Michael (Willner)’s Insight
Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner recently launched a new blog discussing his company’s take on telecom policy. In the time the blog has been up, he has tackled issues from cable investment in wireless technology to customer service, and from a la carte to network management.
Yesterday’s post, titled Confessions of a Network Manager (Part I) takes a look at the consumer friendly reasons for network management practices. It’s a good read, and like much of his writing is a candid look at why operators manage their networks, why that’s good for you, and even a frank discussion of why companies would not want to talk openly about specific practices.
Network management is not your enemy — it is your friend, even if you’re a P2P enthusiast. Without network management, everyone’s online experience would melt down to a completely useless exercise. It would reduce the Internet to a chaotic free-for-all as if you built a 10-lane superhighway and didn’t have any traffic laws in place to keep the traffic moving.
The fact is, network management is absolutely necessary throughout the Internet, from the ISP’s all the way through to backbone providers. It happens everywhere on the Internet. And it’s a good thing that it does.
Bandwidth, throughout the Internet, is a shared asset. Accordingly, we all have to learn to live with one other as good neighbors. You don’t go to Joe’s Barbecue, an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, and proceed to eat all the food. The goodies are affordable because they are offered under law of averages and a shared economic model. If my brother-in-law, Norman, and a few of his buddies showed up every night, Joe would either have to raise the price for everyone or start charging by the pound.
I guess, to some extent, we created this debate ourselves. Many of us, myself included, didn’t really want to talk about how we managed our networks to keep the traffic flowing smoothly. We simply did it. Frankly, I believed that if we were totally transparent about it, certain people would figure out ways to defeat the rules of the road, making our management practices harder and more intrusive than we were wanting them to be.
Much of his writing is similarly inviting and personal. If you’re not reading it, you should take a look.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 am
How do I tell an amazing and interesting Insight story to Michael Willner? I have had so many issues and today after 6 months found (because of one man taking the time) All of the problems I have had stemmed from not actually having Broadband Service. Insight has sent so many people to his house for the last six months that I have certainly not been a customer that you have made money on. However the effort has been continuosly made. There have been many “subs” that have not been able to figure it out, but a man named Steve Brown who has a boss name Curtis Fawver was able to. I know that you hear all to often complaints so I thought I would take a minute and tell you of the dedicated and sincere employees that I have met at Insight.
Alice Tasman
Tasman Industries
August 11th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Michael,
fist I’ll be amazed if you read and reply to this.
Why do Insight business customers pay a $100approx premium over home users for what I see as inferior service. Inferior in the fact that I called 502-357-4400 and was able to speak with a tech support rep within a minute but when I was transferred to business tech support I had to wait over 20 minutes to talk to someone.
Where is that extra $100 per month going since I can assume it isn’t going to pay for extra business tech support staff.
If it is to pay for expedited onsite service calls then I’d like to take my chances and get a regular cable modem account for my business, a small fraction of that $100 premium would cover a backup DSL account-my business would have an instant backup connection and we’d save about $65 per month-a decent little chunk off or our monthly overhead.
Mike
September 10th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Good afternoon Michael,
I need some help, I am a new customer to Insight Communication since August 16, 2008 (Phone, HD Cable, and Intenet). On our installation day the Tech had issues getting the installation complete and additional support members came to assist. The Techs left our home and my wife went to use the internet and it did not work, she had to call customer service and after about 30 minutes they final got the system to work. I arrived home that evening and found that we were not getting HD Channels as we had ordered. I call customer service again waiting to talk to somebody. Finally the Customer Service Rep told me that they see I ordered the HD Receiver but did not know I wanted the HD Channels. I do not understand the logic behind that but it was fixed that evening. On September 5th (less than four weeks later) we would change the channel on the television and then get a message that stated “Channel should be available shortly” I contacted customer service and was put through to Kentucky, they tried several ideas then said they would need to schedule a appointment for a tech to come out (four days later). They also instructed me to contact our local office because they could only do so much. I contacted the local office on Tuesday evening and they scheduled a tech to come out between 8:00am to 10:00am the next day. We arranged for my wife to stay home, at 10:45am there was still nobody so we called the local office and we were told they made a mistake on the scheduling and would have to try for the next day. Is this how we treat customers at Insight. I asked to speak to a Manager and was told there was no reason because they could not do anything the customer service assistant could not do, I demanded to talk to a Manager and was told I would need to leave my number and they would phone me back, so far nothing so I am writing this in the hopes somebody can help. I have had to contact Customer Service (So they are called) each week I have had Insight Service, three weeks later, same result no cable television, like customer support it tells me “Should be available shortly”. Again, please help.
New Customer for now.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:10 am
[...] 14, 2008 · No Comments Michael Willner, CEO of Insight Communications, was recently interviewed by CableFax Daily’s editor, Amy Maclean on the shape of the cable [...]