Why Doesn’t BeachiFi Offer Speed Plans?
Because when you have a properly designed network with the latest technology, you don’t have to impose artificial limits on your customers. Oh, and they’re also kind of a scam.
Whenever we get an inquiry from a potential customer, the first question is usually “What are your speed and pricing plans?” Here is the official answer, as straight as we can give it:
BeachiFi does not have speed tiers; all of our customers run as fast as the network will allow, all the time, and they consistently see average speeds that are several times what they would expect from other ISP’s for a similar price.
Our experience and upstream provider relationships allow us to to acquire quality, cost-effective bandwidth for our networks, so we don’t have to overload them to be profitable. We further employ advanced commercial-grade traffic shaping technology and fully-managed customer hardware to insure that every user sees outstanding performance, regardless of transient network load.
If that answer satisfies you, great! If you still want to know more (including why we refer to speed plans as “kind of a scam”), read on.
It is understandable that customers want something tangible to relate to what they pay for, and to be able to compare options among providers. The problem with that is that none of those plans come with any promise of specific performance. If you actually read the terms of service, you learn that there are no speed or quality commitments at all, regardless of which tier you pay for. Your speed limit may change, but your chance of seeing any real difference depends entirely on the quality of the underlying network.
And the sad truth is that most providers’ networks are poorly engineered, improperly managed, and seriously oversubscribed. The only reason those plans exist at all is to help them hold down total bandwidth demand in the hope that their network won’t get too overloaded too often. When you buy a faster plan, all you really get is a wider on-ramp to the same traffic jam.
Now to be fair, there is some difference between the big cable operators and the smaller fixed-wireless ISP’s (WISP’s). Generally the bigger guys only offer a few levels of speeds with graduated pricing, easy to understand and compare. But their underlying networks are frequently the biggest messes – patchworks of upstream providers with varying capabilities, all taped together. That’s why they go down so often. But it is easier for them to sell you a “faster” plan than to actually fix the problem.
The smaller and less sophisticated WISP’s have a slightly different motivation – survival. They often have to impose data transfer caps and all sorts of other gimmicks to help them get by with the absolute minimum investment in upstream performance. They also tend to offer WAY too many options in hopes of appealing to everyone. You’ll see a lot of words like “Basic” and “Premium” and “Plus” and “Ultimate”. Sometimes there are even combinations like “Basic Premium” or “Ultimate Plus”. Frequently “Gamer” or “Streaming” will be thrown in. The variations can give you a headache.
We don’t play any of those games because frankly, we don’t have to. We have a solid network and great technology, managed by folks experienced in mission-critical operations. So if you are a BeachiFi customer who pays the standard rate and wants to download half the cat videos on the internet at ~150Mbps, go for it. If that speed is available to you at the time (and it usually is), we won’t charge extra for you to use it.
Now speaking of speed, we have a great post explaining why you really don’t need – and honestly can’t even really use – nearly as much bandwidth as the other guys would have you believe. Please check it out: The Great Internet Speed Myth
Better yet, join us here in Wireless Network Paradise – get Beachifi-ed!
