After the initial setup of your intended network footprint, the Service Area, you will create your own Service Zones (Fiberhoods) by simply drawing the outlines of your Zones in our map interface. These Zones will be competing to fulfill your survey and signup take-rate target so their zone will be the first to get built. They do this by encouraging their neighbors to complete a survey or signup and the most enthusiastic people will have the option to apply to become a  Champion, combine this grass-root effort with your marketing and sales force to generate awareness and accomplish each goal.

Once signed up for Service Zones you will receive a Top page website with your option of logo, preferred font and color scheme. Then, for every new Service Zone you create, the system will automatically generate a new specific Zone page, prepared with integration to social media and access to applications for Champions and Sponsors.

Our recommended first step when managing a COS Service Zones campaign is to start with the survey phase in all of the zones in your entire footprint. By retrieving the surveys COS Service Zones can acquire each individual IP address which will give you the names of your present competitors based on the survey questions created by professionals so you will gain a comprehensive picture of the competitive landscape, what services are currently being used, which of the services suggested in your survey are most desired and how likely the potential subscribers are to sign up for your services.

We offer our COS Service Zones customers to have a dedicated cloud hosted speed test. By testing towards a neutral cloud server, it will resemble what speeds the subscriber will actually see while using their internet connection on a daily basis. By having the speed test results tied to the address, coordinates and the subscriber’s survey response, many interesting questions can be answered. Reliable speed test data can be crucial when applying for grants or explaining to key stakeholders why it is important to take the decision to invest in better broadband.

What drives your future subscribers to take action and answer Surveys or Sign ups is the feeling of urgency and self-reliability that the take-rate target creates. By setting a target of e.g. 35% and telling the community that is the minimum share of service locations that need to answer your survey in their zone to advance to the next phase, “Signup”- Signing up brings them one step closer to actually having the network built in their neighborhood.

Contracts will be uploaded into COS Service Zones so when it’s time for customers to sign up for a service the corresponding binding contract will be attached. Also, in this phase the take-rate targets will be the main driver for the community to take action and the promise made by the network builder is simple- Produce an adequate number of signed up service locations in your Zone and we will build our network in your neighborhood.

Once a Service Zone has reached your take rate target it’s time to prepare for deployment. You now have secured revenue based on signed contracts and the risk for economic failure is greatly reduced. You now need to do detailed planning of the zone and a high-level network plan for how the network should be once fully deployed.

COS Service Zones has many functionalities and calculations constantly running in the back-end of the system. For every new customer doing a survey or a signup, the shortest distance along the streets to connect every customer is calculated and is combined with a few basic cost parameters (such as deployment cost per foot/meter) used to produce a rough deployment cost estimate. By knowing the generated revenue from contracted customers and having a rough cost estimate you can make more accurate informed decisions on where to start the detailed planning and deployment of the network based on key financial figures such as Pay back period and ROI. If you begin your deployment where you have the highest revenue and cash flow, then these zones will ultimately fund your subsequent roll-out. With an incremental build out approach you can start building with only a minimum investment so expanding where you know you will have sufficient revenue and cash flow from previously built areas should lessen or completely eliminate the need for external funding.

COS Service Zones will never use any type of secondary data source to execute take-rate or revenue projections. In fact it’s not projections at all. It’s accumulated data that creates a factual picture of where people desire services and are willing to pay for them. This is based on data given to you by your future customers and the data is available to you in real-time. It doesn’t need to be collected, aggregated and analyzed. Everything is visible instantly in the system’s admin interface and in the reports that are easily accessible at any time, or if you prefer they can be scheduled to be delivered daily directly to your inbox. With COS Service Zones you will not sit and wait for a report to generate where the data could already be too old at the time you receive it. You can see in real-time how every facet of your build out campaign is being received by possible subscribers and which particular actions have had the best results providing evidence to make well-informed and timely decisions on a daily basis.