Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 08:58:49 +0800 From: "aLan Tait" <aLan@fil.net> To: Bill Fumerola <billf@chc-chimes.com> Cc: "freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Chat Only??? Message-ID: <384715C9.69A5233E@fil.net> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9912021108570.90083-100000@jade.chc-chimes.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Bill Fumerola wrote: > > On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, aLan Tait wrote: > > > IRC TCP ports 6659-6670 and 7000 > > ... and when I make a SOCKS proxy, ssh forwarding, ssh+ppp or some > such thing on one of those ports at work and get a (probably cheaper) > "chat-only" account, I'd thank you for the service. > > If you really want to offer this (in my opinion, stupid) service > you'll need to provide proxy servers for ALL of those services > and only allow your clients to connect to your proxy machine. > > -- It is a marketing tool to boost revenue in an immature market where most people have a hard time setting up Win98 dial-up networking with all the defaults! I myself agree that it is a bit of a "stupid" service. On the other hand, the old adage, "the customer is always right" comes in to play. 95% of Internet services where I am are sold for "chatting." The reason is because you can't do anything else with the low quality bandwidth! We charge P40 (US$1.00) per hour for the only serious Internet connections in this province - something you can actually surf on during peak times at about 6-10Kbps. The other five ISP give garbage connections (peak time 500 bps or lower) for P30 (US$0.75) an hour. We are losing money, they are making a profit. The reason is CHAT. CHAT doesn't take a lot of bandwidth, people here really type to each other! (How many files can you transfer at 200 bps?) I plan to limit our "Chat Only" service, say 2,000 bps, via a dummynet pipe based on their IP address (which would also limit throughput to anyone bright enough to use the "cheap connection" for SOCKS). By offering a "Chat Only" service, I am really trying to offer a 2 Kbps connection "restricted" to chat for marketing purposes. I (that is me, myself) wanted to just offer a "slow, low cost connection good for chatting", however, currently people are complaining about the "bad" connections at Speed Online (speed.com.ph) who, according to them, offers "the fastest real time connection direct to the Internet Core" (Whatever that means and after a half dozen pops (and ISPs) just to get out of the Philippines!) Don't blame me for their slogan... I had to go help them with their DNS because they were flooding my NT server (I love my new FreeBSD box with Bind 8 - the first ten seconds of operation blocked and logged hundreds of requests from their network - which they had to fix themselves! Thank You FreeBSD!) I'm told by my partner (who handles marketing) that if we offer a "slow, low cost connection good for chatting" it will certainly be compared to Speed Online "high speed" connection. If we offer a "SUPER HIGH SPEED CHAT ONLY SERVICE" at 66% of their cost, we just might do a bit better! "Super High Speed" being 2 Kbps compared to their 200-500 bps. If someone wants to take the time to connect to a SOCKS proxy and get additional non-chat services, I really don't care because it won't effect my other customers. However, if I let them have all services, where is the marketing angle - designed for the Chat market? If we offer "Chat Only" for P20 (US$0.50) it could really boost our revenue for the same reason people are not buying from us now - cheap connections. At the same time, these limited connections will not drag down our "quality" 6-10 Kbps connections. Now that you have a better idea of what I am doing... Does anyone have any more specs. about Freetell or ICQ? Thanks, aLan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?384715C9.69A5233E>