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Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

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Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#41

Post by montasaurus »

manav wrote: post #28

What kind of residential density would you require? Is this only feasible for MDUs?

It makes sense for a wide range of densities. Getting MDUs is really nice, because your marginal cost to serve another customer in the building is really low. Downside is that it may be more competitive. Rural areas present a different business model, where you may have to go long distances and charge enough to support the infrastructure that requires. Single family homes in suburban/urban densities are right in between.

Each of the cases can work, you just need to make sure you're running the right kind of ISP for the market.

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#42

Post by willart4food »

This is interesting, I do have a few questions that I could not find in your FAQ:

- how do you provision the last mile? Copper? Fiber? or Wireless?

- Do you rely on the Local Exchanges? or is it on a case-by-case basis?

- Is your typical ISP customer selling to business? Individuals? or is best-fit an apartment complex/business building?

Thank you.

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#43

Post by komali2 »

From what I've read so far, this is fucking awesome. I have a couple questions about your "operators":

1. Do you mean Comcast/ATT i.e. is this only a last-mile solution that must connect to some hub of theirs?

2. "We don't sell personal information or throttle traffic (and our operators won't either)" - how do you know this is true now, will be true in the future, and if your operators are comcast/AT&T why did they agree to this? (given that they are hell incarnate and would sell a baby to satan for profit ;) )

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#45

Post by montasaurus »

atourgates wrote: post #38

How do you guys handle the physical side of network operations with your partners? I live in a rural area in Idaho, and we've got a pretty great WISP here. But, I know that the owners and employees are close to retirement age, and I've often thought of approaching them to see if they have any plans to sell the business. How do you handle physical, local network management with your partners? Things like installing ha…

We monitor your infrastructure (out of band, where possible) and let you know when things go wrong and how to fix it. When the fixing requires physical intervention, we guide you through that. Similarly for installations, where we teach you how to do them and you (or your employees or contractors) perform the physical installation. We'll help you more generally with the business as well, and share advice on how to effectively run an ISP.

Let us know if you speak with them--we're interested in having an existing ISP in the batch.

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#46

Post by BroadcastSunny »

Net Neutrality has expired but remember it's on the senate floor this week to bring it back. If you are for net neutrality, contact your senator. (You can find their contact information in the upper left hand corner at https://senate.gov )

Despite that, I'm glad to see that you're doing this even if net neutrality does come back. I remember the days of Earthlink and Mindspring. Now the ISP companies have become "too big to fail" and I'd like to see alternatives.

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#47

Post by dsl »

montasaurus wrote: post #37
dsl wrote: post #25

Starting an ISP is relatively easy... get an uplink, some rack space somewhere, a router, hire a smart high school kid for tech support, and you are off to the races. The really hard part is last-mile connectivity. You are either on someone elses lines (cable, DSL, etc), dealing with NIMBYs to bury your own lines, or working around line of site to do wireless. It isn't clear that you've solved this problem (or even f…

It's largely an infrastructure business at the end of the day, and not without its challenges. The real problem is that there are people willing to take on these challenges, but they get stuck as early as the "get an uplink" part of that process. Just digging into that piece, there are a lot of decisions. Burstable or dedicated? Why are they billing based on 95th percentile? How much bandwidth should I budget per sub…

Thats like saying you are helping people start a taxi business because they get confused when it comes to warranty options on buying their first car. If they don't have the fortitude to work out a transit contract, the ISP business might not be for them.

I think it would be better to frame your business as a franchise opportunity. At the end of the day it really sounds like your customers are a capital source.

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#49

Post by toomuchtodo »

gumby wrote: post #39
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Is what you're offering substantially substantive above https://startyourownisp.com ? I won't mince words: you're asking customers to outsource the core pieces of their business (netops, backhaul, billing) that they should be competent in, which puts them in a precarious position if you exhaust your runway, decide to move on to another venture, or are acquired by a less-than-ideal org. Full disclosure: Muncipal/coop…

> you're asking customers to outsource the core pieces of their business (netops, backhaul, billing) An alternative way to look at this is it's a "white label franchise" business where someone not steeped in the technology can do what they know best, likely acquiring and keeping customers. I don't know if it will work, but I'm interested to see. > Full disclosure: Muncipal/coop broadband proponent. Something like thi…

Definitely agree. Happy to see YC throw money at this to see what sticks.

Worst case scenario, the core gets gutted and replaced.

Re: Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit

#50

Post by montasaurus »

komali2 wrote: post #43

From what I've read so far, this is fucking awesome. I have a couple questions about your "operators": 1. Do you mean Comcast/ATT i.e. is this only a last-mile solution that must connect to some hub of theirs? 2. "We don't sell personal information or throttle traffic (and our operators won't either)" - how do you know this is true now, will be true in the future, and if your operators are comcast/AT&T why did they a…

Thanks! Going through Comcast / AT&T isn't the only path to the internet, plenty of other companies sell the backhaul services that we need--Hurricane Electric, Zayo, Cogent, CenturyLink, etc..

Monitoring traffic and throttling it are both network-level interventions that we won't implement or support in a way that can be abused like that. We don't want to expose our operators to the liability of even collecting this type of info.

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