I think I want to start an isp

[Soybomb]

Many years ago when I was in high school and there was only one dialup ISP in town I wished I was old enough and had enough time to start a better one and give them some competition. Now I'm 20 years old. I've got an assosicates degree and have been taking classes toward my BS in CS. I'm really getting burnt out though and would like to take just a year or two off though or I'll go crazy. But I need a good project in that period of time.

Times have changed and broadband is now a real possibility. Only one town in the surrouding area has any broadband service at all, and its just cable. In the other towns its nothing, no cable, no DSL, no wireless, just dialup. One town in the area has a population of about 7500 and has such poor phone lines that 24400 is about the best connection anyone can make. I see a golden opportunity I think. I love setting up and playing with networks. I've got a good amount of NT/2k and linux knowledge, and I think a semi-decent business sense. Considering these town have a radius of just a couple miles, I think some of them would be ideal candidates for wireless access. If I offered multiple tiers of service such as a 512 down, 256 down, and 128 down I'd clean up I think. If I could build a package for $20 a month that was no faster than dialup I still think it would sell well just so people wouldnt have to buy another phone line. I'd love to start with one town and expand from there. Have any of you guys looked into this much or done any work like this? Any good links to info about creating the wireless ISP. Thoughts?
Thanks all!

 

[shiner]

A lot of ISP's are going out of business these days. Be careful and do some research first.

 

[JesusCow]

good luck with it man, get a big ass loan from the gov't and get some huge ass pipes

 

[Locutus of Board]

Soybomb,

I have liked a lot of your posts.

You cannot make it here as the little guy. As a person that respects you on ATOT, (may not mean much) Assert yourself somewhere else.

 

[Colt45]

<< good luck with it man, get a big ass loan from the gov't and get some huge ass pipes >>



what are the pipes for???

 

[Soybomb]

Yeah I've heard of all the ISP's biting the dust and even a few here have, but I think offering broadband gives me a definate edge. In the one town down here that does have it, they were jumped on so bad they had a list like 300 names long waiting for installers. I think if you can't make a go of it with a monopoly in the market and people wanting the service you've got money management issues Seriously even if in 3-5 years someone came along and gave me enough competition to want to quit I wouldn't mind horribly, I'd just come up with something else to do, but at the moment it seems like a good market.

 

[Soybomb]

<< what are the pipes for??? >>

I guess I could get loans from people on the street if I brandish them in a threatening method?

LoB: We're not in the same area are we? I'm in southern illinois, where are you at?

 

[Rastus]

It's the broadband providers that are biting it right now. The radio frequencies that the government is selling (auctioning) for wireless is priced in the billions of dollars. I don't want to discourage you, but I don't see any way you can get in.

 

[Soybomb]

As far as the FCC selling off freq's, I'd not be looking to buy my own but to use an already setup standard. All I've read about so far involve the use of something similar to 802.11b, so I'd not actually be buying a spectrum, but just using whats already been allocated to 802.11b equipment in teh area. I could always be misterperting this, but I think this would be the same as buying 802.11b equipment and using it in your house, although I'd still have to stay within FCC guidelines for emitted power. That means my costs would be equipment and backbone.

 

[MJT2k]

I have looked into starting a dial-up ISP and then moving to broadband in 6 months or so. But right now the price tag on that and about 1.5 semesters of school left before I get my AAS I have decided to wait. The price tag was around $50k just for start-up cost like equipment and 2 months office space, etc. Then you need at least another $100k just for the next 6 months if you at least want to survive in the market and $250k for the whole year would make things better.

Also wireless can be expensive for up front setup cost to customers like $300+ (it is about $600 around here). Another thing I see you are from Southern Illinois, if my dial-up ISP does what they say and keep expanding at the rate they are now you won't have much of a chance. They may only be in Minnesota right now but plan to be in 6 states in one year and it will take you 6 months to 1 year to get set up and going.

I wish yo the best of luck.

PS Oh, and find yourself at least &quot;2&quot; very good partners. That will help in getting loans and one of them should be a good business person (like someone that already has a business) but what ever you do don't let then control you. AND these partners should not be &quot;CLOSE&quot; friends or even friends for that matter, but people interested in starting a business like this. BUT if you do go with friends be very very careful on who you pick.

 

[Soybomb]

See I almost think the costs of starting a dialup isp is more than starting a wireless one. Seriously you're talking lets say $2k per antenna, and lets say 3 antennas in this one town. So you've got $6k. Now I'm gonna want a main building to store my &quot;big&quot; equipment in. For now I'd have no problem with renting a small closet with good a/c from a local business. Most businesses would even give a good rate around here from what I've seen if you give them free access.

There are already 4 dialup ISP competing in this area. One is about $13 a month, the others are $20. I'd pretty much not get many of the $13 a month people as price seems to be their motivator, although I'm sure a couple would migrate for the high speeds. From the others I think I'd get a fair share of people who are interested in both high speeds, and another half who would pay $20-30 a month for slighter higher speeds and the ability to drop that other phone line they pay another $20 a month for. I really don't need office space, I could initially work from the house, I don't think the few inital customers would overrun me, and I could setup the equipment for them myself. Really when it comes down to it, I think it could just be a one man operation.

The main hurdles I see are like you said the initial cost to consumers for the hardware, and the cost of having some backbone.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

<< $2k per antenna, >>

Is that just for hardware? You still have to worry about leasing the land. The going lease for a cell tower around here is $1000 a month. We had people come up to us asking who they would have to talk with to get one put on their land

 

Starting a business right now is risky business.

 

[MJT2k]

First of all you don't want to run this type of business from your home. Second of all $2k per attania x3 I don't think so it will be more because you have to pay for use of the water tower, roof of the building, etc. Just so you know a second Wireless ISP is trying to setup in my town and it is going to cost tham ~$20k to get it setup (~$20k is about the cost of most of the dial-up equipment). You said that you were looking at 802.11b that is a good choice it uses thw 2.4GHz Freq. (which is free) but are you going to use Frequice (sp) Hopping Spread Spectrum, FHSS or Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum, DSSS. Current the wireless ISP in my area is using FHSS and the one that want to setup is using DSSS. I think that the FHSS is more expensive but works better for an ISP.

 

[Soybomb]

Actually you hit the nail on the head, I think it will be about $20k o start this thing up. here is a good read on the different types of spread spectrum tech, as to which I would choose, at this point I don't think I've done enough research on them to determine which would meet the particular needs of this area.

Finding tower space actually won't be all that difficult I don't think, I've got some friends around here and we've got a very poor economy down here (23k is average computer tech pay) so i think when its all said and done I'll be paying very little for tower space.

 

[RGN]

Soybomb I like your idea. BUT, I think that $20 a month is not going to cut it. Anoth thing, simply broad casting from a point is not goinmg to work real well. You would need several points, and that's goin to cost money.


Do you AOL IM? I'm unsigned1138 lets talk.

 

[Clinotus]

It really all boils down to the money side of it. To make a good presence you'll need a lot of fat pipes and a few POP's. Installations can be outsourced but you wont recoup that unless you have years and a good plan. Good luck.

 

[pulpp]

hmm..... i been pondering over the same thing myself lately ( starting a wireless ISP) this thread been very informative so far, thans everyone, and soybomb good luck if you go ahead with your plans

 

[Soybomb]

Sorry no AIM, just ICQ here. I was really planning for 3 access points in this town initially, they would provide coverage to almost the entire town. I'm also perfectly willing to start out small, don't you think its possible to make it a go (not really profitable, but at least breaking even) with a user base of about 40 customers, which I think I could have pretty easily. I'd think $1,500 per month would cover operating expenses for that small subscriber base. From there I'd try to eventually grow larger and see if I could provider lower bandwidth connection to take in those who want to save money on that extra phone line, but my initial target would be the customer who wants broadband for about $40 a month.

 

[Phil21]

$1500 would not cover operating expenses, not even close.

Lets see here..

T1 Circuit (local loop in rural area): At least $300/mo
T1 IP Transport from tier1 (sprint, uunet, etc.) $1500/mo (price ranges from $900 to $2200 depending)
Tech support phone line: $20/mo
Office space rent: Since it's rural.. $500/mo


This doesn't include setup costs. I'd figure out exactly what you need to make a decent network, and then divide by 12 (for a year) and figure out what your &quot;break even&quot; point is each month. You'll need quite a bit to set it up.

I've worked with wireless gear.. it works great when it works, but you also have to remember it does have it's major drawbacks. Is a T1 even going to be enough bandwidth for your subscriber pool? You can't re-sell DSL lines as an ISP (explain to your customers why they went down for a week when the telco decided to screw up), and honestly I'll bet you'll be paying more for a local loop on a T1 than $300/mo out in the middle of nowhere..

Ah well, good luck to you though.

BTW, that guys ISP that does wireless in rural MN I don't think will last that long. At least unless they get rid of some of the people &quot;in charge&quot; over there, I know a couple very well.

-Phil

 

[Soybomb]

See Phil thats the problem right now, this is a plan thats been developing for appx 6 hours now so I haven't had time to call and get much pricing info yet. For some busines that I've worked for in teh past here, I think I can get a T1 for about $1100 - 1200, the local loop though I don't recall what those were running. I'm still planning for no office for a while too, I just don't see the need for it initially. I need to call around tomorrow and get some pricing

 

[LuNoTiCK]

Is 1 T1 actually going to work? If you have 40 people, they all want high speeds. Many of them will be doing things like downloading mp3's and well lots of other stuff. Than what if you get a few that own their own warez site or something lik ethat.

 

[rawko]

You know, you can't do any sort of dsl unless the central office(s) have the proper equipment inside (if that is the case, there should already be a company selling adsl then).

 

[MJT2k]

<<

BTW, that guys ISP that does wireless in rural MN I don't think will last that long. At least unless they get rid of some of the people &quot;in charge&quot; over there, I know a couple very well.

-Phil >>



You are correct on that. I only know 1 person that works there and he just started about a month ago on the Help Desk. Actually, I think that only one person would need to be gotten rid of. Not going to say who besuace they are my diap-up ISP and I am thinkging of getting wireless from them, but ~$600 for setup, I think not.

BTW Soybomb, you might want to think about offering dial-up. It is profitably (more profitable than wireless) and if you can offer a better service and better support people will switch from the $13/month guy.

 

[Soybomb]

So whats teh afternoon crowd think of my ideas?