Launching a new business ISP

british steve · Nov 17, 2009

Hi all.
We are looking at launching a new aimed at offering a top quality 24/48Mbps unlimited business broadband services along with Voip, phone lines and line rental with call packages, Email services, website design and build services, dedicated and virtual servers. We will be targeting the smaller business with between 1 and 30 employees.
As business owner I would love to hear what other products/services you think we should offer!
All of our support would be UK based and will include advanced support services such as remote access so our qualified engineers will be able to sort your problems out quicker and easier! (Famous last words)
Also we dont plan on being the cheapest we will be charging a premium (our unlimited 24Mbps down 2.5Mbps up service would retail at about £40 Inc VAT along free connection and a free router worth over £100) as a business owner would you be prepared to pay this premium in order to have a good level of support (we plan to use Microsoft certified support staff rather than college students)
Any thoughts? Please let me know

NuBlue · Nov 17, 2009

Is this a startup? Because that sounds like a lot of services to get right.

Personally (and this may be unfounded as I have no idea how big your startup budget etc is..) but to have a good reliable hosting platform, a web team to plan, design and build websites and to offer broadband and voip will take a lot of resource and money!

and unless you have a genius that can support all of these things to a high standard, then you may find you are offering a lot of services but none of them particularly well. Like I say this may be an unfair observation, but just my initial impression.

Personally I would pick one and make it the best you can be. Best of luck with it all the same

british steve · Nov 17, 2009

NuBlue said:
Is this a startup? Because that sounds like a lot of services to get right.

Personally (and this may be unfounded as I have no idea how big your startup budget etc is..) but to have a good reliable hosting platform, a web team to plan, design and build websites and to offer broadband and voip will take a lot of resource and money!

and unless you have a genius that can support all of these things to a high standard, then you may find you are offering a lot of services but none of them particularly well. Like I say this may be an unfair observation, but just my initial impression.

Personally I would pick one and make it the best you can be. Best of luck with it all the same

The whole point of this project if we do it is to offer the very best service possible - using the best support staff we can find. All of the services we plan to offer will be interlinked - it will be better for a customer to have everything on one bill! and one point of contact in case of faults!

Sharp Technology · Nov 19, 2009

Hi Steve,

Two things....

1. Do you invisage having a reseller offering? If so please contact me directly as would be interested in offering this as part of what we do - 01242 516302/07739 710091.

2. We also target 1-50 user businesses with our range of small business server appliances, would you be interested in reselling these? The 1-30 user market is under served and 40% of businesses still don't have a server solution although they would benefit from one. Quite a few have looked in to one but are put off by high Microsoft and support costs. Our offering typically costs up to 60% less and provides more services. Importantly it also fits the budgets of micro businesses (1-9 users) which is really underserved.

Re your question on pricing small businesses waste hours/days dealing with ADSL and other IT problems most of them are prepared to pay for good service - the challenge is differentiating yourself and everyone claims they provide it!

The challenge for you will be identifying those customers who need higher bandwith capacity, if they only need 2mb your unlikely to sell them 20mb etc..

Kind Regards

Mark Hutchinson

cjd · Nov 20, 2009

I would really advise against this - there are hundreds of ISPs out there all doing the same thing; don't think you can do anything different or better, that is highly unlikely as you are simply retailing someone else's products

Competition is intense and customers are very price sensitive - most retailers are selling at a loss and cross-subsidising. You really need to be a big brand with deep pockets to compete successfully. Margins are slight and support is expensive to provide - it needs volume to make it economically possible.

JoyDivision · Nov 20, 2009

How are you going to be able to compete with the likes of Zen? There are already plenty of premium ISPs around.

I think you are entering the market too late.

cjd · Nov 20, 2009

JoyDivision said:
How are you going to be able to compete with the likes of Zen? There are already plenty of premium ISPs around.

I think you are entering the market too late.

No more than 15 years I'd say

british steve · Nov 21, 2009

cjd said:
I would really advise against this - there are hundreds of ISPs out there all doing the same thing; don't think you can do anything different or better, that is highly unlikely as you are simply retailing someone else's products

Competition is intense and customers are very price sensitive - most retailers are selling at a loss and cross-subsidising. You really need to be a big brand with deep pockets to compete successfully. Margins are slight and support is expensive to provide - it needs volume to make it economically possible.

Competition is good - I like competition. Will be combining adsl with ultra low cost voip. Also have a wholesale agreement with one of the big mobile networks - plan to offer total comms on one bill backed up by **** hot service.

british steve · Nov 21, 2009

JoyDivision said:
How are you going to be able to compete with the likes of Zen? There are already plenty of premium ISPs around.

I think you are entering the market too late.

Compete with Zen - OK!

cjd · Nov 21, 2009

british steve said:
Competition is good

Only for the customer.

I like competition

You'll find that you like it less when you've got some

Will be combining adsl with ultra low cost voip.

Well at least you're only 5 years too late on that one.

Also have a wholesale agreement with one of the big mobile networks - plan to offer total comms on one bill backed up by **** hot service.

Now that IS interesting. But you'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you - unless you're just re-selling phones and packages, in which case it's just as well you like competition

cjd · Nov 22, 2009

british steve said:
How about 500 mins free every month for a year to the first 1000 voip customers and you dont have to take any other services or buy any other products from us.

Excellent. I wish you luck.

So CJD do you own Voipfone or just work for the company? after all you seem to have a lot to say

Yes, I'm the CEO and owner. Prior to that I ran BT's Internet businesses.

I am also a Board member and founder member of ITSPA, the trade body representing VoIP telcos in the UK (other members are BT, Orange, Vonage, Google, Zen etc etc) www.itspa.org.uk

I look forward to welcoming you as a member when you get started.

Most of it pointless!

Maybe, but don't say you weren't warned.

telephoneman · Nov 22, 2009

"Well done" always beats "well said". The difference with Colin and his company is they actually deliver a quality product rather than just talking about it.

I don't see the relevence of whether he owns the Company - his opinions are just as valid.

Anyone who has ever had a wholesale deal with a mobile network will tell you that there's a world of difference between having an independent Service Provider agreement, building your own packages and rating your own CDRs and a "white label " reseller. Which one are you?

british steve · Nov 22, 2009

cjd said:
Only for the customer.

You'll find that you like it less when you've got some

Well at least you're only 5 years too late on that one.

Now that IS interesting. But you'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you - unless you're just re-selling phones and packages, in which case it's just as well you like competition

And while I think about it, your comment about competition being good just for the customer only - thats bull****, its also good for companies - it keeps you on your toes - offer piss poor services and your customers can walk!

cjd · Nov 22, 2009

british steve said:
And while I think about it, your comment about competition being good just for the customer only - thats bull****, its also good for companies - it keeps you on your toes - offer piss poor services and your customers can walk!

Think about it a bit. If there is no competition, where do your customers walk to to get better service?

british steve · Nov 22, 2009

telephoneman said:
"Well done" always beats "well said". The difference with Colin and his company is they actually deliver a quality product rather than just talking about it.

I don't see the relevence of whether he owns the Company - his opinions are just as valid.

Anyone who has ever had a wholesale deal with a mobile network will tell you that there's a world of difference between having an independent Service Provider agreement, building your own packages and rating your own CDRs and a "white label " reseller. Which one are you?

We are free to set our own rates and bill customers.

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