[Autoshow]

The T Time system is an excellent way of controling the golf t times.
Office workers are always needed to keep the system going and also correcting mistakes when golfers are assigned points they do not deserve,
also doing printouts for the starters,etc.
If you are a resident of TV and enjoy the executive golf courses I think the amenity fee is well worth it,along with many of the other things that it covers.

[Cassie325]

So....all comcast users should be thankful that they do not have to pay any extra until June of next year....all village.net users have an increase now.....but next year....Everyone will have to pay the $90+ a year for the Tee time reservation system AND current Comcast users will still have to pay for Comcast....is this it? I just want to make sure I relay the information to the golfers in the family...correctly....

PS....fumar....I LOVE YOUR POST ON THIS THREAD~!!!

[zcaveman]

Originally Posted by Cassie325

So....all comcast users should be thankful that they do not have to pay any extra until June of next year....all village.net users have an increase now.....but next year....Everyone will have to pay the $90+ a year for the Tee time reservation system AND current Comcast users will still have to pay for Comcast....is this it? I just want to make sure I relay the information to the golfers in the family...correctly....

PS....fumar....I LOVE YOUR POST ON THIS THREAD~!!!

Correct. It sounds like us Comcast users will have to pay the additional $8 a month to keep our villages.net IDs and to have the Online Tee Time System.

Personally I think that $8 a month is a high price to pay for something that should be free to Villagers but the telephone system is not an alternative to me so I will pay it until we can put enough pressure to bear to either get the price eliminated.

Z

[bargee]

It never ceases to amaze me.The economy is in the dumps so businesses raise prices so the'll have less business???

[iaudit]

I was a year round subscriber to the villages.net for the sole purpose of using the tee time system. I will now use it only during the January through March period. Old price - $60 per year. New price - $24 per year. They just forced me to save $36. The phone system is good enough during the less busy months.

If enough subscribers do this, maybe they will get the hint.

[aln]

iaudit,
I like your resolution to the problem, but, think about what other services do when you cancel and reinstate.

Nothings been said yet, but I would not be surprised to see "reinstatement" or "startup" fees to 'returning customers'.

[EdV]

This business of charging extra for the on-line system when the phone-in system is free, doesn’t make sense.

First of all the phone-in system costs as much to maintain as the on-line system. In fact, it may even cost more because they have to have a sufficient number of incoming phone lines to prevent excessive busy signals. And each addition phone line is a monthly expense and each phone line requires addition hardware and maintenance fees to support it.

On the other hand, the on-line system requires a single high speed connection which is already in place. And as the population of TV grows, it behooves them to encourage the use of on-line system, not discourage its use by charging extra for it and raising the fee to boot.

They’re shooting themselves in the foot on this one.

[Puterguru]

Originally Posted by EdVinMass

This business of charging extra for the on-line system when the phone-in system is free, doesn’t make sense.

First of all the phone-in system costs as much to maintain as the on-line system. In fact, it may even cost more because they have to have a sufficient number of incoming phone lines to prevent excessive busy signals. And each addition phone line is a monthly expense and each phone line requires addition hardware and maintenance fees to support it.

On the other hand, the on-line system requires a single high speed connection which is already in place. And as the population of TV grows, it behooves them to encourage the use of on-line system, not discourage its use by charging extra for it and raising the fee to boot.

They’re shooting themselves in the foot on this one.

I could be wrong here but I would say you are 100% wrong on this one.
The online Tee Time System would require the expense of:
A high speed connection which would need to continually be updated (i.e. pay more money) to accomodate the many users and new users to use the system.
A programmer to continually work on bringing in new features (which they have done, buddy list etc..) and to work on bug fixes
People to monitor the system and make changes as needed.
Money to pay for support
Money to fix/upgrade/maintain the server as needed.

The online Tee Time system is probably much more expensive to operate than the phone system.

Maybe it's just me but you can't get a burger and a shake over at Johnny Rockets for less than $8 bucks and that only last you 15 minutes. I don't see the $8 for making my tee times every single day 365 days a year as being overly expensive.

[Russ_Boston]

Puter - Being an IT manager myself I think you are probably correct in the assessment of costs. Most courses/clubs that offer these type of systems usually roll them into their annual membership costs. At least TV separates this cost so those that don't want to use it don't bear the expense. I'll bet that there are 10's of thousands of TVers who don't participate in it.

[pooh]

There has always been a fee to use Villages.net, correct? Are the complaints about the fee itself or the increase in the fee?
I have Comcast and once June rolls around, guess I'll be paying the additional costs unless that price impacts only those who have Comcast in particular counties. Don't remember getting a notice from Comcast about the change.

When we arrived about two years ago, hubby and I signed up for a year of TV.net before I knew that Comcast customers got it for free. The Villages.net quickly refunded funds when we informed them of our use of Comcast.

