AMA Nation vs. Ambit Energy

January 3, 2011Ambit-Vs-Competition

It did not go down exactly as I had anticipated. Either way, AMA Nation is no longer in business, and I called it. Word on the street is that the company was losing major money trying to pump up the comp plan and with no end in sight the boys with the pocket book decided to cut their losses and stick with the traditional business model. Just another reason leadership and experience is critical. I’ll leave this page up for the sake of reminiscing…

Startup Cost:

Ambit Energy is more upfront but less every month, the first year cost of each business is nearly identical when you add up the additional monthly with AMA

Ambit: $429 upfront, $25/mo for website, no annual renewal

AMA Nation: $250 but currently discounted to $219 upfront, $40/mo for website, no annual renewal

Leadership:

Ambit: Jere Thompson built a multi-hundred million dollar business during the deregulation of telecom and sold it for nearly a billion dollars. Chris Chambless experienced the Excel phenomenon from a corporate upper level management position. John Burke is a techno phenom who regularly graces the pages of top technical and computer trade magazines. Read more about Ambit Energy’s leadership.

AMA Nation: Scott Turner is the CEO/COO of AMA and has a background in the energy industry as the former COO and co-founder of Control Center, LLC which supplied technology to the electric utility industry and under his watch, the company grew from 6 million to over 70 million in less than 2 years. Peter Jensen is the founder of AMA. Peter was a pro football player that went on to write an extremely successful infomercial and then as VP of sales and marketing for an MLM software company he got a taste for the power of network marketing and went on to build a team in excess of 100,000 people. There is also Robert Gries who is the CEO of Public Power which has direct interest in AMA. Read more about AMA Nation’s leadership.

Serviceable Territories:

AMA Nation’s primary supplier is Public Power (PPU) which has a slightly larger footprint than Ambit if counting by states (6 for AMA to Ambit’s 5 which includes PA opening 1st Quarter 2011) but not if counting by incumbent territories (12 for AMA to Ambit’s 14). Public Power is the majority owner in AMA Nation so for the sake of this review I’ll consider them to be one and the same and won’t lump them in to the category of just another “reseller” like so many of the other bandwagon MLM energy companies these days.

AMA Nation has the following markets via partnership with Public Power

Connecticut – Electric only
- CL&P
- UI
New York – Electric only
- ConEd
Pennsylvania – Electric only
- Peco
- PPL
New Jersey – Electric only
- ACE
- PSEG
- JCP&L
Massachusetts – Electric only
- National Grid
- NStar
- WMECO
Maryland – Electric only
- Pepco
- BGE

AMA Nation does business mostly on a commercial basis in another 8 states but only via partnerships by reselling energy for various other companies and as such I don’t even consider them (see my section on commercial below) in this review. As for the 3 states (Texas, Illinois & Rhode Island) where they resell energy on a residential basis, I also don’t consider them for this review because reselling for another company means you don’t control the pricing (won’t be as competitive) nor do you control the commissions (won’t make as much) nor do you control the customer itself. Talk to any experienced Zurvita distributor about the 2 year nightmare they had reselling for MX Energy and I think you will agree that reselling for another company simply does not work. It looks good on paper because you can tout more territory but that’s about all it does.

Ambit Energy has the following markets…

Texas – Electric only
- AEP
- CenterPoint
- Nueces Coop
- Oncore
- Sharyland Utilities
- Texas-New Mexico Power

New York – Gas and/or electric
- ConEd – gas & electric
- Keyspan – gas
- National Grid- gas & electric
- NYSEG – gas & electric
- RG&E – gas & electric
Illinois – Electric only
- Nicor
Maryland – Electric only
- BGE
Pennsylvania – Electric only
- PECO
- PPL – Launching April 1st, 2011

There is one additional point that must be made regarding territories because it’s not just about having the most states, it’s also about having the right states. Texas being one of our states available for business is a very big deal and this is why…

The markup and margins in Texas are much larger so residuals paid out in Texas are almost 3x bigger than those in other states like Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania. Texas is a true, fully deregulated state… retail energy providers in Texas are required to handle all aspects of customer service, billing and collections which means it takes a lot more infrastructure and investment to do business in Texas, it’s also why there is more money to be made. We are rapidly expanding to cover the entire north east but because Ambit is setup to do business in Texas means we have the infrastructure in place to open up future states/countries requiring companies to handle all aspects of the retail process.

