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Starting an Internet Service Provider

chrishacken.com

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Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#41

Post by nickpsecurity »

froztbyte wrote: post #29
nickpsecurity wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your customers tolerate all that? As in, can you ignore a good chunk of it because Internet issues are more acceptable in Africa? Or did you have to prevent, detect, and/or mitigate all of it because they expect nearly-perfect Internet in your area?

By way of answering, let me recount a short story for you. It takes place during the very first time I visited Kampala (the capital of Uganda). It was about 3 years before I had started working in the ISP/telecom space in Africa. This particular trip was soccer-specific (I was working on the team that delivered one of the big trans-national African tournaments' games on television), thus the non-ISP nature of it. We…

Interesting. So, you actually had it easier than Chris since the expectations of service are so low in Africa. You might have had it harder because of all the extra issues you deal with. As I figured, it's not as straight-forward as your original comment implied.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#42

Post by shambolic »

chrishacken wrote: post #12
shambolic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we tried relentlessly to contact our local utilities to gain access to their underground conduit and was never able to get someone on the phone or even much of a response. I find that really hard to believe. Go to their offices and ask for the manager. > I eventually got to the point where I was like, "Fk it, I'll do it on my own." Now we're looking at microtrenching, which is probably an even larger endeavor, but…

Renting duct is $3/ft/year. That's $15,840 per mile per year. That's not including ~$30,000 to contract out the work (I was quoted $7/ft) and $5,000 that the utility charges to have someone on-site to oversee the operation. I've determined we can microtrench ourselves for between $30,000 and $40,000. I've been on contact with another ISP, https://tsi.io who has successfully done micro-trenching with very minimal capi…

How do you know the duct rent if you haven't been able to contact the utility?

$7/ft is more than you should be paying. Get some more competing quotes.

I'd be very surprised if you can hit $30-40k per mile all in when microtrenching.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#43

Post by nickpsecurity »

chrishacken wrote: post #27
nickpsecurity wrote: post #14

I think I asked you for the write-up before. Thanks for doing it. I'd like more details, though, on the costs of equipment, installation, and so on for wireless and fiber. I mean, outside of running fiber to houses or businesses, what's the cost of the switches, any boxes protecting them, and the bandwidth? And how much bandwidth can you get away with offering them or reserving for yourself?

The answer to some of those questions are complex. I was trying to keep the length of this post to a minimum, so I decided to keep that information out, but I'll try to provide some of the details you asked about. The cost of equipment depends on the installation. If we use Ubiquiti sectors and CPE's, the sectors run about $500/each and each CPE is around $130. I don't think we have a sector with more than 6 clients…

That's great info that I'm saving. It's way cheaper than I thought it would be since the cost of everything has gone down much vs back when I started networking. I was also considering possibility of reaching out to people in Shenzhen finding and testing gear from various suppliers to see if that cost could be reduced. Curious if you've considered any kind of mesh networking that relays from one location to another?

I look forward to the fiber write-up.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#44

Post by chrishacken »

shambolic wrote: post #42
chrishacken wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renting duct is $3/ft/year. That's $15,840 per mile per year. That's not including ~$30,000 to contract out the work (I was quoted $7/ft) and $5,000 that the utility charges to have someone on-site to oversee the operation. I've determined we can microtrench ourselves for between $30,000 and $40,000. I've been on contact with another ISP, https://tsi.io who has successfully done micro-trenching with very minimal capi…

How do you know the duct rent if you haven't been able to contact the utility? $7/ft is more than you should be paying. Get some more competing quotes. I'd be very surprised if you can hit $30-40k per mile all in when microtrenching.

It's in their agreement, which is available publicly online. I managed to get 2 or 3 email responses, but they go dark for 2 months at a time.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcd5z1itzu141ky/Screenshot%202017-...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbkhujxkpepadjw/Screenshot%202017-...

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#45

Post by toomuchtodo »

chrishacken wrote: post #44
shambolic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know the duct rent if you haven't been able to contact the utility? $7/ft is more than you should be paying. Get some more competing quotes. I'd be very surprised if you can hit $30-40k per mile all in when microtrenching.

