
All prices below are based on publicly posted prices retrieved
from the respective company websites on November
5, 2012 . In an attempt to
compare apples to apples, these prices do not include fall-off rates, bundled
services or promotions. We have also included modem rental in both ours and our competition's prices. These are by no
means a comprehensive listing of our competitor’s prices and services. Customers who wish to know more about our
competitors products and pricing should contact them directly.
We hope that you’ll understand why we have had to make these changes. We really have held prices down over the past 5 years as much as has been possible. In the past 4 years network traffic has grown by over 1,000%, while our pricing has only increased 30%. Our members are using more and more Netflix, Hulu & YouTube. Expanding capacity to meet this demand has been, and continues to be, very expensive.
We hope that you’ll understand why we have had to make these changes. We really have held prices down over the past 5 years as much as has been possible. In the past 4 years network traffic has grown by over 1,000%, while our pricing has only increased 30%. Our members are using more and more Netflix, Hulu & YouTube. Expanding capacity to meet this demand has been, and continues to be, very expensive.
Basic Service – WiFi
Only
Our basic service currently serves customers without
equipment. These customers connect to
our WiFi network receive a very convenient, but less reliable service. Speeds can range from 12 Mbps down to 128Kbps
depending on how close the customer is to the nearest node, network congestion,
local interference and other factors.
We’ve decided to keep this service as inexpensive as possible. Prices for our basic service will go from
$28.98 to $37.98.
Wicked Broadband
|
Phone Company
|
Cable Company
|
|
Basic
|
WiFi Only
Download: Up to 12Mb
Upload: Up to 12Mb
Depends on Wireless
Conditions & Line of Site
Price: $37.98
No Caps
|
U-verse Pro
Speeds: Up to 3Mbps
Upload: Up to 1Mbps
Price: $38.00
250 GB Cap
|
Bronze
Download: Up to 5Mbps
Upload: Up to 1Mbps
Price: $37.95
5 GB Cap
|
Advanced Service –
Managed Equipment
Our advanced service includes professional grade equipment
and/or a dish or panel antenna on the outside of the home. This service is substantially more reliable
than our basic service. In some areas
where customers are connected directly to a tower they are getting speeds of up
to 20 Mbps. We are going to keep the
prices for this service in line with the mid-tier services provided by the
cable and phone company. Prices for our
advanced service will change from $35.98 to $47.98.
Wicked Broadband
|
Phone Company
|
Cable Company
|
|
Advanced
|
Managed Equipment
Download: Up to 20Mbps
Upload: Up to 20Mbps
Depends on Wireless
Conditions & Line of Site
Price: $47.98
No Caps
|
U-verse Max
Download: Up to 12Mbps
Upload: Up to 1.5Mbps
Price: $48.00
250 GB Cap
|
Silver
Download: Up to 18Mbps
Upload: Up to 2Mbps
Price: $47.95
50 GB Cap
|
Rural Service –
Managed Equipment
We are also going to unify our rural service with our
advanced service. This will change our
rural rates from $44.98 to $47.98.
Wicked Broadband
|
Phone Company
|
Cable Company
|
|
Rural Service
|
Managed Equipment
Download: Up to 20Mbps
Upload: Up to 20Mbps
Depends on Wireless
Conditions & Line of Site
Price: $47.98
No Caps
|
N/A
|
Waverunner
Download: Up to 2 Mbps
Upload: Up to ¼ Mbps
Depends on Wireless
Conditions & Line of Site
Price: $49.95
50 GB
|
Business Service – Managed
Equipment & Monitoring
Our business service is delivered either on fiber-optic
cable or on directional panel antennas.
Business customer connections are monitored 24/7 and businesses receive
expedited services during business hours.
Many business customers get 20, 30 or even 50 Mbps of real throughput on
their wireless links. Added to this are
upload speeds that dwarf the speeds of other service providers. With this in mind, we are going to change our
business service pricing from $49.98/Mbps to $59.98/Mbps of guaranteed
throughput. As always, for each Mbps of guaranteed
throughput, we will provide an additional 9 Mbps of best effort service. That means a businesses 2 Mbps link can burst
to 20Mbps when conditions allow, which is most of the time.
In this case we were unable to locate printed versions of
our competitor’s prices, which tells you a lot about their business
practices. The prices below were
provided by sales representatives.
Wicked Broadband
|
Phone Company
|
Cable Company
|
|
Business Services
|
Business 1
Download:
Guaranteed: 1Mbps
Burst: Up to 10Mbps
Upload:
Guaranteed: 1Mbps
Burst: Up to 10Mbps
Price: $59.98
Requires 1 Yr Agreement
|
Didn’t respond in time for
print. Says something…..
|
Business Service
Download: Up to 8 Mbps
Upload: Up to 1Mbps
Price: $49.95
Requires 3 Yr Agreement
|
Business 2
Download:
Guaranteed: 2Mbps
Burst: Up to 20Mbps
Upload:
Guaranteed: 2Mbps
Burst: Up to 20Mbps
Price: $119.96
Requires 1 Yr Agreement
|
Didn’t respond in time for
print. Says something…..
|
Business Service
Download: Up to 16 Mbps
Upload: Up to 2 Mbps
Price: $79.95
Requires 3 Yr Agreement
|
Fiber Service
On Jan 1 we are going to be launching a competition between
various neighborhoods to become the first Wicked Broadband Fiberhood in Lawrence . Much like Google’s approach in Kansas
City , neighbors will be able to pre-register for
service in their neighborhood. Areas
with the highest subscription will be built out first, with the goal of
bringing the first neighborhoods online by March 1.
Our fiber service will demark in the home using two physical
mediums. 100 Mbps and 1 Gpbs. Initial installation will be the same price
for each service, $200 with a 1 year commitment, or $750 with no commitment.
100 Mbps Fiber
If the customer chooses to have service delivered on 100
Mbps medium, we will be charging $70/Mo.
Wicked Broadband
|
Phone Company
|
Cable Company
|
|
Fiber 100
|
Single Mode FTTH
Download: Up to 100Mbps
Upload: Up to 100Mbps
Price: $70
No Caps
Installation:
$200 with 1 Year Agreement
$750 with No Contract
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
1 Gbps Fiber
If the customer chooses to have service delivered on 1 Gbps
medium, we will be charging $150/Mo.
Wicked Broadband
|
Phone Company
|
Cable Company
|
|
Gigabit
|
Single Mode FTTH
Download: Up to 1Gbps
Upload: Up to 1Gbps
Price: $150
No Caps
Installation:
$200 with 1 Year Agreement
$750 with No Contract
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
New pricing will take effect on December 1, 2012 .
We hope that you’ll understand why we have had to make these
changes. We really have held prices down
over the past 5 years as much as has been possible. In the past 4 years network traffic has grown
by over 1,000%, while our pricing has only increased 30%. Our members are using more and more Netflix,
Hulu & YouTube. Expanding capacity
to meet this demand has been, and continues to be, very expensive.
We value your membership in our network and hope that we’ll
have the opportunity to continue serving you in the future.
