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K.C. Neel
Massillon Cable is joining the league of cable operators around the country that are offering cable modem service. But the 45,000-subscriber system isn't hyping "speeds of 50 times faster than dial-up service" like most other operators are today, says VP/GM Bob Gessner. Rather, he says, it's selling various packages which feature a different speed to meet each customer's needs.
"We asked ourselves, "What's available to people today if they don't have modems?'" Gessner says. "Our competition is the local phone company and they can't come anywhere close to offering the kind of speeds we can offer with cable modems. But then we asked ourselves, "Does everyone want the kind of speed that other cable modem services are hyping today? And why give people only one choice?'"
So, the system came up with five levels of cable modem service - six if you count the existing dial-up service - which customers can sign up for. All of the prices include the cable modem. Installation and hookup of the service costs $100. The packages are:
* Economy: 64Kbps both upstream and downstream for one computer hookup. Cost - $25 a month.
* Bronze: 128Kbps upstream and downstream for up to two computer hookups. Cost - $40 a month.
* Silver: 256Kbps upstream and 128 Kbps downstream for up to three computer hookups. Cost - $60 a month.
* Gold: 512Kbps upstream and 256Kbps downstream for up to four computer hookups. Cost - $100 a month.
* Platinum: 1,024Kbps upstream and 512Kbps downstream for up to 10 computer hookups. Cost - $400 a month.
Clearly, Gessner says, the silver, gold and platinum packages are geared toward businesses, while the economy and bronze packages will most likely appeal to residential customers. Indeed, customers are overwhelmingly choosing the economy package at this stage. Of course, Massillon has only signed up 30 or so customers so far, so it's difficult to judge how the trend will evolve going forward.
The problem with Road Runner and , Gessner says, is people complain not about how slow the services are, but how slow they are compared to when they signed on. To be sure, has made headlines and given customers headaches around the country with its capacity problems that have resulted in groggy connections and slow responses.
Everyone is promised the same speedy service, but not all customers require or need that kind of velocity, says Dave Hoffer, Massillon's Internet service GM. What ends up happening is the networks are stressed to the max and get bogged down. But it doesn't have to be that way, he says.
"Our plan," he says, "is to use the power that people request. If they want more speed, they can upgrade and pay for it. But most people are happy with 64K. It's double what they're used to (using dial-up service) and they get their phone line back. That has been one of the cable modem's best selling points."
Almost 15% of Massillon Cable's cable customers already subscribe to the company's dial-up ISP service and Hoffer hopes to switch at least half of them to cable modems. The question, he says, is "how fast can we hook these people up? We don't want to make the mistake some of the other cable modem companies have made and grow too fast. We want to control it better."
The independently owned cable operation has been offering its cable modem service using predominantly Samsung modems since the last week in December and Massillon is currently hooking up four or five cable modem customers a day, Hoffer says.
The company is currently concentrating its installation efforts on the Massillon cable customers who put their names on a waiting list starting last fall when the system announced it would begin offering cable modems to customers by year's-end.
"Even though we told people not to call, we got dozens of calls from customers asking to be put on a list, so we created one," Gessner says. That list has grown to over 150 names to date and Massillon Cable is tackling those installations first, Gessner says.
"After we whittle that list down, we'll probably start to advertise the service in some way," he says. It could be in the form of bill stuffers or e-mail notices. But Gessner and Hoffer say they want to be careful not to deluge their customers with a lot of spam.
The executives are confident that even though they want to switch as many customers as they can to cable modem service from the company's ISP operation to cable modem status, the dial-up business won't dry up any time soon. There are plenty of people in rural areas surrounding Massillon that haven't been wired for cable and most likely won't be for some time. Dial-up ISP service for those folks is the only way they can get hookup up to the Internet, Hoffer adds.
"There are also a lot of people out there that don't want to spend any more money than they already are and are perfectly happy with what they have now." Gessner says.
Indeed, Massillon Cable's ISP business sells Internet access in areas where Road Runner and are offered by other operators "and our business is still growing," Hoffer says. "We're still making money with our dial-up service and we're still gaining customers. It generally comes to down to price points with customers."
Gessner and Hoffer also question whether people are willing to pay extra for the content that comes with an or Road Runner subscription.
"We've gotten about 150,000 hits on our home page as people log on," Gessner says. "But almost 75% of those people never access the content they can get by doing that. They're more interested in getting their mail or they want to go the Web pages they want to go to.
"They couldn't care less about content. We agonized about whether to become an affiliate to Road Runner or , but in the end we didn't see the advantage to it. It costs extra and many people just don't care."
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