Quote:
Originally Posted by BenMcr
It would be the business side of VM. Residential services have only ever been wired modems
It was ntl. And yes they could do, but then who would you contact for support, as I doubt Virgin would be willing to support them? Who would replace if it failed?
From my own experience of dealing with it, the biggest problem with the 'bought' modems is that they became a stone around a customer's neck. They wouldn't do the faster speeds so needed to be replaced, but those customers that bought them still wanted to be able to use them (Which is understandable). However as they couldn't do the advertised speed, and if the customer didn't want to ditch a modem they had paid for, then they wanted a reduction on the service charge!
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well lets look at it from a VM profit POV, the old sold kit was not using todays generic tryed and tested DS2 chipsets/SOC , hence the old max speed problem.
anything they might authorise today would be using this cheap yet capable DS2 tryed and tested chipsets/SOC so not a problem there.
the UK standard 12 months return to vendor would apply i guess, or far more logical VM could be the agent or the supplyer and charge the current going rate for callout and swap so making profit there.
i can somewhat sympathise with the wanting to use the payed for kit, however this is way outside the warrantee and they must know by now that its not capable of current full VM speeds, what was it ,i forget, something like 4-6 Mbit i seem to remember.
using it as a reduced rate is still better than not at all + a rented CM to boot.
so realisticly, Vm could offer to do a hybrid deal, rent the 255 and also offer them the ability to use the payed for kit on say the 4Mbit package at a reduced rate, so they both win.
VM get 1 rented 255 and and say a 10/20Mbit fee, PLUS say a 2Mbit fee for leting them use their payed for kit at whatever max its capable of after its put on a 10Mbit package for instance assumign the old 4Mbit doesnt exist in the current billing system anymore OC, again it comes down to assuming
the new accounts package remember, can actually allow for this new future custom package billing month on month and not get confused about more than one single CM on the account
if we move on to today and think about these select tryed and tested DS2 chipsets/SOC 3rd party buy it and remove the rental charge packages, anything goes as it can do any speed upto the current 20Mbit/768Kbit and its return to vendor how ever that provides the required one off profit margin and ongoing monthly service rental etc.
before anything was put in place and made official the execs and techs should come on here and ask what people might like to do and pay for so we can find the best agreed current kit for the potential official long term (2/3 years outright then look again) endorse.
an official 11n with 1gig-4 port router might be a nice thing to endorse for the longer term if VM arnt ready to poke 3rd partys vendors to produce an official VM endorsed DS2/3 wired 1 gig router/CM/STB that you can buy or rent as you see fit and even have it added to your monthly bill in 2 or 3 payments with an extra % on top to allow for installments so people dont have to lay it out all i none go.
im not against VM making a valid and reasonable profit, im against stagnation and being PRed to death with STMed connections and related problems that have been frankly crap this last week, i couldnt even refresh these pages at STM times of the day, even though i wasnt STMed as iv done no more than 500Meg every day all this week but thats for another thread.