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Comment by greggyb | Hacker News Reader

I love to see this, but it's a hard sell. Philly is one of the lucky cities with reasonable competition already, one of which is Verizon's Fios - decently built out through the city. A lot of new construction homes have both Comcast* and Fios pre-wired into the home, so installation is trivial and competition is, delightfully, fierce.

25M wireless connections at $50 are a hard sell against 1G fiber at $80.

I don't mean to be a debbie-downer about this, because I think promoting connectivity is a huge boon to society.

* Fun fact, the new Comcast building looks like a middle finger facing west - literally flipping off the rest of the country. Seems appropriate.

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25M wireless connections at $50 are a hard sell against 1G fiber at $80.

I don't understand what you mean. $50 is cheaper than $80. It's not hard to sell someone on cheaper. That extra $360/yr is nothing to scoff at, at least for me. Next, you gotta ask yourself if the extra speed and cost of $30/mo is worth Comcast & Verizon's terrible customer service [0]. Then, you gotta think about if you even need more than 25M (my household does not) and if you're paying extra for something you're not using.

0 - I've had Comcast show up unannounced and started drilling holes in my house front. Comcast customer service couldn't confirm this crew worked with the company and suggested I call the cops on them...

Ignore the 1G price. In Philadelphia, Fios costs $40 the first year and $55 after for 100M up/down. So for three years and change you can get four times the speed for the same total cost.

I would guess for the vast majority of the population, 25Mbps is perfectly acceptable. That's what we have. Surfing the web and watching Netflix doesn't take that much bandwidth. Start streaming multiple Netflix shows and maybe it starts to get dicey, but we've never had a problem.

yeah, couple years ago I switched from 100mb FTTC to a somewhat cheaper adsl2+ because latency and packet loss is more important to me, I guess lot other gamers feel the same way.

Unfortunately, while Fios may be widespread it is not universal by any means. I live in a Center City neighborhood which definitely has Fios in the area, but not in my building. Why not? No idea, but I've been here for ~4 years and there's no sign that my building will ever have Fios.

I'm currently paying Comcast $108.99/mo, including a $13 modem rental fee, for "Blast internet" with "Download speeds up to 250 Mbps" but uploads of only ~11Mbps. When I first got Xfinity I tried to install my own modem so I wouldn't need to rent, but after hours upon hours with support trying to get my brand new modem to work, I gave up in frustration and just rented one.

I upload photos, video etc. often enough that I would accept a hit to my download speed in order to increase my upload speed.

I'm trying to switch away from Comcast to Philly Wisper, after suffering through Xfinity for years. Unfortunately I'm having trouble reaching my landlord to get access to the roof so that Philly Wisper can check for line-of-sight, but hopefully that gets cleared up soon.

Same boat. There is Fios in the building adjacent to me. I see Fios outside quite often repairing lines.

I've got 60Mbps/2Mbps (up/down) for 39 a month. I need more upload speed but that price jump to 110 was not worth it to me. Comcast business was no better.

Fios is almost a requirement for me at this point. It's the only decent internet I've had other than a local Seattle internet. But it's very hard to find apartments that list it. Their listings on site finder isn't the most up to date either.

Exactly, if I move out of this apartment I want to move somewhere with decent internet, but it's very difficult to screen for locations that have Fios available. It's one reason I haven't moved out of my current apartment already, it made the housing search much harder last time I tried.

Ideally I'd like to live somewhere that has both Fios and Philly Wisper available, so I have a choice if one or the other starts unexpectedly sucking.

https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov

25 Mbps is the minimum speed we provide. Our customers typically see a good bit more. And for context, a Netflix HD stream only requires 5 Mbps.

Also, our $50 a month is actually $50. There are no extra service, rental fees, franchise frees, or taxes. It's a single flat rate price.

We also do require or even offer annual contracts.

In other words, we make getting Internet service easy and hassle free.

Finally, we implement Network Neutrality and will never sell or share our customer's personal data or browsing history (short of a valid warrant).

But Fios in Philly is $40 a month (and then $55) for 100Mbps with no installation fees or contracts, so it will take your customers more than three years to break even for probably worse speeds. The net neutrality promise is nice, but do you have other selling points?

There is more to the Internet marketplace than just price and speed. Customer service and privacy are two things our customers value highly.

I believe you can provide something important to some people there, but I don't think you're selling it well. You say that those are your big differentiators, but they're basically buried on your site.

Landing on the page, the first things I see are "FAST" with numbers that are several times slower than what people expect and "$" with prices that are higher. And then I have to scroll down and find the fourth bullet point below the fold beneath the not very interesting "just internet" and the damning "we can't give you service without direct line of sight".

