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Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

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Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#361

Post by ncmncm »

pessimizer wrote: post #319
supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

I'm going to skate past the fact that difficult customers and maintenance aren't why monopolies are expensive, in fact they're the things that are most amenable to economies of scale, so bigger gets cheaper . The real question is: why does he have to get larger than the 600 homes in his nearby rural area, ever? Why does his goal have to be to defeat and replace Comcast rather than to supply internet service to his ne…

Displacing Comcast in any degree us a major service to the species.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#362

Post by devmunchies »

pessimizer wrote: post #319
supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

I'm going to skate past the fact that difficult customers and maintenance aren't why monopolies are expensive, in fact they're the things that are most amenable to economies of scale, so bigger gets cheaper . The real question is: why does he have to get larger than the 600 homes in his nearby rural area, ever? Why does his goal have to be to defeat and replace Comcast rather than to supply internet service to his ne…

the same reason one would file for patents without any intent of enforcing them. For defense and security.

I would say that to attempt to have zero growth/shrinkage is difficult in business. The market is always changing, people's preferences change, etc. If you try to stagnate you will likely find yourself shrinking, either because demand changes, or there are mixups in supply (competitors).

If shrinking is the only non-goal, then growth is likely the only prevention since stagnation is hard to ensure.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#363

Post by ncmncm »

bentobean wrote: post #358
supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

I, too, greatly respect the scrappy-ness of this individual. Kudos to him for sticking it to Comcast. That said, I'm not wild about the notion of dropping $30K of our collective money on running fiber to a single home out in the country.

He was getting that money regardless. He decided to drop it on that.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#364

Post by devmunchies »

Willish42 wrote: post #352
pessimizer wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to skate past the fact that difficult customers and maintenance aren't why monopolies are expensive, in fact they're the things that are most amenable to economies of scale, so bigger gets cheaper . The real question is: why does he have to get larger than the 600 homes in his nearby rural area, ever? Why does his goal have to be to defeat and replace Comcast rather than to supply internet service to his ne…

Exactly. There are tons of smaller businesses not focused on infinitely growing that get by just fine. Especially in rural areas like these

for every small business that "gets by", there are 2 (probably more) that go out of business due to not having grown sufficiently by the time they face some competition.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#365

Post by devmunchies »

bentobean wrote: post #358
supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

I, too, greatly respect the scrappy-ness of this individual. Kudos to him for sticking it to Comcast. That said, I'm not wild about the notion of dropping $30K of our collective money on running fiber to a single home out in the country.

This was during covid lockdowns, right? It wouldn't be fair for the govt to enforce a lockdown and not provide funds/grants for internet infra.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#366

Post by boplicity »

pessimizer wrote: post #342
boplicity wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're also assuming a 100% conversion rate, in terms of homes being wired for access. That's a pretty big assumption!

He's serving 600 households afaik, not offering service to 600 households. So the assumption is that there's a 0% attrition rate. Pretty safe assumption for monopolies, or for local services with half the price and 5x the bandwidth of the other choices.

We're talking about the ROI on the 417 houses he's installing access for, not his total customer base. 2.6m / (417*(55+30)) = months to $2.6 million in revenue.

However, the assumption was that all 417 houses connected will become customers. That's a pretty big assumption. The actual percentage could be 50% or 90%. I don't know -- but surely the answer will have a big impact on the time it takes to reach that amount of revenue.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#367

Post by lillecarl »

linsomniac wrote: post #323
chriscappuccio wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a fiber based service he would be getting very few calls

Except, potentially, for locates. In my conversation with one of our local ISPs that for a while was doing fiber builds but then stopped, locates were quite a nuisance for them. This was in a less rural location though.

What's a "locate"?

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#368

Post by lillecarl »

renewiltord wrote: post #314
hammock wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is an ASN and what advantage is there to have a low number?

It's an NFT representing early participation on the Internet.

Hardly non-fungible but yes, it means you've been on the internet for long.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#369

Post by charcircuit »

deelowe wrote: post #254
charcircuit wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G internet is no replacement for wired internet. The latency is terrible for use cases like gaming.

I thought 5G was in the range of 1-10ms.

You are thinking of 5G mmwave which trades off better range for better speed and latency. For maximizing coverage you are looking at something that looks like 4G.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#370

Post by pessimizer »

devmunchies wrote: post #362
pessimizer wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to skate past the fact that difficult customers and maintenance aren't why monopolies are expensive, in fact they're the things that are most amenable to economies of scale, so bigger gets cheaper . The real question is: why does he have to get larger than the 600 homes in his nearby rural area, ever? Why does his goal have to be to defeat and replace Comcast rather than to supply internet service to his ne…

the same reason one would file for patents without any intent of enforcing them. For defense and security. I would say that to attempt to have zero growth/shrinkage is difficult in business. The market is always changing, people's preferences change, etc. If you try to stagnate you will likely find yourself shrinking, either because demand changes, or there are mixups in supply (competitors). If shrinking is the only…

The reason he exists is because the competition is bad. If the competition is good, he has no reason to exist. The goal is to supply 600 rural households with broadband at a reasonable price, not to own 600 households.
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