If Flip were to do unlimited

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › If Flip were to do unlimited

ScottHoogerbrug

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#112026 23-Nov-2012 12:56

Looking into raise the stakes and start playing in the unlimited game.

Keen to start a debate on this and hear your experiences and ideas.

To kick things off

1. We're looking limit p2p to 128k during peak hours (3am to 11am) to make it viable

2. What price would you pay for such a service?

3. What grinds your gears about other providers unlimited offerings?

flip.co.nz

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#721840 23-Nov-2012 13:03

Answer to 3. The use of the word Unlimited. Don't use the word 'Unlimited' if you are putting any limits on it, as that could be seen a misleading. Unlimited means without any limits whatsoever. So maybe use the word Unmetered instead which is more representative of the offering.

ScottHoogerbrug

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#721844 23-Nov-2012 13:09

mattwnz: Answer to 3. The use of the word Unlimited. Don't use the word 'Unlimited' if you are putting any limits on it, as that could be seen a misleading. Unlimited means without any limits whatsoever. So maybe use the word Unmetered instead which is more representative of the offering.

Fair comment.

The difficultly is then explaining the ins and outs, the p2p limit would be the only thing we do and be totally up front. Rather than hiding behind complicated traffic proirtisation polices.

Concerned that unmetered might be confusing to most...best word I've heard for it though.

flip.co.nz

Talkiet

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#721855 23-Nov-2012 13:48

ScottHoogerbrug: [snip]

1. We're looking limit p2p to 128k during peak hours (3am to 11am) to make it viable
[snip]

What an incredibly odd customer mix you must have to make those your peak hours!

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Klipspringer

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#721860 23-Nov-2012 13:58

ScottHoogerbrug: Looking into raise the stakes and start playing in the unlimited game.

Keen to start a debate on this and hear your experiences and ideas.

To kick things off

1. We're looking limit p2p to 128k during peak hours (3am to 11am) to make it viable

2. What price would you pay for such a service?

3. What grinds your gears about other providers unlimited offerings?

As for number 1: How about an unlimited, unmetered plan and just block p2p. Some of us dont and never use p2p and could not care less. I would be quiet happy with such a plan :-)

Ragnor

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#721877 23-Nov-2012 14:30

ScottHoogerbrug:

1. We're looking limit p2p to 128k during peak hours (3am to 11am) to make it viable

2. What price would you pay for such a service?

3. What grinds your gears about other providers unlimited offerings?

1: Your traffic management needs to be far most sophisticated than that

2: $90-130 depending level of congestion as per other naked unlimited/unmetered plans Slingshot ($90), Orcon ($99), Maxnet ($124)

3: Lack of transparency, take a leaf out of what good ISP's are doing overseas, namely:

Phone Queue Length Online:
http://www.internode.on.net/about/performance/
http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212&helpheader=rhmcallstats

Public network traffic graphs
http://public.mrtg.exetel.com.au/bwsummary/ExetelBandwidthSummary.html
http://public.mrtg.exetel.com.au/bwsummary/total-supplier-bandwidth.html

Clear traffic management policy and rate limits
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/traffic_management.shtml
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/broadband_experience.shtml
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/upload_speeds.shtml

No ISP in NZ seems to be doing any of this yet, so this could be your point of difference.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

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#721882 23-Nov-2012 14:43

What would be the point of doing it that way?

1) Unless you are going to do it for around $50-60 total (which I doubt) then it would totally go against your entire brand positioning of being extremley cheap. Let Slingshot do their thing and you do yours. Trying to do big caps and unlimited is just going to confuse the hell out of people.

2) you are owned by slingshot (yes, you have separate management etc etc) so given the only other unlimited provider of any scale is Orcon, then half, or more (probably more like 60-70% given relative sizes of Orcon and Slingshot), of your customers will come from slingshot - eating your own lunch.

