This blog has been a bit quiet for a long time.. so here is something I found on our sales mailing list today which Abz sent to explain our entry level solutions..

We differ from most consumer oriented ISPs in that we specialize in custom specific solutions and the way our products and services are structured.

For instance, if you wanted to host a static website, domain, and 3 email addresses you could probably get a shared hosting package from one of the popular consumer ISPs for R20/m.

We can do all of the above, but we don’t offer shared hosting so we would either give you rack space in our data centre to host your own server(s) or offer you your own dedicated server with Apache, PHP, etc pre-installed, a mail server and domain hosting. Our quotation would look something like:

Xen Virtual Server (128MB Memory, 3GB Disk Space) @ R 250 + R 70/m
Mail Server @ R 600 + R 295/m
Domain Hosting @ R 30 + R 12/m
Internet (1GB, 20c/MB thereafter) @ R 370/m
Labour (1 hour @ R 550/h – Web/FTP setup) @ R 550

Total: R 1430 + R 747/m

As you can see a lot more expensive.

But now let’s say you want a firewall in front of your servers, you have an office which you want to connect to the Internet, some staff members that have ADSL at home, and you want to manage all of your services for you, we could add offer you an ADSL package which is uncapped, bandwidth shared among all your accounts for your staff members, an ADSL VPN / Wireless for your office with static ips, direct connectivity to your hosted services at our data centre, we’ll take over the ADSL lines from Telkom and manage them for you, offer you a managed firewall, etc.

As you can see, you don’t necessarily need to be a big company to deal with us, but it doesn’t really make a lot of business sense to say only host a website and domain with us. If we look at all your connectivity needs it may be a completely different story.

A change in direction and a new focus

As of 1 August 2008, Frogfoot will no longer be providing consumer internet services. Frogfoot’s consumer division has been sold to Web Africa.

Frogfoot will focus on the medium and large business market and will no longer be providing commodity internet services like, ADSL, Web Hosting and eMail in the consumer market.

Frogfoot’s consumer client base will be migrated to Web Africa in the month of August. Frogfoot will still be providing support and handle billing in August.

Web Africa is most probably the best consumer focused ISP in South Africa and we are confident that our clients will find a happy new home with them.

Frogfoot will retain all its larger, business and enterprise clients.

Tighten up the main sheet

Tighten up the main sheet is a sailing phrase. It generally means you want to go faster but you’re willing to let things get a little more exciting in the process.

Many moons ago, in the story that is Frogfoot Networks, two networking geeks focused on building a company that catered to the very specific needs of other businesses. Years past by and along the way Frogfoot agreed to host some websites for a few friends and sold ADSL to someone’s cousin’s mom. That consumer base grew and grew, partly because Frogfoot was so well respected but also because we were just good at solving problems. We also had a fun name… who doesn’t like frog’s feet?!

Growth and success however does have it’s challenges. Frogfoot has grown into a business that looks after the high-tech networking requirements of some of the top companies in South Africa. We’re very proud of that fact, but as you can imagine it puts a little bit of strain on our ability to keep our regular consumer clients happy.

Providing consumer internet services is a unique challenge. It’s a competitive industry, with low profit margins. We enjoyed the challenges of building automation systems and optimising internal processes in our consumer division, but it placed a strain on our company.

Our staff were being stretched to capacity. We weren’t keeping up and it was starting to affect the quality of our service. We were forced to make a choice.

We have chosen to migrate our consumer base to one of our partner companies. We will however do everything within our power to make sure that your services are not affected.

New adventures in Frogfoot (v3.0)

It some ways we’ve made a full circle return to our initial business model. Back to the days where we pretty much knew every client on a first name basis.

Where to from here? The first step is to regroup, adapt to the changes and then focus on a small number of big and exciting things on the horizon.

In general we’ll have more focus, a better signal to noise ratio in our day to day activities and more time. We’ll aim to build more personal interactions and relationships with our clients.

It’s safe to say we’ll be doing the things we are good at.. building networks. Large scale carrier and core networks. We’ll aim to move up a step in the ISP food chain. We’ll seek opportunities to innovate, solve complex problems, have fun learning about new technologies and play with cool toys.

Thank you and goodbyes

So, on this sentimental day, we have to say goodbye to our consumer clients, wish them well and thank them. This step will give us the focus to provide the best possible service to our remaining clients.

A big thank you to all our clients, partners and staff who have been a part of our journey. Keep an eye on our blog.

Frogspeed!