Change Is Coming.....April 16, 2013 2:00 PM

http://wickedfiber.com

New - Faster - Bandwidth Management Coming Soon

After several thoughtful e-mail exchanges with one of our customers we have decided to change our bandwidth management rules.

It has been a couple years since we updated our bandwidth management software (how I love you iptables and tc), so after our customer brought the subject up, we examined them and we feel they are too restrictive.

We will be developing a proposed strategy for managing egregious usage (i.e. you can't cap your connection 24x7 for $38.98/Mo, it will trash everyone's Internet), then we'll trot it out to our members and see what you think.

The goal is to make more bandwidth available to everyone.

Implantation is dependent on how much time I have to chase through the changes.  I'm going to aim for July 1, but please don't hold me to it.

Thanks to Everyone

Thanks to everyone who helped Kris win her school board race.  I am confident that she will do everyone proud by providing responsible leadership for USD 497.

Thank you for your support.

Vote Smart April 2

School Board Candidate

One of Wicked's very own is running for Lawrence School Board. The election is April 2nd so we thought we would share her short bio. Remember, you have three votes for School Board and Kristie is only asking for one:

My name is Kristie Adair and I am a mother to two young girls as well as the wife to a 1^st Lt. in the Kansas Air National Guard. My husband and I also own a small business called Wicked Broadband where I manage the company books. I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma and worked for Tulsa Public Schools teaching English to first graders. We moved to Lawrence in 2005 and I took a position with USD 497 at East Heights in the Pre-K program. Those years in education were rewarding and I only left to finish my education. I have a history degree from Washburn University.  I am interested in serving on the Lawrence School Board because I believe education is the foundation to any good community. John Dewey said, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

Check out my website, www.kristieadair.com or join me on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. 

DropBox Settings

We've had a bunch of folks trash their own Internet connection recently using DropBox.

DropBox will use ALL of the available bandwidth at your site.  This can cause trouble with web browsing, Netflix, e-mail, etc.  It can also cause trouble for your neighbors by using all of the available bandwidth in your area.  If you are pushing or pulling a pile of data, please take a min to manage your bandwidth.

Remember, the settings are in kiloBYTES per second, not kilobits.  It matters. The Internet connection you save might be your own.

Survey Results & Revised Pricing

We’ve now compiled the results from the survey and wanted to circle back around and let you know what we learned.

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.

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.

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.