One way that might work for you is to attract a different kind of unlimited customer.
Dont go for the ones who want to use heaps of data who are currently on Slingshot, orcon, or 500GB telecom plans. Instead, go for the ones who only want to use a little bit 5-20GB)but are scared of hitting caps.
the way you woudl do it would be to offer an 'unlimited' plan (call it something else though), but only offer low speeds (say, 1-2Mbps) and totally block P2P. That's fast enough to do web browsing, emails, low res youtube and most other stuff on the web etc etc but not so fast it is going to cost you a fortune in bandwidth or even be attractive to the vampires on Slingshot and Orcon right now. That way, you can still price it pretty keenly at, say, $60 including landline.
you won't blow out your costs and you also won't cannibalise your own group's customers. win-win

mattwnz

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#721889 23-Nov-2012 14:46

NonprayingMantis: What would be the point of doing it that way?

1) Unless you are going to do it for around $50-60 total (which I doubt) then it would totally go against your entire brand positioning of being extremley cheap. Let Slingshot do their thing and you do yours. Trying to do big caps and unlimited is just going to confuse the hell out of people.

2) you are owned by slingshot (yes, you have separate management etc etc) so given the only other unlimited provider of any scale is Orcon, then half, or more (probably more like 60-70% given relative sizes of Orcon and Slingshot), of your customers will come from slingshot - eating your own lunch.

One way that might work for you is to attract a different kind of unlimited customer.
Dont go for the ones who want to use heaps of data who are currently on Slingshot, orcon, or 500GB telecom plans. Instead, go for the ones who only want to use a little bit 5-20GB)but are scared of hitting caps.
the way you woudl do it would be to offer an 'unlimited' plan (call it something else though), but only offer low speeds (say, 1-2Mbps) and totally block P2P. That's fast enough to do web browsing, emails, low res youtube and most other stuff on the web etc etc but not so fast it is going to cost you a fortune in bandwidth or even be attractive to the vampires on Slingshot and Orcon right now. That way, you can still price it pretty keenly at, say, $60 including landline.
you won't blow out your costs and you also won't cannibalise your own group's customers. win-win

Companies can pay experts thousands for that sort of advice.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Klipspringer

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#721903 23-Nov-2012 15:17

BraaiGuy:
ScottHoogerbrug: Looking into raise the stakes and start playing in the unlimited game.

Keen to start a debate on this and hear your experiences and ideas.

To kick things off

1. We're looking limit p2p to 128k during peak hours (3am to 11am) to make it viable

2. What price would you pay for such a service?

3. What grinds your gears about other providers unlimited offerings?

As for number 1: How about an unlimited, unmetered plan and just block p2p. Some of us dont and never use p2p and could not care less. I would be quiet happy with such a plan :-)

Had some more thought about this...

“Unlimited/unmetered/uncached” download, without p2p but giving the customer the opportunity at buying p2p data add-ons. You could probably do the same for other data hungry protocols which not everybody uses.

Personally I think we have gotten to the point here in NZ that P2P traffic is becoming such a problem that its affecting the rest of us that just want to do the usual stuff. How fast would out internet be if we disabled all P2P traffic for just one day, Im sure our international speeds would rocket?

But the main factor should be a cheap uncapped/uncached service. So what if p2p is an option, those that want it can activate it in blocks.

What irritates me about the othr ISP's that offer an uncapped service is that they try to cache a lot of traffic. Youtube streaming always seems to be affected.

How much would I pay. I would pay $70 per month for unlimited/uncached connection to the internet. I would pay more if for a service that blocked p2p totally, thereby giving me a better connection.

NonprayingMantis

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#721918 23-Nov-2012 15:59

mattwnz:
NonprayingMantis: What would be the point of doing it that way?

1) Unless you are going to do it for around $50-60 total (which I doubt) then it would totally go against your entire brand positioning of being extremley cheap. Let Slingshot do their thing and you do yours. Trying to do big caps and unlimited is just going to confuse the hell out of people.

2) you are owned by slingshot (yes, you have separate management etc etc) so given the only other unlimited provider of any scale is Orcon, then half, or more (probably more like 60-70% given relative sizes of Orcon and Slingshot), of your customers will come from slingshot - eating your own lunch.