It's in their agreement, which is available publicly online. I managed to get 2 or 3 email responses, but they go dark for 2 months at a time. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcd5z1itzu141ky/Screenshot%202017-... https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbkhujxkpepadjw/Screenshot%202017-...

You might check what the agreement between the utility and the public utility commission is to see if you can have the PUC lean on the utility to provide the data you need.

http://www.puc.pa.gov/

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#46

Post by chrishacken »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #45
chrishacken wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in their agreement, which is available publicly online. I managed to get 2 or 3 email responses, but they go dark for 2 months at a time. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcd5z1itzu141ky/Screenshot%202017-... https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbkhujxkpepadjw/Screenshot%202017-...

You might check what the agreement between the utility and the public utility commission is to see if you can have the PUC lean on the utility to provide the data you need. http://www.puc.pa.gov/

I've had several meetings with a District Rep, who contacted his government rep at the utility for the area, who leaned into them. They said they would contact me; 3 times, and never did.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#47

Post by thomseddon »

Chris, after starting an ISP[1] in the UK in 2014 I certainly feel you're pain around the difficulties in starting an ISP! Myself and my co-founders have often looked at the comparable easy of growth software based startups and wondered what on earth we were doing, but we soldier on and our looking at our reliable, contracted MRR now is certainly starting to make up for it :)

Good luck, I look forward to keeping up with how things are going your side of the Atlantic.

[1] https://telcom.io/

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#48

Post by tomarr »

chrishacken wrote: post #15
vflagr wrote: post #10

This was a super interesting read. The one thing I never fail to get over though is how expensive internet is in the states. In the UK you can get 200/20 for about £58 p/m including TV & Phone. I couldn't imagine paying nearly $100 p/m for 100mbps.

It's not that the bandwidth is expensive; it's the cost to deploy everything. If there was preexisting conduit/fiber in the ground and all we had to do was plug two cables together, I'd be able to charge $25/m too. I've never been to the UK, but I believe your population density is a lot higher than that of the US; which is where all of our costs originate (interconnecting the customer to our network).

It's interesting that this is always the american response whenever the broadband comparisons are made. I don't mean this in a negative way, but it's a very persistent argument and I wonder if there's some external factor that pushes it (telcos/media/other).

I think this is definitely a factor - but it's vastly overstated. The USA is more urbanised than many European countries at 80%, so there's definitely quick wins for the vast majority of the population.

The big difference I see is the way these services are regulated. In the UK for example, the physical infrastructure associated with the last mile is owned by a company that just manages this, with regulated prices linked to asset investment required. Services are then resold to Internet Service Providers who provide the IP services and compete on price and other factors.

The capital costs of providing the infrastructure are restrictive and the advantage of competition does not outweigh the cost of having multiple last-mile infra.

Note - I've used some simplifications on the ownership and extents of infraco/telco ownership, but the concept holds.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#49

Post by timthorn »

nixgeek wrote: post #4
chrishacken wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I obviously completely agree; we tried relentlessly to contact our local utilities to gain access to their underground conduit and was never able to get someone on the phone or even much of a response. I eventually got to the point where I was like, "F k it, I'll do it on my own." Now we're looking at microtrenching, which is probably an even larger endeavor, but at least we'll own the conduit.

Perhaps try reaching out to the B4RN folks to learn some of their lessons. A lot won't apply because UK vs. US but I'm sure some of their experiences might help you avoid problems! https://b4rn.org.uk

There was a presentation at UKNOF34 from B4RN: https://youtu.be/C4Xm_-gt6mw?list=PLjzK5ZtLlc91r5YZVNiebhcq0...

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#50

Post by shambolic »

chrishacken wrote: post #46
toomuchtodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might check what the agreement between the utility and the public utility commission is to see if you can have the PUC lean on the utility to provide the data you need. http://www.puc.pa.gov/

I've had several meetings with a District Rep, who contacted his government rep at the utility for the area, who leaned into them. They said they would contact me; 3 times, and never did.

What happens when you go to their offices?
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