How many customers

[TJ]

Anyone know how many customers NextGenus have in Hull ?

[Hobbisbang]

Lots

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/groups/234974426517670/

Not clever to give you full details but count the active community members with speedtests.

[TJ]

Not clever to give you full details

Why not ?

[el-ahrairah]

They have enough to keep the NextGenUs CiC service future proofed in Hull and east riding, This is all that needs revealing and enough to give people (customer/potential customers) assurance that this service is here NOW, and here to stay.

[jamadams]

Not clever to give you full details

Why not ?

I thought it was quite common for businesses not to give away too much to the competition. Makes sense to me.

[TJ]

This is all that needs revealing

Something to hide then ?

I would have thought there may be a list somewhere ( probably OFCOM ) that ISP's would have to report number of customers etc.

[richardmyers]

This is all that needs revealing

Something to hide then ?

I would have thought there may be a list somewhere ( probably OFCOM ) that ISP's would have to report number of customers etc.

I wouldn't.

[marko]

Is there a reason you want to know, TJ? Are you a potential customer maybe? I know the rate of customers joining NextGen has increased dramatically over the past couple of months. If you're interested in numbers based on how the network is holding up I can tell you the influx has made not one bit of difference. Not like another wireless provider I was with. The more customers who joined, the worse the service became.

I suppose that's the difference between a company who are in it for the money and one that's in it for the good of the community. When cash is ploughed back in at the rate Nextgen do it, the network will continue to be as strong as ever.

[TJ]

Is there a reason you want to know, TJ? Are you a potential customer maybe?

Possibly !

Was looking for "cold hard facts" though rather than "preaching" which most people on this forum seem to do.

I think "the number of existing customers" is something that should be readily available to any potential customer.

OK in practice as obviously the number of customers is constantly changing, it may be a case of stating "number of customers on a particular date".

Its ok saying that "lots" of customers are joining every month but it would be better if there were actual figures to back this up...even if they were approximate.

Also as a CIC I thought the "community" might want to be kept informed of progress.

[marko]

From a personal point of view, I don't care how many customers there are as long as there are enough to make the company viable and the service doesn't struggle because there are more people on the network than available bandwidth. So far this hasn't been a problem.

Call it preaching if you like, I call it my point of view based on 6 months experience. Ok that doesn't sound very long but after four months with another wireless provider (who also didn't give out any numbers) who constantly struggled to give a stable service, I think the comparison speaks for itself.
 

[jamadams]

. Ok that doesn't sound very long but after four months with another wireless provider (who also didn't give out any numbers) who constantly struggled to give a stable service, I think the comparison speaks for itself.

I agree with what you are saying Marko, and don't think there is any need for NextGenUS to give out details, however Airnet did give out rough numbers. They haven't done for a while though.

[Scotty]

I don't want to sound like a moron here, but why would you give a damn about how many customers any ISP has?
So long as the service they provide is good, and does what is advertised, that's all that should matter, surely!

I wouldn't go into ASDA and ask how many people shop there per month, before buying some bread.

[TJ]

why would you give a damn about how many customers any ISP has?

It might make me feel more confident about joining.......This is all that needs revealing  !

Sorry....couldn't resist....

[marko]

It might make me feel more confident about joining.......This is all that needs revealing  !

Sorry....couldn't resist....

How about a leap of faith?  I wouldn't preach about it if I didn't believe in it. Don't turn into a bobthebuilder clone! The spells in his arse from sitting on the fence must be going septic my now!   

[richardmyers]

If an ISP released how many customers they had:

a) They'd be letting their competitors know how many customers they have...Enough said really, but heyho let's dig deeper...
b) They could be a target of a takeover bid because of that data
c) Their competitors could target area(s) they're weak because they know the company is weak in City X, City Y or City Z - Easy pickings!
d) Their competitors could target areas(s) they're strong in to attempt to take business from them in City X, City Y or City Z

There's probably a ton of reasons I'm missing right now, but the long and short is it makes little to no sense at all to make such information public.

As Marko has said, if the network is viable as well as stable and reliable then all is good.