One way that might work for you is to attract a different kind of unlimited customer.
Dont go for the ones who want to use heaps of data who are currently on Slingshot, orcon, or 500GB telecom plans. Instead, go for the ones who only want to use a little bit 5-20GB)but are scared of hitting caps.
the way you woudl do it would be to offer an 'unlimited' plan (call it something else though), but only offer low speeds (say, 1-2Mbps) and totally block P2P. That's fast enough to do web browsing, emails, low res youtube and most other stuff on the web etc etc but not so fast it is going to cost you a fortune in bandwidth or even be attractive to the vampires on Slingshot and Orcon right now. That way, you can still price it pretty keenly at, say, $60 including landline.
you won't blow out your costs and you also won't cannibalise your own group's customers. win-win

Companies can pay experts thousands for that sort of advice.

My invoice is in the post

mattgreen

133 posts

Master Geek

#721962 23-Nov-2012 17:02

ScottHoogerbrug:
mattwnz: Answer to 3. The use of the word Unlimited. Don't use the word 'Unlimited' if you are putting any limits on it, as that could be seen a misleading. Unlimited means without any limits whatsoever. So maybe use the word Unmetered instead which is more representative of the offering.

Fair comment.

The difficultly is then explaining the ins and outs, the p2p limit would be the only thing we do and be totally up front. Rather than hiding behind complicated traffic proirtisation polices.

Concerned that unmetered might be confusing to most...best word I've heard for it though.

It's definitely a fair comment given Telecom were fined $0.5m for getting this wrong. It would pay to read this at least...

http://www.comcom.govt.nz/media-releases/detail/2009/telecom-fined-500-000-for-misleading-over-go-large-plan

Pays to be careful with your legal advice and advertising when offering an "unlmited" plan. You also need to be very smart with your customer/network modelling.

As NonprayingMantis said.. You're actually far better looking at another niche. I'd probably go with two $49.95 plan options.

Option 1 - Your existing full rate 5GB base plan with 5/10/20GB datapacks
Option 2 - Uncapped base plan at ~1Mbps with the ability to add "speed boost" packs that give 2 hours, 12 hours or 1 day of full-rate line usage (enabled and disabled through SMS, web and dialing a shortcode number on the landline)

This would fit your existing pre-pay model and market base nicely.

l43a2

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#721969 23-Nov-2012 17:14

would the p2p shaping affect games that use p2p to communicate?

hamish225

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#722528 25-Nov-2012 12:17

I like the rate limiting idea, accept how about limiting it to 7Mbps, 2Mbps is just a bit too slow now days in my opinion.

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

ScottHoogerbrug

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#722863 26-Nov-2012 09:35

Thanks for all the feedback. Really good stuff.

Will reply in several posts throughout the day. Firstly, BraaiGuy.

How about an unlimited, unmetered plan and just block p2p. Some of us dont and never use p2p and could not care less. I would be quiet happy with such a plan :-)

Could be an idea but then it wouldnt be even further from the unlimited/unmetered thought? I wonder how many people would understand the benefits of such a plan?

Totally understand where you are coming from though and it has some legs. More of a marketing challenging than anything else.

Key is to make the proposition as simple as possible without misleading anyone.

Buying p2p data add-ons

Would definitely boost the appeal of the idea. Does significantly change Flip's product structure and adds a level of complexity for Flip and it's customers.

It's likely I'd need to launch a new plan per se (rather than just adding a data pack), which means decent size changes to billing, website and comms.

flip.co.nz

DjShadow

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#722868 26-Nov-2012 09:41

Perhaps offer 2 versions of it? e.g 1: Offer "unlimited" with p2p slowed down and a higher cost version with no brakes on it. I'm working on the assumption that if someone wants a true unlimited and full speed connection that they will pay extra for it.

From memory Actrix have tried this but charged a very unreasonable price

NonprayingMantis

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#722870 26-Nov-2012 09:49

hamish225: I like the rate limiting idea, accept how about limiting it to 7Mbps, 2Mbps is just a bit too slow now days in my opinion.

limiting it to 7Mbps is missing the entire point of having a speed limit in the first place.

If it is limited to 7Mbps then that is fast enough to do almost anything on the internet these days. The vampires will sign up in their droves. The idea behind the speed limit is to allow the very price sensitive people who just want to browse the internet and pay $60-70 but at the same time avoid signing up the people who want to download the entire internet. That way it keeps the cost down (average usage might only be, say, 5-10GB) and so allows them to charge a lower price.

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