Building a new technology high speed service

February 2001

More than just speed

Agenda

• The future is wide open• Building a consumer offering• Obtaining retail partners • Building those partnerships

Consumer Broadband: No winners yet, just players

• Cable is flawed but it’s a player.

• DSL is flawed but it’s a player

• Satellite is flawed but it’s almost a player

• Fixed Wireless is flawed but it just got to the ballpark?

• We need to get Fixed Wireless in the game

• Could be the third leg in residential broadband

• Could compete with satellite in rural areas

• Not just a technology for business customers

• Fixed Wireless could be the winner. After technical hurdles it depends on one thing.

Will ISP’s and Network Providers work together to make it happen?

Future for Wireless

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Jupiter Research 2000

ISP’s have lost their religion

• EarthLink is access agnostic• Microsoft same story• AT&T a little cable centric but very open• Juno loves to be the first to sign up new

technologies

So how do we get there?

Step 1 - Create a consumer product

• Price point needs to be $30-$50• Service needs to be available to significant #

of households• Service needs to be reliable and constant• Service needs to be easy to install, easy to

set up• Service needs to be fast• Need reasonable set up fees and installation

Step 2 - Partnering

• Overcome the “we can do it all” disease.– Will wireless ISP’s be the same as dial-up?– 10,000+ ISP’s – Up to 30k customers = good business– 30k-million customers = tough business– Million += starts to get good again

DSL help prove the 80/20 rule. 20% of ISP’s account for 80% of sign ups.

Recognize the power of partnerships

– ISP’s are not network builders•Spend billions on services•Spend billions on tech support•Emphasis on user experience•Spend billions in marketing

– Network builders are by definition not ISP’s

•Spend billions building infrastructure•Spend billions maintaining infrastructure•Emphasis on cost effective, bigger, faster, better networks•Spend billions on technology

Getting a retail partner

• Four areas to excel in

–Network–Systems–Support

–Economics

Network• Build a great network with

good software•High enough speed - 384k+•Reliability - 3 9’s or better•Standards based •Easy to install software - PPPOE, PPPOA•Easy to integrate software - Good API’s, documentation and code.

Network (continued)

•1 or 2 aggregation points per metro•Offer service options with and without backhaul•Offer co-lo at aggregation point (build with this in mind)•Have a consistent architecture

Systems

• As important as your network

• Takes as long to get ready, maybe longer to get right

• The “secret sauce” that will lead to a winner in the fixed wireless race

Key System Components

• Customer prequal - CRITICAL– Real time pre-qualification by address not

by zip or local exchange– Accuracy is key

• Shared customer info • Fulfillment - and tracking of

fulfillment• Install

If professional install then...– Great scheduling program– Real time hooks for installer and ISP

Key System Components (continued)

• Provisioning in both systems• Authentication

Turn on customers real timeTurn off customers real timeWhen to start billingIP address information in real time.

• Usage tracking and reporting

• Trouble ticketing and reporting

• Revocation of canceled accounts

Systems• Use open standards• Have a documented API

For EarthLink (Others might be the same)

• Use XML for real time communication• We currently are linking into at least 15 partner

systems• Probably will link up with another 10 in 2001• Chance of changing for a single partner --- very

low.• Chance of being able to hook up with a standard

system -- very high

Support

“A good ISP likes to do support” --someone at

EarthLink

• ISP will handle – Tier 1 tech support– Tier 2 tech support– All customer service– Building and

maintaining customer care system

– Follow up on inbound calls

• Network provider will need to– Dedicate a person/

team to take tier 3 calls when it is clearly a network problem

– Provide an alarm system for the network

– Provide a view into the network for ISP’s agents.

Economics

• Somewhere around 50/50

ISP can do more

and get higherNetwork Provider

can do more and get higher

Keeping a good partnership

• Work together

• Be honest

• Set expectations correctly

• Allow each other to make mistakes

• Fix mistakes with utmost haste

• Be responsive

Good luck and may the analyst projections all be too low!!!