It has not been until the last few years that most of the north eastern states have completed their deregulation process and because it takes much less infrastructure and investment to get going, you can see why there have been more MLM energy companies sprouting up lately that only do business in the north eastern parts of the country.

Commercial:

Commercial business is much more complicated than residential due to the credit checks and historical usage analysis often required to work up individual bids. Commissions are also much higher in commercial making it a heavily competitive segment of the energy industry and as such the domain of professional full time sales people. These sales people are rarely interested in doing commercial business through a network marketing structure primarily due to the fact that their direct commissions are lower since network marketing pays a significant portion of its commission through the multiple levels. It is for these reasons that commercial business is not very well suited for exclusive distribution through network marketing.

By contracting with upwards of 20 different energy companies, AMA offers commercial energy in all residential states plus OH, NH, IL, ME, D.C., and DE. I do not consider these extra commercial states in my review because I don’t believe a true network marketing opportunity exists for the average person to succeed without residential. Commercial business is simply too complicated and competitive for the reasons mentioned above to make for a viable network marketing business where duplication is essential for leverage and growth.

I would prefer to have commercial in all the states we do business and as such I do have to give AMA the edge here on the commercial front because they do offer it in all the states they do residential business whereas Ambit currently only offers Commercial in NY & Texas and has not rolled it out yet in Illinois or Maryland. Do I feel this is hurting Ambit?… we might be leaving some money on the table in the short run, but there is no doubt that Ambit has the edge in residential and this is the most important area to take the lead in since it is what drives the network marketing business model. Ambit will expand into commercial eventually so the lack of commercial is only a temporary thing.

Energy Pricing:

AMA Nation via Public Power offers variable and fixed rate plans where Ambit Energy only offers variable rate pricing (with the exception of Texas where fixed rates are just expected by the marketplace) and there are no credit checks or deposits with AMA Nation or Ambit Energy (with the exception of Texas & Illinois).

The area where Ambit takes the lead over AMA Nation is in their savings guarantee and since we’ve been offering this for more than 3 years now we have the history to back up the guarantee. This is also in writing in the terms of service so customers know that it is a zero lose proposition to choose Ambit for their energy supplier. The beautiful thing about the savings guarantee is it takes away the fear of change that every customer has. Customers know they can try us out and if they don’t like it or don’t see savings they can switch back without penalty. Since Ambit does not lock their customers into contracts they are forced to deliver savings.

Fund-raising / Affiliate program:

Ambit: $99 one-time signup fee, no yearly renewal. This program is available for non-profits or any other entity/individual. Under this program, only personal customers can be enrolled, one cannot build an organization of consultants. Organizations earns $2 per month per customer ($4 per month per customer for Texas) for band one usage, amount goes up with higher usage.

AMA Nation: Signup fee is waived for non-profits, same compensation program as normal distributor.

I guess I have to give the edge here to AMA since it is free for non-profits to get in, but typically non-profits are weary of joining mlms as fundraisers due to the negative stigma of the industry. I kind of feel like having a specific program tailored to this industry is a better way to go that way the non-profits don’t feel like they are just joining as a rank and file mlm distributor.

AMA Nation Compensation Plan Versus Ambit:

Fast Start Bonus (AMA Nation CAB Customer Acquisition Bonus): This aspect of the comp plan is how consultants get paid upfront to gather customers. In this area Ambit pays more initially but AMA has the potential to pay much more for consultants who enroll a lot of personal customers.

Ambit: Can earn up to $400 by gathering customers, first $100 takes 5 points or 3 real customers (2 customers in Texas) when including the 2 points from website subscription and then another 5 customers pays $100 more and then every 5 up to 30 pays an additional $50

AMA Nation: $10 CAB per new residential account but only good for states in which PPU is the supplier which are NY, MA, MD, NJ, PA & CT. $25 CAB for commercial accounts

Team Builder (AMA Nation Energizer 1 & 2 Bonuses): This aspect of comp plan is how consultants get paid upfront for personally sponsoring consultants into the business. In this area Ambit pays more but the payment is tied to the action of acquiring real customers whereas AMA pays the commission immediately upon recruiting a new consultant. Please see “Legal Considerations” section below for additional important analysis on this topic.

Ambit: $100 every time a personally sponsored new consultant “triggers” by getting 3 customers (2 in Texas) within 28 days

AMA Nation: $20 EB1 Bonus every time you personally make an “Energy Pack Training Product” sale. For those of you as confused as I was by this terminology, this is essentially for recruiting a new consultant. Then every time one of your personally sponsored consultants makes an “Energy Pack Training Product” sale you get an EB2 bonus which is $15. In addition, $10 of the $40 monthly charge is paid out monthly through the uni-level plan.

Consultant Leadership Bonuses (AMA Nation Binary “ Cycle” Bonuses): This aspect of the comp plan is how consultants get paid upfront on the growth of their team. Each side would probably argue their style of compensating (binary with AMA versus coding for Ambit) is superior, I’m going to stay out of that debate (even though I believe the coding is far superior, contact me for details if you like) and simply show you the facts.

Ambit: Up to $240 for every new consultant who triggers their Fast Start Bonus by gathering either 2 or 3 customers. These bonuses can be earned to unlimited depth. The amount of this bonus is dictated by rank in the marketing plan.

AMA Nation: $50 is paid for every “cycle” that occurs in your organization. A cycle occurs every six sales made in your binary structure with at least 2 of the 6 occurring in your “weak” leg.

Residual Income: Each company pays out residual income in a very different manner so this section is not going be an OpEd on which method of compensation is better but rather a comparison as to which company mathematically pays out more on a per customer basis.

The following chart shows the total combined residual payout on a per customer basis for various usage levels in both companies. Realize that this is the TOTAL COMBINED RESIDUAL PAYOUT! All aspects of each company’s residual commission have been taken into effect. The only variable in this chart is the fact that the AMA “Longevity” bonus accounts for exactly ½ of their total potential payout but this aspect does not fully kick in until the customer has been on the books for 13 months so in reality the average residual commission paid out per customer through AMA is lower than the figures quoted.

Ambit Qualifications: To earn on all 6 levels of residual income, consultants must personally gather 20 customers

AMA Nation Qualificaitons: To earn on all 5 levels of residual income, consultants must hit rank of National Director which requires 15 customers and must also have a personally enrolled consultant hit the rank of National Consultant which requires 10 customers.

The Big Customer Bubble: This is the biggest yet most easily missed reality that must be accounted for in comparing the residual payout of these two companies.

In the last section we determined that Ambit pays out more on customers below about 1600 KwH hours of usage and AMA pays out more on customer above 1600 KwH of usage. This then begs the question… “where is the big customer bubble”… or in other words where do most customer fall on a scale of KwH usage? To answer that question with real world figures I took a look at the stats from my residual check for the months of August & November. Each months figures are based on actual usage from the preceding month or two so November figures would be largely based on fall usage which is very light and August figures would be based largely on summer usage which is much heavier.

Please note these figures are only based on my New York customers because Texas customers use much more electricity and would not be a good comparison. With well over 10,000 New York customers, these should be pretty good estimates. Let’s take a look at the figures…

As you can see, even in the heavy usage summer months only 36% of my customers used more than 1000 KwH, how many of those used more than 1600 KwH?… well we don’t know for certain but it would be my extremely conservative guess based on these figures no more than 15% even in the summer months would use more than 1600KwH.

We also then have to consider that AMA does pay more on the customers that use less than 200 KwH (because those fall into band zero for Ambit which does not trigger a residual) which is 25% or less depending on time of year.

So even in a best case scenario, AMA is only going to pay more residual income on about 40% (15% for 1600Kwh plus users and 25% for sub 200 Kwh users) of the average customer base… and remember this is with the most generous of number crunching (in AMA’s favor) and in the most heavy usage time of year. I personally think it’s less than 30% but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt which still puts the numbers well in Ambit’s advantage.

1% of 100 or 100% of 1? This is the basic concept behind the famous quote by J.Paul Getty and it’s often used to point out the power of network marketing. This is also a concept we should look at in comparing AMA Nation to Ambit Energy.

The residual income figures above are combined totals but do not take into account the manner in which they get paid out. The simple truth of the matter is that AMA Nation pays out exactly ½ of their total potential residual commissions in the form of their “Longevity Bonus”. This bonus is split 75% to the consultant that enrolled the customer and 25% to the sponsor of the consultant. The reason this is significant is people don’t join a network marketing business to do a lot of selling. Network marketing is about creating leverage and I personally (and I think most people in mlm share my thoughts) would rather get paid more on customers in depth and not my personal customers. I have nearly 20k customers on my team right now and only 25 of them were enrolled by me personally. In addition, Ambit Energy has a 6th level in their unilevel plan versus AMA Nation’s 5 levels. This 6th level holds the most per customer residual income. In both these areas Ambit Energy pays more on leverage than AMA Nation.
Leverage is the whole reason people get into network marketing, it’s the secret of the wealthy and Ambit Energy’s compensation plan is structured as such.

Additional Income Components: The above mentioned are the core aspects of both companies compensation plan. In addition to the core areas, both companies have additional promotions and bonuses beyond these areas that can add significant income.

Ambit:

Monthly promotions are run that have historically accounted for a significant increase over and above the normal comp plan. Past promotions include double and triple Fast Start & Consultant Leadership Bonuses by gathering a few more customers beyond the normal 5 points required to trigger bonuses.
Executive Consultant PowerSurge Bonus pays $50,000 to $100,000 for hitting customer growth targets over previous year’s numbers.

AMA Nation:

Monthly Share Based Power Pool – America Approved Direct will pay you a monthly bonus based on the number of customers in your sales organization. For each customer you receive one share in the bonus pool. Total bonus pool share value is calculated monthly based on the sales of the company.
The Star Super Bonus – As a qualified one, two, or three star National Director, you can qualify for a bonus of up to $50,000.
There is also the ability to retail commissions from a variety of physical products that can be purchased and sold at retail or sold directly through replicated website. These products range from gas pills to air purifiers to energy drinks and kids toys. Some of the products make sense like the solar products and power savers but overall the products seem a bit hokey to me. Naturally I’m a bit biased but I’d rather focus on doing just one thing and dominate it than spread thin and not do anything well.

Free Energy… Yes we did!

Our Free Energy program is something that not just separates us from AMA Nation, but it also separates us from the entire network marketing industry. It’s almost like cheating… except it’s not! Having one of the largest companies on the globe as our energy supplier combined with Ambit’s patented billing and customer care platform gives us the efficiencies to offer not only the finest compensation program and guaranteed customer savings, but also some even more exciting and game changing programs… namely our “Free Energy” program.

Since this is technically a customer rewards program and not a consultant program it does not fall under compensation. In addition the monetary reward shows up as a credit on your bill or a rebate check in the mail so the income is non-taxable!

The Free Energy program works like this… any Ambit customer (even if that customer is also a consultant) who refers 15 other customers will get a free energy credit or rebate check in the mail (depending on territory) every month equal to the average of the electricity bills or supply charges of the 15 or more customers they referred.

Why is this so big?

This program turns your customers in to walking billboards for your business. It gives affiliates/non-profits some serious marketing juice when their supporters can not only switch their service to support the cause but also help actively promote others to switch for the cause and they can get free energy for doing so.

In addition imagine how powerful it is to have your entire team of consultants earning free energy each and every month. Ambit already pays up to $400 in up-front “Fast Start” bonuses to new consultants just for gathering customers and these same customers count toward the Free Energy program as well! So just by joining as a consultant and gathering customers you need to earn your investment back and be qualified, you will earn Free Energy on top of it all!

Normally in network marketing people can’t stay excited long enough and end up getting frustrated and quit long before the magic of exponential growth can kick in. With Ambit’s Free Energy program, our consultants are getting reminded every month why Ambit works and their story gets stronger and more exciting every month!

Legality Considerations:

This is a bit of a hot topic to approach considering the natural and usually incorrect association network marketing often gets with pyramids. To be clear I want you the reader to understand that I am a huge proponent of mlm / network marketing and I am not breaching this topic simply because AMA Nation is a competitor to Ambit Energy. To date this is the first “Ambit Energy Vs” review in which I have raised this topic. I do so because I believe there is one very major and valid point to be raised regarding AMA Nation’s compensation plan.

The point I’d like to raise concerns 4 specific aspects of AMA Nation compensation (EB1, EB2, Binary Cycle Bonuses & the website charges getting paid out through the unilevel plan. These are four areas of the AMA Nation compensation plan that pay commissions on the sale of an “Energy Pack Training Product” and/or the monthy website charge that goes along with it. What does it mean to sell an “Energy Pack Training Product”? Essentially this is a creative way to describe the act of recruiting a new consultant.

Why is this potentially bad you ask? I am no MLM attorney but here are some thoughts from somebody who is…

“No reward can be paid to the first representative for the act of introducing the second representative to the company. Such payments or rewards are called “headhunting fees” and are barred by law. No charge or required product purchase can be imposed on the second representative by the company or the sponsor as an entry fee. (A required purchase of an at-cost, non-commissionable sales or starter kit, or an administration fee, is permitted.) Simply put, neither the company nor the sponsor can profit from the sole act of recruiting. Profit to the company and profit to the representatives must come from the sale of products and services to customers, and only from the sale of products and services to customers” … “State and federal regulators are too savvy to accept wordsmithing patches without substantive changes to the way business is done.” The ABCs of MLM by Gerald P. Nehra, Attorney at Law, full text can be found at http://www.mlmatty.com/abc.php

Ironically the only place the terminology “Energy Pack Training Product” gets used is in the official comp plan pdf. On the public website when enrolling the term “Energy Consultant Success System” is used. Seems to me like this could fit the description of “wordsmithing” Mr. Nehra talked about.

So what do you really get with this “Energy Pack Training Product”? Included are your websites, some training downloads, a debit pay card, back office business center, etc. Based on the description of what you get, this sure sounds like only stuff that somebody interested in the business would want. I don’t see any real retail customers purchasing an “Energy Pack Training Product” and unless it can be proved that this “Energy Pack Training Product” is a real retailable product, then it sure seems AMA Nation is at the least operating in an area colored some scary shade of gray.

Here is the take of another well known attorney group in the network marketing industry…

“Whether a program is a legitimate multilevel marketing plan or an illegal pyramid depends principally on: (1) the method by which the products or services are sold; and (2) the manner in which participants are compensated… If a program compensates participants, directly or indirectly, merely for the introduction or enrollment of other participants into the program, it is a pyramid.” Legal Principles of Multilevel Marketing by Grimes & Reese P.L.L.C , full text can be found at http://www.mlmlaw.com/library/guides/Primer.htm

Then there is the aspect of the AMA Nation compensation plan where they take a chunk of the $40 a month website fee and pay it out as commissions to distributors. I would have missed this aspect entirely if my research has relied solely on the official AMA Nation compensation plan document and recorded webinar presentation since it is never “directly” mentioned in either. In fact I had to work my way up to some pretty high ranking consultants in AMA to get a full explanation on this.

So why is this potentially bad? Here is the take of yet another MLM Attorney…

“The problem with injecting a pay plan with monthly fees is simple: the only way to tap into that money is via recruiting more distributors. When there’s no real market for the product or service for nonparticipants (people outside of the network), the transaction is viewed mainly as a money transfer from new investors to older ones. When Burnlounge was shut down by the FTC, they were pursued largely because their commission structure was allegedly fueled primarily by the usage fees paid by the distributors, not via the sale of their products. It’s a problem.” Training Fees and monthly service fees: be careful by Kevin Thompson, full text can be found at http://www.themlmattorney.com/training-fees-and-monthly-service-fees-be-careful

I’ll leave it up for you to decide. My thoughts are really quite simple. I don’t believe AMA Nation has any intent of wrongdoing nor do I think they are doing anybody wrong. They sell real products and services of real value. The problem is that a couple major components of their compensation plan violate a couple of the most fundamental MLM compensation rules. There is no reason their comp plan could not be altered to avoid this obvious flaw but as it stands I sure would not want to put effort into a company with such obvious structural flaws.

In addition, what kind of doubt does this cast on the leadership of AMA Nation? There is just no reason to take this kind of chance. Yes I know that Peter Jensen is no newcomer to MLM, but there is no denying that his primary home run was YTB which has been in a LOT OF REGULATORY HEAT & LAWSUITS for very similar issues. I personally believe YTB is a flat out illegal pyramid disguised as an MLM and that AMA Nation is a legit MLM with a comp plan that has components making it unnecessarily open to being seen as an illegal pyramid. For the sake of all the AMA consultants, I hope AMA Nation changes these areas before regulators bring the heat like they did with YTB & Burnelounge. To be fair, YTB is still in business but it is merely a fraction of the size it was before their myriad of lawsuits.

I do realize that AMA Nation claims to have retained one of the above referenced/quoted lawyers as their legal counsel but since I’ve worked with MLM lawyers on consulting deals in the past I also know that paying a lawyer for startup advice does not mean you have to take the advice and I would imagine this is what went down.

On the other side of the coin, Ambit Energy utilizes tried and true network marketing compensation plan structure that has been utilized by some of the largest and most successful companies in the industry. There is never a 100% guarantee that you are legally bulletproof but there is no reason to take unnecessary risks either.

False Rumors You May Have Heard:

So if you’ve been debating between Ambit Energy and AMA Nation and have spoken to anybody in AMA Nation about your debate more than likely they have brought up the fact that several “big names” in Ambit left and went over to AMA Nation because it was a better deal. Specifically they always mention an unnamed Executive Consultant (Manny Cintron). Our good friend Manny has been shouting off that he made 247k (the number varies slightly depending on who you talk to) in his last year with Ambit and had run the numbers and if he were in AMA he would have made $22,500 per month more. Wow, sounds pretty compelling right?

There are several problems with Manny Cintron’s claim…

I can personally verify Manny Cintron never made even ½ of what he claims in Ambit Energy. I know this because he was never ranked above me as an income earner and yet he claims to have made about twice what I made in that same period. Adding insult to injury, conversation with his former upline revealed that he never even made a combined 100k his entire Ambit career. If you hear this lie being used against Ambit Energy ask for proof and that’s as far as the conversation will go because there is none.
Good old Manuel Cintron is claiming to have earned about 20.5k a month(247k / 12 = 20,583) in Ambit energy and says that he would have made over 42,500k per month in AMA Nation with the exact same team. Ignoring for a moment the fact that the 247k is a verified fabrication, there is literally only one way possible to have made that much more money in AMA than Ambit and that is if the majority of the customers were personally sponsored by him because this is the only area where AMA Nation pays significantly more than Ambit… (and only if you factor in the Longevity Bonus which takes 13 months to fully kick in and he was not with Ambit long enough for that to make a big difference)
Because Ambit Energy is a coding based compensation plan and AMA Nation is a binary based compensation plan it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE directly compare the two with the kind of precision he claims. Yes you can look at each plan and show which one pays out more money overall on a per customer basis which is what I’ve done in this review but actual income earned depends heavily on where your leaders are sponsored. In a coding plan it depends on what rank you are when you sponsor your producing consultants and in a binary plan it depends on the balance of your two teams as they grow. There are plenty of people in both companies that have huge teams but don’t make as much as people with smaller teams because of how it can grow beyond where you get paid.

I certainly don’t have any problem with anybody from Ambit heading over to AMA if they feel it’s going to work out for them but there is no reason to bend the truth as far as it’s being bent here. There is plenty of room for competition even if we just stick with the boring truth.

Credibility:

So often in network marketing it is tough to overcome the credibility factor and negative stigma of the industry. Ambit is only the second (apparently Herbalife did it back in the late 80s, but I’ve not been able to verify this, somebody please contact me if you know for sure) network marketing company in the history of INC.500 to be named #1 fastest growing. Ambit has a BBB A-Rating and is also is a member of the DSA (Direct Selling Association). I’m not implying AMA Nation or any other company that does not have some of these credibility factors behind them or that they are not credible but it sure is nice to be in a position of such strength as Ambit is where the question of legitimacy and credibility becomes a non-issue.

AMA Nation versus Ambit Energy, My final thoughts…

The only real plus for AMA Nation as I see it is they currently have more territory in which they operate. Even though this is only possible through partnerships with other energy companies and I don’t think they will compete well in that scenario they do still have the ability to offer more territory on paper. This advantage won’t last long so I hope AMA consultants enjoy it while it lasts. Ambit is in the middle of an epic expansion blitz and within 18 months I don’t think AMA Nation will have the territory lead anymore.

In my opinion, the big negative is the major legal question marks (and that’s putting it mildly) regarding compensation. There is just no reason to take the kind of risks they are taking with their compensation plan. I just don’t get it, somebody please enlighten me here if I’ve completely missed the mark in my analysis.

As for Ambit Energy, you have a company with an unprecedented level of credibility, a free energy program with no rival but in the end it comes down to real residual income and the above analysis shows the vast majority of customers will fall in the usage level where Ambit pays much more than needed to compensate for the few customers where AMA will pay more.