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Starting an Internet Service Provider

chrishacken.com

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Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#211

Post by shambolic »

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #146
shambolic wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not possible. Unless you plan to do this purely on private property, you are going to have to negotiate and pay for access to public right of way. Also, even if you only did this on private property and did not cross any roads or other public spaces, you'd be SOL if your neighbor wasn't a node and they didn't feel like giving you permission to cross their property.

Interesting points, but I just wonder if there is sufficient will to stop large numbers of determined "drivers" from ignoring the rules. Uber drivers could be said to be violating rules, but Uber is still successful.

Well, unless you bury your wires, sooner of later somebody is going to find out you did the dirty deed. Then all they have to do is follow the cable to your house and fine you.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#212

Post by yuvipanda »

kiallmacinnes wrote: post #133
woah wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might want to try Riot. It uses a protocol called Matrix, which is the successor to IRC. What this means is that you're not tied to them. Also the web, desktop, and mobile clients are pretty sweet.

Does Matrix really have the userbase in place to start calling it an IRC successor so definitively? It may be aiming for it, and I do hope we see an open chat protocol succeed over all the Slacks and HipChats, but calling it the successor right now seems a little disingenuous!

Don't see anything else around that fits that bill. They also have amazing IRC bridging - I have been using Matrix bridged into Freenode as my primary 'IRC Client' for almost a year now.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#213

Post by AnAfrican »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #41
froztbyte wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As the parent has said, the consumer are paying and often higher prices than in Europe so they complain. A LOT.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#214

Post by kiallmacinnes »

yuvipanda wrote: post #212
kiallmacinnes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Matrix really have the userbase in place to start calling it an IRC successor so definitively? It may be aiming for it, and I do hope we see an open chat protocol succeed over all the Slacks and HipChats, but calling it the successor right now seems a little disingenuous!

Don't see anything else around that fits that bill. They also have amazing IRC bridging - I have been using Matrix bridged into Freenode as my primary 'IRC Client' for almost a year now.

IRCv3?

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#215

Post by dboreham »

chrishacken wrote: post #169
dboreham wrote: post #162

I feel I need to write the inverse article "Stopping an Internet Service Provider", since I just shut down mine. Although this stuff can be great fun, you have to stop and ask yourself why the market is "under served" and why there isn't already some dude supplying these customers, driving around the city in his Lexus and waxing his new boat on the weekends. The unfortunate truth is that there just isn't that great a…

> No. And the reality is that IP connectivity is not much different to these other utilities. I understand where you're coming from, but it is different. You have ample power to power your home; utilities can fulfill whatever your power requirements are. The same can't be said about IP. I am literally incapable of live streaming from my parents house, no matter how much I'm willing to pay. There's no internet option,…

Yeah no need to explain the situation because I started my own ISP 16 years ago because I bought a house in Montana that the telco assured me could get T1 service. But they lied, so I had to build my own wireless ISP 10 miles out from the nearest town to get service. And to justify the investment in upstream and equipment I decided to serve the "underserved" businesses in town. Been there, have the T-shirt.

Consider the analogy further : if you built a house in a place with no power line, you would expect to either not use much power, or to pay a hefty fee (10's of thousands) to get power brought in. But folks expect to get Internet capable of streaming Netflix 4K (on two screens concurrently) for $50/mo.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#216

Post by dboreham »

ng-user wrote: post #164
dboreham wrote: post #162

I feel I need to write the inverse article "Stopping an Internet Service Provider", since I just shut down mine. Although this stuff can be great fun, you have to stop and ask yourself why the market is "under served" and why there isn't already some dude supplying these customers, driving around the city in his Lexus and waxing his new boat on the weekends. The unfortunate truth is that there just isn't that great a…

If you ever get the time, I'd love a written response similar to the OP detailing the contrary.

I'll put it on the "articles to write list".

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#217

Post by bane »

Wow...this brings back some memories. Back in the 90s, 2400 baud dial-up was still a normal thing, I was employee #1 at a bootstrapped ISP. It was started in some spare office space in the back of a warehouse by some college friends and financed mostly on credit cards.

The equipment was mostly home rolled, real MacGyver type stuff, but we targeted above average industry standards for service. With a little advertising, amazingly we grew very fast and hit several thousand subscribers in just a few months. We eventually outgrew our space and moved into another one just next door to our upstream provider who ran a cable through their ceiling/our floor so we could have have service.

I worked there as we slowly upgraded equipment until we were 56k on all lines and then we started hitting major capital equipment cost issues. Getting those phone company to get us the proper lines for 56k was hard enough (their standard of service was "if you can hear a voice it's fine"), but getting equipment that could support ISDN -- the next big thing -- was a huge transition point.

So we sunk virtually all of our money into the equipment, and then the industry rapidly moved on to rolling out DSL. Turns out customer weren't generally willing to pay the extra fees involved in having ISDN service and were willing to simply wait for the DSL rollout.

Effectively locked out of the new Internet access technology (you could only really offer it at that time if you owned the last mile lines and we could never get close to affording that) the company was sold and we all moved on -- a story that was repeated thousands of times across the country.

To put into perspective the magnitude of the change in the industry, it would be like somebody starting an ISP today, being able to buy and run fiber to the last mile and all that, and then next year a blimp fleet and satellite constellation started offering higher speed, more reliable internet for about the same price you were barely scraping by on. And now to compete you need to launch your own fleets and constellations.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#218

Post by chrishacken »

rayiner wrote: post #151
chrishacken wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do not do that. It's illegal under federal law. They definitely do. Our city has a franchise agreement with the incumbent cable provider; they're the only company allowed to provide cable television service. ~10 years ago a company called NuNet tried to come in and run fiber in a neighboring city, Hazleton, and both they and the city were sued by the incumbent for breaching the franchise.

The 1992 Cable Act made exclusive franchises illegal, but does not retroactively apply to pre-1992 contracts. Almost all of those contracts have since expired and been renewed as non-exclusive contracts under the 1992 Act. Hazelton, for example, granted an exclusive franchise before 1992, which expired in 2005: http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fibe... . The suit in 2004 was over the last year o…

Interesting; that clears things up. Thanks!

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#219

Post by wongarsu »

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?

If you can guarantee a rate of return, getting money from any bank sounds easy. And if take rate is 60%, then those that take the offer have to pay 100%/60%=166% of what they would have payed with a 100% take rate. Of course that requires estimating the take rate, but that's an everyday buisiness problem.

Re: Starting an Internet Service Provider

#220

Post by chrishacken »

sethhochberg wrote: post #74
tomarr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We do have some examples of this kind of structure in the US - for example, in Manhattan, NYC, a company called "Empire City Subway" has maintained general telecommunications conduit an a license from the state for over a hundred years. http://www.empirecitysubway.com/ Unfortunately, this kind of thing is rare here.

Their rates are surprisingly reasonable. For example, I mentioned that leasing conduit from the utility here is $3/ft/yr; those rates are as low as $0.6909/ft/yr, significantly cheaper.
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