[OutsiderWithInterest]

.

Just curious where you got your dollar figures on maintenance. Just because a computer system manages thousands of tee times, doesn't by itself mean a lot. Speaking as a former computer exec, that's what computers do best and most efficiently is manage thousands of data transfers. It does'nt have to be expensive. You could probably hire one person to oversee the system at say $40K/year. I don't know what the additional hardware/software costs are.

[villages07]

Since I have a lot of down time while rehabbing my new knee, this is a topic I plan to investigate/research a little further.

Outsider, absolutely, it costs money to run and maintain/upgrade the system...I could easily accept a cost up to maybe a million bucks a year but I sure would like to see that budget.

My issue is that by upping the fees to existing non-comcast customers to $8/month and adding in all the comcast customers at $8/month that the future revenue stream for the tee time system will be closer to $2-$3million dollars a year (20,000-30,000 households at approx $100/year). That's a lot of money.

I would rather see them adjust the monthly fee downward once the comcast customers are brought in and have everyone who uses the system pay an equitable, fair cost (i.e. maybe something closer to $50/year).

Right now, the residents have very little insight into or influence over any of the budgets related to the amenities. I'm not even sure if the tee times system relates to the amenity budgets or is a wholly separate for-profit commercial venture.

I have a few phone numbers and offices I plan to contact over the next month to try to get a clearer picture on how all this works. I'll provide updates as info is revealed.

[Midge538]

For those in the "nickel & dime us to death" camp, I just want to throw out the idea that you probably have limited knowledge of what's going on here.

Outsider:
Source of your stats and figures and 'information?'
Your employer?

[OutsiderWithInterest]

.

[ijusluvit]

To Villages07,

What a terrific project while you're rehabbing! This thread was tossed around a while ago and just like this time, no one had a clue as to what the real facts are. You've come the closest with the Comcast customers multiplied by about 100 bucks, and you're right, that's a ton of money.

The Villages ALREADY HAS all the hardware and personnel to run Villages.net. It's just a part of the overall computing system needed to run the whole TV operation. Maybe they had to buy a separate tee time software package, but they did that long ago because it was feasible and efficient. Logic says the proposed fees would have been instituted in the beginning if there were any big costs associated with running Villages.net. The Developer would never have allowed thousands of Comcast customers to have an expensive service for free.

So what's changed since the beginning. Only a need for a little more server space and maybe a software upgrade to accommodate the larger number of tee time requests.

I sure wish I knew how much it really costs to run an add-on like Villages.net when you already have the much larger TV computing system in place. But I'd bet my socks it's no couple of million per year.

Good luck in your search 07, and even better luck with your knee!