Costs go up, it's sadly a fact of life.

[villages07]

Russ,

Yeah, but there are also thousands who use the tee time system. I agree that there are costs to maintaining and operating a computer based system....but, I sure would like to see that budget. If, as others have posted, Comcast customers will start paying the $8/month starting next July.....let's do some hypothetical math. If there are 10,000 subscribers to the tee time system (out of close to 40,000 households)...that's $80,000/month or just under a million bucks a year. That seems like a pretty high cost for such a contained system. I would like to see a neutral party analyze this one...maybe a task for the amenity advisory committee. Cover costs yes...make a large profit no.

[Russ_Boston]

That's a good point V7. I'd put the cost at 100K or less since the software might even be purchased and not home grown. Of course the best way to fight something like this is for everyone to not use it and refuse to pay. I'm sure the cost would come down quick.

[EdV]

Puter and Russ. Well, if we’re going to toss around credentials, here’s mine. I’m a network engineer and have been for several decades. I have designed and supported the installation of city, state and military networks including Hybrid Fiber Cable networks (HFC) as currently used by Comcast and other ISP’s. The largest private network had 100 servers and 10,000 workstations. So I think it’s safe to say that I know a little more than the average techie about networked systems.

The point I’m trying to make is that the on-line system is all digital but the dial-up system (unless it’s a new state of the art system) is as a combination of analog and digital. For every POTS line coming in there needs to be circuitry to convert the analog tones to digital, process them, and then convert the audio responses back into analog. And then you need a server(s) with memory to run the software, disk storage to maintain the history, printers to print out the tee times for the starters and display units for interrogating and monitoring the system and handle changes or manual entries. So let’s not refer to the dial-up system as though it were some kind of self maintaining perpetual motion machine.

Now, I will agree with you that the on-line system is more capable of providing improved services that will require software and/or systems people who command pretty hefty salaries. But I also know several guys that make a pretty good living just servicing digital/POTS business phone systems.

I look at this in the same way I looked at the cable companies when they began to roll out their digital video services which required you to rent a digital set top box from them to take advantage of it. They kept harping on the supposed superior quality of the digital channels compared to the analog channels. This was nothing more than hype straight out of an Oscar Myer factory. There is absolutely no discernable difference in the image quality of a standard definition signal sent over an analog channel from one sent over a digital channel. The real reason for the digital upgrade was the fact that they can squeeze six standard definition channels into the same bandwidth as a single analog channel. And that means being able to offer many more channels and increased revenue while getting a lot of subscribers to subsidize a portion of the infrastructure.

It’s a shell game, and TV knows how to play it. Believe me, they would love to get rid of that POTS dial-in system, but they can’t. Not only would there be grandfather clause issues, but there are still many villagers who either don’t have or won’t use a PC to book tee times.

So in my opinion, they’ve done the same thing that the cable companies have done. They upgraded their system but off-loaded the infrastructure costs by charging for the increased whiz-bang features like “buddy lists” etc. This is in spite of the fact that the more new residents that use the new system will decrease the overhead of expanding the old POTS system that at this point is probably getting a little long in the tooth.

Just calling it as I see it.

[Puterguru]

Originally Posted by villages07

Russ,

Yeah, but there are also thousands who use the tee time system. I agree that there are costs to maintaining and operating a computer based system....but, I sure would like to see that budget. If, as others have posted, Comcast customers will start paying the $8/month starting next July.....let's do some hypothetical math. If there are 10,000 subscribers to the tee time system (out of close to 40,000 households)...that's $80,000/month or just under a million bucks a year. That seems like a pretty high cost for such a contained system. I would like to see a neutral party analyze this one...maybe a task for the amenity advisory committee. Cover costs yes...make a large profit no.

Since when is it a crime for companies to make a profit? Maybe they are maybe they aren't, I have no clue. But the last time I looked the sole purpose of any company is to "make a profit". Who are we to decide how much they should make? Sounds kind of like Socialism to me.

Quite frankly I'm surprised that they have only been charging $5.50 per month. Everyone here knows what the online Tee Time System can do. I don't need to go over the benefits. It has been $5.50 per month for a very long time, I think almost 6 years with no price increases. Everything else has gone up. Again some people may or may not like it, may or may not be able to afford it but it's still only $8.00 per month. For everything you can do on the system and for it's convenience that is well worth the money to me.

Perhaps they should ship the servers overseas, get rid of the store front, hire foreign technical support. Certainly then it would be cheaper and make some people happy.

[Russ_Boston]

First my intent wasn't to throw around any credentials (in fact if you've read my posts then you know I'm getting out of that biz after many years). Heck they can charge whatever they can get away with - agreed. Reservation systems can be hefty and the up front costs (assuming it is home grown) can be large. But if V7 is correct about the number of subscribers, well let's just say that if it was common stock, I'd be a buyer!