Start Your Own ISP • Hacker News Board

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#71

Post by tnorthcutt » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

tegansnyder wrote: post #9

I started one of the first 56k dial up ISPs in Nebraska when I was 13 years old with the help of my parents. In high school I partnered with some friends after reading a CNET article about a WISP in Washington state. My friend's dad had a few businesses that needed to share a T1 line so we connected them wirelessly and sold the excess capacity to farmers in rural Nebraska and Kansas. It was an amazing experience. Wor…

+1 for hearing more about this experience. If you wrote about it, please do share a link.

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#72

Post by bjt2n3904 » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 12:45 AM UTC

What have you found works well for weather proofing? What is the weather like in your service area? