Broadband data usage revenues for ISPs affected by Bank Holidays
Easter is a coming and the goose is getting fat. Don’t know why I said that. I’m not aware that goose is a fowl traditionally served1 at Easter. Very rarely served at all in our house anyway because you don’t get much meat on one and there are six of us when the full team is assembled. Also it’s a bit of a faff cooking a goose although the goose fat by product is very useful for doing roast potatoes on subsequent Sundays (we rarely have roast potatoes on any other day).
In the service provision game holidays such as Easter are a real nuisance, especially if you are in B2B. Monthly revenues are directly related to the number of days in a month so a month where two days are wiped out by bank holidays and the high likelihood that people use annual leave to take the rest of the week off, revenues are normally down a little.
This is more relevant to services that are billed on a usage basis – fixed and mobile calls. Broadband tends to be a flat rate bundle although towards the end of a month when users are hitting their limits they can “break out” of their bundle and thus incur juicy excess data charges. Same is true for mobile bandwidth and minutes.
I’m particularly paranoid about mobile data as excess charges can be quite steep. It would be interesting to see how much data was used on my mam and dad’s broadband last week with 6 additional heavy users compared with the light surfing the line is normally exposed to. At least they are on an unlimited package (for £30). I’d guess that ordinarily Manx Telecom come out ahead on that one.
Had a go at fixing dad’s router whilst I was there. WiFi connectivity is a bit dodgy. Did a firmware upgrade and tried a couple or three different channels. Concluded the wifi card was on its way out so called Manx Telecom and dad is going to go into their shop in the week to get a new one. Will have to sign up for another 18 months but he ain’t going anywhere and doesn’t need the upgrade to FTTC for an extra six quid.
So the Communications Service Provider goose does not get fat at Easter although funnily enough not as not so fat as at Christmas which is when it is traditionally served.
PS I didn’t have a pic of a goose to hand so I’ve used a rib of beef instead 🙂
1 Don’t forget that whilst revenge is a dish best served cold this is not the case for goose which should be hot with some nice stuffing and gravy.
