Building on someone else's network.
WHAT IT MEANS
Buying service wholesale and selling it under your own arrangement.
WHY IT APPEALS
Reach without infrastructure capital.
WHAT IT LIMITS
Control over quality and fault resolution.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH BEFORE ENTERING ANY ARRANGEMENT
What you are permitted to sell Wholesale pricing and volume terms Service levels the upstream provides How faults are reported and resolved What happens when they fail Whether you may hold the customer relationship
WHY THAT LAST POINT MATTERS MOST
An arrangement where the upstream owns the customer leaves you with nothing.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH
That subscribers are contractually yours.
WHAT TO UNDERSTAND
That your service quality is theirs.
WHAT THAT MEANS
You will answer for outages you cannot fix.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH
Fault escalation that actually works, with defined response times.
WHY
Being unable to tell a subscriber anything is the worst position in this business.
WHAT TO NEGOTIATE
Visibility of their network status.
WHAT TO CALCULATE
Margin between wholesale and retail, after support and administration.
WHY AFTER SUPPORT
Reselling still carries full support cost.
WHAT TO AVOID
Margins too thin to support the service you must provide.
WHAT TO PLAN FOR
Wholesale price changes, and their effect.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH ABOUT TERMINATION
What happens to your subscribers if the arrangement ends.
WHY
It determines whether you have a business or an agency.
WHAT TO BUILD TOWARD
Independent capacity or diversified upstream.
