The City Has Forgotten Who Helped Them...
After watching the KFVS story, my wife asked, “What did you mean by ‘the City has forgotten who helped them get to where they are today?’.”
In 2002 when City Cable announced that it was considering doing Internet service, our company had thousands of dialup customers in the Poplar Bluff area. MyCityCable had 0 customers at that time. The City Council voted to open their Cable Internet service up to all ISPs and encourage companies like semo.net to bring their dialup customers onto the network.
DSL was launched in Poplar Bluff during this same time and as a company we decided that it would be better for the city, the citizens & our company to prefer the City’s network over AT&T’s DSL.
We recommended to our dial-up customers to switch to cable Internet when they were ready to upgrade to broadband. It was the local ISPs, like semo.net, which provided the quick growth experienced by City Cable.
It seemed like a win-win situation and the customer/citizen also won because they received great service and the monies exchanged for service were staying local to Poplar Bluff. From our company alone, the City Cable has received over $1,100,000 since that first month of service.
We’ve always been able to go out and build our own wireless network, but we’ve been committed to making the cable network even better.
It was at semo.net’s urging that City Cable finally gave in and provided the 2Mb and 3Mb service. Since that time we’ve been requesting that City Cable provide 6Mb and 12Mb service but each time we’ve been told no.
Needless to say, back in 2002 had the City Council voted not to open up the City Cable Internet network to local ISPs like semo.net, the city’s network would NOT have grown as quick, or as large, as history shows.
In other words:
The city has forgotten who helped them get to where they are today, and they are using the power of City Hall to drive profits toward themselves.
I applaud the fact that you are wanting to keep the money in Poplar Bluff since this is the city that we live in. I have always been one to put my financial resources into the town that I live in however, this situation about makes a person want to look to the “outsiders”. In answer to Humpty Dumpty’s comment, every business owner goes into business to make money, even those that say they are not making a profit or much of a profit, they are still making a profit otherwise what would the point be of having a business? Also, from what I have seen, it’s the small businesses that are keeping PB going. To my understanding, there have been large factories that were helped by our city, then closed down and left anyhow. This town is about people and we need to support our people. If we do not encourage and support the small businesses, we will soon have the Government running every area of our lives and I for one, enjoy living in a free country. Thank you Brian for looking out for your employees and your customers.
Lori
while i understand where Humpty Dumpty is coming from i did the same thing and switched–i still support a free market and that with the city is exactly what they are dropping
Back when dial-up was king, semo.net made tons of money while providing an actual “service” to users. You couldn’t access the internet without routing through an ISP. Once semo.net had a huge customer base and became very successful, other internet options started coming on the scene (cable and DSL). With those services, traditional dial up ISPs weren’t needed to gain that access, customers could get the service directly from the phone company or cable provider. So semo.net began distributing those services as a third party provider. I switched to DSL through semo.net and paid the rate prescribed. It wasn’t until a year later that I realized that the DSL was actually from Windstream and “routed” through semo.net (and Windstream’s rate was lower from them direct). Soon after that, I received a bundle promotion for phone and internet. I promptly dropped semo.net and went straight to Windstream.
Isn’t this sort of the same thing with the city cable scenario? What is the “service” that semo.net is providing? How does the consumer benefit? For semo.net to make money, they either have to charge the customers more than other customers who go direct, or the main provider gives semo.net a discounted access rate and the savings gets passed on to the consumer. Either way the cable access is still coming from the city.
From my vantage point, the only true service semo.net provides currently is Dial Up and Wireless access.
I applaud your efforts to keep semo.net viable and relevant, but tech support alone is not enough of a pillar to lean against when acting as a third party provider.
Mr Becker, Please help me understand this issue.
Brian, I certainly hope you send this as an open letter to the citizens of PB / letter to the editor at the Daily American Republic. Everyone needs to know this information. Like Ruthie said above– GO GET “EM, BRIAN!!
My memory is about as long as a gnat’s eyelash, but seem to me that somewhere not too long ago AT&T tried to be a monopoly until Sprint and a bunch of other little Davids took on the Goliath. Now there are a BUNCH of little Baby Bells all over.
Take care Mr. Bach/Goliath; the Davids (semo.net; BRT; and TCMax) are coming for you!!
GO GET ‘EM BRIAN!!! Do in the corrupt monopoly.
Brian, I had a dream last nite that your company was dismantled and sold off piece by peice. You owe me $52.00! Pay my money back and ill support you on this…James McGinty
I support your efforts to want what is best for the citizens of PB. If lack of co-operation is the issue, perhaps the “outsider” is the route to go. Would there be faster MB available? I am almost inclined to think there may be a “vendetta” against small businesses that are successful.