Permit Me A Small Rant About PR-clueless WISPs

Admittedly this article is going to come across as a rant about a certain category of WISPs. So, if you're not in the mood to read a good rant, however well reasoned, well, there's always Google News.

The genesis for this rant is my ongoing efforts to compile an independent (without regard to membership in a particular organization or other selective criteria) list of Broadband Wireless Internet Access Service Providers, which includes WISPs. I monitor a number of WISP-related mailing lists and many other sources of news about BWIA Service Providers. When I find a BWIA SP or WISP that I haven't heard of, I add them to the BWIA Service Providers list. But when I go to check out many WISP's web pages, which is the online "face" of that WISP to the entire world and, of course, potential customers, investors, news personnel, potential employees, etc. ...

I'm just astonished... and appalled... that many, many WISPs whose web sites I look up simply don't bother to state on their web page where, exactly, it is that they actually provide service! The case in point as I write this is the WISP that I just looked up after seeing their (unfamiliar to me) domain name on a WISP mailing list. The only location information I can glean off that WISP's web page is the area code of their phone number, which (out of disgust) I didn't bother to look up. Heck... from this WISP's web page, I have no clue which state (or province?) this particular WISP operates in, let alone the region! Although this WISP's web page does have a coverage map, it shows counties and cities, but is so zoomed in that only someone who already knew that this WISP operated in a particular area would find the map useful.

I just find this practice to be amazing... amazingly clueless.

C'mon WISPs! I'm not asking you to make it easy on me when I look you up, but think about your potential customers who are trying to find you. Here's a quick test - if you Google "Wireless Internet" +(your county) +(your state) and search results don't show your WISP's web page in the first screen, your web page needs some real work.

At a minimum, any WISP's web site (or, for that matter, web sites for any business) should list the mailing address and/or actual business address. Unless, of course, you have something to hide... which is often a valid assumption when a business doesn't make it apparent where they're doing business from. Do you want to foster that perception?

One last rant while I'm in that mode. If you ever want your WISP to be mentioned in local media, 1) put a News section on your web page, and while you're doing that, put links to any stories you have been mentioned in, and 2) list full "media" contact information under the News section so that media personnel can actually contact you. For example - between the heated coverage that has recently erupted about the upcoming auction of 700 MHz, and yesterday's announcement about Clearwire and Sprint entering into a groundbreaking agreement, (good) news organizations are "hungry" for local angles related to national stories like this. Most of the time, they Google... and without some real location information on your WISP's web site, they won't find your WISP.

Less a rant and more of a well-intentioned suggestion - have you reached out to your local media on behalf of your WISP to let them know your WISP is already providing Broadband Wireless Internet Access in your local area? If not, now would be a great time to tell them about your WISP, perhaps with a teaser Subject like [purely fictional names, as far as I'm aware] "Zitherbloom County doesn't need to wait for Clearwire - Zoomungus Wireless Internet is already providing Fast Wireless Internet". Try it - you've got nothing to lose but new customers who didn't have any idea that your WISP could help them get Broadband Internet Access.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh