Question

An internet service provider had a total of 17,156 customers last year. They gained a net of 1,802 customers this year. They hope to reach at least 35,000 customers in ten years. Estimate the number of customers they need to reach their goal.

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT 3.5]

To estimate the number of customers the internet service provider needs to reach their goal in ten years, we first need to determine the number of customers they will have after ten years.

To do this, we add the net number of customers gained each year, 1,802, to the total number of customers last year, 17,156, for a total gain of 1,802 + 17,156 = 18,958 customers in the first year.

Next, we add this gain to the total number of customers last year to get the number of customers after the first year, 17,156 + 18,958 = 36,114 customers.

If we assume that the net number of customers gained each year remains constant, we can estimate the number of customers after ten years by multiplying the net gain per year by the number of years and adding it to the total number of customers after one year.

So, the estimated number of customers after ten years is 18,958 * 10 + 36,114 = 190,580 customers.

Therefore, to reach their goal of at least 35,000 customers in ten years, the internet service provider needs 35,000 - 190,580 = -155,580 more customers.

Since a negative number of customers does not make sense in this context, we can conclude that the goal of reaching at least 35,000 customers in ten years is not achievable with the current growth rate of the internet service provider.