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Starting an Internet Service Provider

chrishacken.com

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Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#101

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ajosh wrote: post #51
martinald wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the reason really. The main reason I can see is that Comcast (or cable internet) has no real competition. I don't understand why that is. AT&T, Verizon etc seem to have given up on competing. Verizon stopped their rollout of FTTH a while back nearly entirely, though it has restarted very slowly. AT&Ts VDSL based UVerse solution is way too sparse, with very long cable runs. Compare this to BT in t…

One other reason is that counties have the land rights. They negotiate with the big Telco's like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, Charter, etc and then issue a monopoly or duopoly in the county for a fixed period of time - usually 10 years at once. The Telco can offer a few things like fiber connectivity between county buildings, tax payments, etc. By doing that, they secure the rights to the area. Given the federal system of…

We do in theory have competition for DSL service but the telcos just conspired to let their cable plant rot to make that undesirable.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#102

Post by mschuster91 »

amenod wrote: post #84
froztbyte wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mini-followup: due to this kind of scenario, we ended up having to replace UPS battery packs in about 8 months (1/3 of their minimum intended lifecycle) due to how heavily they got load-rushed over the months. The load cycle literally killed them in that time.

Interesting - so I guess there is need for a solution which charges UPS-es in some smarter way?

I don't believe that in a situation with wildly fluctuating power there is any alternative to "grab all available energy from the grid when there is power", you never know how huge the next brown/blackout will be.

What could definitely help is putting good power conditioning equipment in front of the UPS. That at least will protect the AC-to-DC first stage from overvoltages and shorter brownouts. If the PCE comes with fat enough supercaps, it can also protect the main UPS by preventing it from draining the battery at all.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#103

Post by soheil »

chrishacken wrote: post #61
soheil wrote: post #57

Trying to figure out how 50 customers make it profitable enough for him to be laying fiber etc. Even if it costs $100/mo that's only $5000, half of which just goes for his office rent. Also WebPass in SF is very similar those guys are awesome, can't live without them, one of the reasons I always choose soma skyscrapers to live in.

The majority of our customers are businesses paying >$100/m. Aside from that, I still work full-time as a Systems Engineer at USPS +$3,400/m after taxes.

Gotcha, this is really amazing, I've been thinking about doing something similar. Thanks for the write up!

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#104

Post by mschuster91 »

rayiner wrote: post #99
ajosh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other reason is that counties have the land rights. They negotiate with the big Telco's like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, Charter, etc and then issue a monopoly or duopoly in the county for a fixed period of time - usually 10 years at once. The Telco can offer a few things like fiber connectivity between county buildings, tax payments, etc. By doing that, they secure the rights to the area. Given the federal system of…

> One other reason is that counties have the land rights. They negotiate with the big Telco's like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, Charter, etc and then issue a monopoly or duopoly in the county for a fixed period of time - usually 10 years at once. They do not do that. It's illegal under federal law. Pole and conduit owners are required to rent out access at non-discriminatory rates: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/4…

> They do not do that. It's illegal under federal law.

But they most certainly can impose enough bureaucracy and other hurdles to make renting factually impossible. Or simply both the incumbent provider and the county employ just a single FTE (or less!) to handle permits, and one can't do anything about it. All while following the letter of the law, because there's nothing in the law that says "county has X days to deal with the permit else it is being automatically granted".

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#105

Post by extrapickles »

amenod wrote: post #84
froztbyte wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mini-followup: due to this kind of scenario, we ended up having to replace UPS battery packs in about 8 months (1/3 of their minimum intended lifecycle) due to how heavily they got load-rushed over the months. The load cycle literally killed them in that time.

Interesting - so I guess there is need for a solution which charges UPS-es in some smarter way?

Better smarts on discharge of the UPS can help. Most of them currently let the battery pack fully discharge, causing irreversible damage to the battery pack, especially if power isn't restored quickly. A setting for cutting out at 40% depth of charge would prevent damage to the pack.

Over provisioning the runtime on the UPS can help if you can afford the extra upfront cost.

What someone really needs to do is make a UPS that just attaches to a standard deep cycle battery, as those can be easily sourced locally pretty much anywhere and one can pick the battery to fit the application, rather than be stuck with the crap batteries the UPS manufacturer decides to use (they typically use high C batteries which do not like deep cycling).

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#106

Post by jlgaddis »

chrishacken wrote: post #3
gigatexal wrote: post #2

Godspeed man. I wish the regulatory landscape was more open to this kind of thing all over the country. The incumbent ISPs need some competition.

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.

Become a CLEC. Or, more appropriately, I suppose: look into the benefits that being a CLEC would give you (in this regard) and consider if that's worth it for you.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#107

Post by jlgaddis »

rayiner wrote: post #91
gigatexal wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments would pay for this via taxes. At least that's one way. So in the end all of us would be paying for internet, and I guess if there were a way to get internet at 1gig up/1 gig down with no data caps that was very reliable for under 100 bucks a month I would do it. But the build-out costs a lot as you've stated so the capital would have to come from somewhere and perhaps that'd come from infrastructure spend…

We can't convince voters to raise taxes/utility rates enough to fix crumbling dams, lead water pipes, and overflowing sewers.

That's very true. Unfortunately, if you threatened to take away their Facebook I think they'd suddenly reconsider.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#108

Post by jlgaddis »

chrishacken wrote: post #70
jpfasone wrote: post #67

Chris - great to hear your story. I'm the CEO of Pilot, we service a few hundred buildings in New York City. While the logistics and techniques may differ, building an ISP is, well, building an ISP. Would be great to talk shop sometime.

That'd be great! Shoot me over an email: chris (at) nepafiber.com Sorry in advance if I don't get back to you right away.

If you haven't heard of it, you may be interested in WISPA [0] as it sounds like you're still doing some fixed wireless. There should be a PA state-level group/mailing list that you might be able to reach out to.

You should be able to find a list of other, similar ISPs in PA on their web site that you may be able to collaborate with.

Also, their bi-annual conference is in a few weeks in Memphis, TN. There will be "fiber workshops" that you may or may not find interesting.

[0]: http://www.wispa.org

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#109

Post by downrightmike »

shambolic wrote: post #83
gigatexal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What're your thoughts on this idea: internet access is a right and should be treated like a utility. Operators like you and others create supply and then are guaranteed a price or rate as (probably) negotiated by the consortium of suppliers like yourself and others and the local government. And then in return businesses and consumers can rely on (fiber based) internet for a reasonable cost. I personally don't care fo…

The biggest problem is: where is the money going to come from? Even if you guarantee a rate of return, somebody still needs to finance the buildout. Second issue is, how will infrastructure that is installed, but not used be paid for? Take rate is rarely 100%, so who is going to pay for that part and how?

Just set up a special district: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3saU5racsGE

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#110

Post by jlgaddis »

madsushi wrote: post #100
diegorbaquero wrote: post #92

Great read! I've always wanted to start one too. How did you go about the addressing? Did you purchase IP blocks from Zayo? If you could go technical it would be great.

If he's using Level 3, he would have to have his own PI-IP block. I'd be interested to hear more about IPv4 and IPv6 in the small ISP world. With 50-100 clients, a single /24 block would serve his current client base.

Why is that? Level3 is one of my upstreams and I've had two /23s from them for a few years. I'm pretty sure they still have some addresses available, although they might be harder to get nowadays.
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