By Tom Gonser (11/03)
We’ve talked with some park owners recently who were readying for travel to the annual convention of the National Association of RV Park and Campground Owners – better known by its acronym, “ARVC”. We were not surprised to learn that registrants are being courted in advance by several different outside providers of high-speed in-park wireless Internet service. No doubt they will have a highly visible presence at the ARVC convention; and likely the park owners attending the Conference will feel the pressure to sign up with one of them, or risk falling badly “behind the times” in terms of staying competitive.
We’ve written a number of editorials about this topic, building on new information as it became available. We of course are RVers – not park owners. However we believe we fairly represent many RVers who will, in the future, make RV park choices based in part upon the availability and daily fee for high-speed access.
Based on email feedback we’ve been getting, many of our park owner readers have found food for thought in our previous writings. We of course do not have the “reach” that ARVC has in terms of park owner audience. But we wonder whether ARVC has objectively analyzed the difficult choices park owners are faced with in order to provide guidance to its membership; or whether it is simply taking a passive role and letting the chips fall where they may as the outside vendors vie for new business.
Against the background of this gathering, we would like to summarize the current status of our analysis of the current “horse race” among competing vendors, all seeking to become the predominant purveyor of wireless services to the traveling RVer.
1. Let there be no doubt, a significant number of RVers will in the course of the next year be demanding high speed connections at RV parks. And wireless technology is by far the least expensive way to meet that demand.. In fact a few parks that have discovered just how inexpensive it can be have opted to install their own system, and offer the service at no fee. Examples include Fidalgo Bay Resort (Anacortes, WA), Blackwell Island RV Resort (Couer d’Alene, ID), and the Lazy Longhorn RV Park (Victoria, TX).
2. RV parks need to determine whether, from their perspective, the promise of wireless is (i) a new source of income, from sharing fees with an outside provider; or (ii) a marketing tool that will attract more guests through offering free or low-fee wireless service. We hope when they consider this choice they’ll recognize the competitive disadvantage some parks will have from failing to make a careful analysis of this point.
3. If an outside provider is engaged, who will bear the burden of the initial cost of the equipment, and the ongoing cost of the DSL service? Who will set the pricing for the service? And for how long will a park agree to give an outside provider the exclusive right to offer the service? Will the outside provider provide a timely, quality support service, and agree that the park will have the right to terminate the service if that support fails to meet the reasonable expectation of the park? Will the provider agree to upgrade the system to offer the newer technologies that are already emerging? Will the park have the right to terminate the agreement if they do not?
4. If an outside provider is engaged, what DAILY (i.e. 24 hour) rate will park guests have to pay? [Don’t be misled by the red herring of a lesser “hourly” rate.] In our view the DAILY rate is crucial, in that RVers will soon be making choices on where to spend a night or few based on the DAILY rate of wireless service. If it’s $5 or $8 per night, we think they’re likely to go on down the road to where it’s free, or priced at $3 or less. We’ve been dismayed to see many purveyors of wireless service offering relatively high DAILY rates, no doubt because it costs them as much to process an order for one day’s use as it does for as weekly or monthly account. Do they really understand -- or care -- whether a high DAILY rater can result in a serious competitive disadvantage to the park?
5. Has the park considered moving to a wireless offering in phases? We’ve recently stayed at Crown Villa in Bend, OR, where the management simply added a router to their pre-existing DSL office line, and guests could bring their laptop into a comfortable lounge area and have high-speed access. This may well suffice for now. Presumably a second phase might be to extend wireless coverage to just one area of a park. Either of these can be done with minimal cost, and could permit a park to gain the marketing advantage of offering wireless, albeit on a limited basis.
6. In our view an RV park should not be a participant in providing equipment or in helping RVers configure their computers to receive wireless. There are both staffing and legal implications of doing otherwise. Most parks will find that they have guests in the park that will be more than happy to help other RVers get online with a wireless network. Let them!
As our park owner readers continue to evaluate their options for bringing a high speed connection to their guests, we hope these points will provide at least pause for consideration about making long-term commitments to outside vendors.
The views expressed here reflect only our opinion. Park owners are of course free to pursue whatever option they wish to bring high-speed wireless to their parks. Just as we, and our large audience of online RVers will be free to choose which parks we’ll patronize in the future.