Marketing new ISP concept

matti

Hi all,I am currently working on a new business concept for Internet Access and have come up with beta website which hopefully explains the concept in detail. The concept is different and I think plausible but whether it is marketable is a different matter.Anyway, I would be most grateful for comments, opinions and suggestions.The website is at www.copowi.com To access the site use the following:Username: copowipassword: reviewThanks in advanceGeorge

vwebworld

 Sorry, I did not "get it".
Is it FREE or $29.95/mo? ($29.95/mo is high for dial-up)
~Roland

matti

Hi Roland,It`s $29.95 for accelerated dialup for three years, and then it is free for life. Subscribers can also switch to high-speed plans after three years and get high-speed for free as well. The price is a bit high because it is based on building up an actuarial-style reserve and then managing the paid and free accounts. Of course, the key will be the establishment of the Copowi Active Consumer Program. This is where is starts to get complicated and the marketing message confused.George

matti

Your Internet Provider wants to limit your service!They only want to display material that is approved by them.Fight back with the only ISP that guarantees unfiltered access to information!(Or something like that. It`s 3:30 am, I`m not exactly the best copywriter right now.)
That`s pretty good for early morn! Straight to the point without the techno babble. Thanks

matti

At the very least it`s a solid marketing tactic.  I would be very interested to hear where "the advertising revenue stream" is coming from.  Is every third website going to be a paid advertiser, or would their be a gateway page required for Internet use?  Essentially the idea is to setup an advertising/promotional channel where advertisers can show off their wares to a receptive audience. Every subscriber agrees to participate in this program whether by visiting, submitting reviews or just making comments. This is the condition of getting free Internet access. So instead of visiting different websites for reviews on laptops, watches, tvs etc. you will have one site which aggregates the visitors and then uses the advertising revenue to pay for free Internet access.Couldn`t the following be said at any point in time (with regard to technology):"In three years` time the new compression technologies and new ways of
moving data will bring the cost of Internet access down dramatically."See the problem with that is in 3 years time customer expectations won`t be the 8Mbps service currently offered.  It will be 16Mbps or maybe even 32Mbps service.I would say we`d be looking a minimum of 100 Mbps. But it doesn`t matter, at the moment a 1.5 Mbps account costs the same amount to the ISP as a 7Mbps account. We would simply upgrade our accounts to whatever the technology allows. But I see your point.
--Also besides not spending money on traditional marketing I`m unclear how you could do things better then say Bellsouth or Comcast.Would love to see this take off but right now it sounds more like a gimmick to get customers then anything.  Perhaps it`s just my limited understanding of the whole concept / technology.Yes, you`ve hit the nail on the head, how to get attention without sacrificing credibility. It does sound gimmicky I agree. Need to work on this aspect.matti2007-6-6 9:29:3

matti

Boy I made a mess of the quotes, sorry. Can`t seem to change them. Hope it makes sense.

matti

Well free is always better than paying, providing that the service levels are the same and there are no onerous additional requirements to maintain that account.I guess what we are trying to get across is the notion that we need a mechanism to protect against monopoly and oligopoly pricing, which is to put pressure on the market through competition.I know free has both negative and positive connotations. But we tried to set it up as a goal and a vision and achievable through collective action. Just like open source is now well-established but initially was seen as lunacy.

matti

Hi Crosscountry,Accelerated dial-up, though?  Can you apply it to DSL, Cable, and Wireless?It`s a poor man`s broadband. In other words, it is for those who can`t afford broadband or don`t have it available in their area. It is about 5 times quicker than ordinary dialup. The pricing model still shows this as $29.95 which is still too high. We need to somehow bring this down, as someone else noted earlier.
matti2007-6-6 20:47:5

matti

Hostlick,Reevoo.com is a great concept and already has what
appears to be a very solid following.  In addition I just stumbled on
qoof.com (a SUN member) this morning and they have an interesting
concept as well.  Not to mention all the other consumer review sites
out there.How interesting! qoof.com is the direction we are heading in sort of ... The main difference we will redirect the revenue to providing free and fair Internet access for all. This hopefully will be a differentiating factor for our target markets. Thanks for the links.

vwebworld

Here`s the real question ... do people really want free access?
FREE used to be the way the internet was... free access, free programs, free stuff! I remember free dial-up access. NetZero (for one) still provides free access for limited hours/month. - the free good old days!
Looking at the economics of this: The consumer is faced with paying $29.95/mo for three years = $1,078 or NetZero $9.95/mo for three years = $358. Thus, "investing" $720 with the promise (?) or hope that your service will be around in year 4 and beyond. By year 6 the consumer would have broken even (paid the same in total) between your service and NetZero.
~Roland
BTW - I use a high speed internet connection (at less than $50/mo). It is a "business expense". If I wasn`t in the web design business, I probably would use a free or cheap dial-up option.vwebworld2007-6-8 4:11:16

matti

Hi Roland,
The major difference between netzero and our product is that after
three years, the subscriber can switch to a high-speed plan for free. I
know it is nothing more than a promise, but what isn`t. Just about
every service we use is based on a promise. As consumers we have to
make value judgments all the time.

Now since there are no contracts, the subscriber can trial it for two
months if they don`t like it, or feel we will not deliver they can get
their money back- guaranteed. After the two months they can cancel at
any time, if they feel they cannot trust us or feel we won`t be able to
deliver on our promise.

Now I agree our pricing for dialup is still too high, we need to bring
this down and were working on the pricing model at present to see if it
can be done. Once the pricing is more in line with the market, the
value hopefully will be more apparent. But you make an excellent point
which we sort of considered but not in a focused way. I think our
documentation is also lacking in this regard. So thanks for
highlighting it.
matti

InactiveMember

I have to go with Nikole on this one. I am happy to pay $70 a month for broadband and a few cable channels. Free access is nice but I don`t want to watch adverts in exchange. Just two measly cents from CookieMonster.

InactiveMember

p.s. For Matti: I think you have an interesting idea. Not sure how it will play out but definitely interesting.

matti

Hi cookiemonster,Yeah, it is the "watching adverts" in exchange perception that is the bugbear. A target market that is coerced into participating is not very useful to anyone. Maybe the solution as suggested by Nicole is to have a premium account, but competitively priced. Any thoughts?
matti2007-6-8 23:39:25