The general public looking for an ISP is price sensitive enough that they will know the price landscape of your competitors, so they will know that fios costs less for higher speeds. Your market is going to be exclusively people who don't want to give Verizon or Comcast their business.

To me personally, highlighting the things that you don't excel at (speed/price) instead of the ones you do (not being comcast/verizon) make it look like you don't know your competition and you aren't pitching directly to your primary market, which isn't a great signal.

We also have no way of knowing that Verizon and Comcast aren't your backend, which means that, for all anyone knows, giving you money is giving them money.

Also, a side technical note on the site layout: your text falls on top of your graphics. ( https://imgur.com/VcVaZsw )

I, for one, would happily pay the price to know my money isn't subsidizing lobbying to legalize the cable-fication of the internet.

I would too!

But we have no way of knowing that Verizon and Comcast aren't their backend. For all anyone knows, giving them money _is_ giving Verizon/Comcast money.

The founder is here if you wanna ask him.

Either way, money talks - as a consumer, if I use Philly Wisper, I am explicitly saying "Net Neutrality is important enough to me to seek out businesses that promote it."

We use two back end carriers and about to add a 3rd. We do not use Comcast or Verizon. Of the ones we do use, you may have heard of one of the carriers, probably not the other. The 3rd, very unlikely. And no, I'm not going to name them.

I'm in Philly and the cheapest FiOS I could get is $115/mo after the new member deal expired

Unless you're talking about gigabit plus television, the reps were scamming you. That's what they do, and it's one of the reasons people hate giving them money. You should cancel your account and then open a new one online in a partner's name so that they stop playing games with you. Always do it online. Prices through phone reps are always worse these days because of what the different modality says about the customer.

    > ... never sell or share our customer's personal data or browsing history (short of a valid warrant).

OK, that's cool, but what about those scary-looking DMCA letters that people get from ISP's? What happens when you get a list of "violator" ip-addresses from a lawyer?

Do you provide service to apartments or only to homeowners?

Yes, we provide service to apartment buildings. However, we need to work with the building mgmt if it has more than a handful of units.

Obviously better private, if possible, but a couple of counter points.

First, Comcast/Verizon is a duopoly with two of the poorest customer satisfaction companies in the country. Ie last place [0]. They do what they want, they charge for things like rural broadband and pocket the fee but don't provide it, they (alleged?) sell your data and browsing habits, they mess with your traffic [2] ... a miserable, expensive experience all around. BTW I pay Vrz $80/mo for 150mbps only, no bundle, and it was major grief to get this.

Second, Municipal broadband is blocked here [1]. Comcast HQ in Philly is a big force.

0. http://fortune.com/2017/05/25/cable-tv-comcast-verizon/

1. https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc...

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7izns8/are_you_...

Call them up and ask for their online offer of 3-year $79.99 for their "1G" (I always forget that theirs is actually a bit below).

This is live today: https://postimg.cc/G446YpBQ

I see it when browsing to their Fios site: https://www.verizon.com/home/fios-fastest-internet/

You may have to cancel and re-order - I did. I'm not sure whether you consider it a hassle or not. For me, it meant hanging out at home for a two hour window (always grab the morning ones so someone else's delay doesn't become your late appointment). This is easy, as I work from home, but it's also not hard to find time on a weekend (for me).

I highly recommend calling up and asking them. You can set your disconnection day and your appointment on the same day. You mail back your old equipment in a box they send you.

I'll eat my hat if you get 95M more than 80% of the time on that 1G link.

I've been a disgruntled Comcast "customer" for years and I've given up trying to convince them to give me the throughput they're selling me.

I'm at a Coworking space that uses Philly Wisper exclusively. I just got 75 down 85 up. I totally recommend them as an affordable alternative to the big players in Philly that absolutely won't sell your data. I wish I could get them at home but they don't have a line of sight to my place :(

[1] https://www.speedtest.net/result/8326306965

949/892 today. I can check again at any time of day you'd like. I don't have anything automated for regular testing.

>A lot of new construction homes

Most houses here in Philly (especially in Kensington) are not new construction, so FIOS isn't really an option yet.

I for one welcome a new entrant into this arena.

New construction doesn't really matter because they use poles for their lines in Philadelphia and they run an extension to your building for free.

Yep. My building "qualified" and a technician basically threw a line out the back to a pole. Apparently they only install in the rear of buildings, so if they can't get access back there, that can be an issue.

Funny, my brother lives in Kensington and he had fios installed literally this morning. I asked and he said they ran it to the front of the building.

I'm getting 100/100 from Frontier (as much as I loathe their customer service) for $55/month. I don't see how $50 for 25/25 is a deal, or compelling.

I always thought it looked more like a vape-pen.

At least we can all agree it's ugly.

from some angles (directly north or south) it looks like a vape rig to me.

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