How to make a good start with a new freecall ISP - PAGE1

If we had a pound for the number of times an ISP had asked us for advise about starting a freecall service then, well, we'd have £16 =). However 16 ISPs asking for advise is not a number that can simply be shoved aside and forgotten about. As such we decided to put this little gem together, the idea being to teach ISPs just how to start a good service with minimum of fuss.

We can't 100% vouch upon whether this will be as much use as we'd hope, however you could at least take on board what's about to be said and learn from it. Remember this is primarily being directed at those wishing to start a freecall ISP, the same rules don't apply to 0845 ones due to less demand and internal costs.

Congestion, it's a painful thing

The biggest problem most new freecall ISPs have is that of network congestion, you take on too many users and don't give your systems enough time to adapt. The knock on effect is that subscribers flood your limited support lines with problems and complaints and the next thing you know trading standards are on the doorstep.

Thus customers have every right to be angry, you've quite clearly diminished the services they have paid for into next to nothing and are unable to answer their questions. What you need to remember is that customers DO COME FIRST, that means they are imminently more important than your own personal greed. After all, unhappy customers means unhappy press which means less customers and lest money and trading standards - yet again.

No ISP is perfect and we can't expect you to work miracles, but there is a simple way that could cut the potential problems down by around 70%. It's known as the 'Subscriber to Bandwidth Ratio', and it's being used more and more to great effect by ISPs actually willing to learn from others mistakes. Essentially you add new subscriptions in blocks to see how the bandwidth consumption of each new set effects the network.

Even ISPs that use this method have failed a few times, adding to many at one time or just not doing it at all is a sure fire way to loose. Remember, you don't have to worry that if you disable the signup system, nobody will come back and signup, they will! Never underestimate a freecall ISPs ability to attract thousands of potential customers in an instant, they are very much in demand and people respect a clever an intelligently worked ISP.

A Congested Solution

It's quite simple to work the 'Subscriber to Bandwidth Ratio' system; you just need to know how much bandwidth you have. From here it's wise to assume that each user consumes a total of 50,000(Kbits-ps), this is a good average that takes on board ISDN and 33.6 Modem users alike. You then divide your total bandwidth by the 50,000 (using appropriate conversion) and see how many people can be taken on.

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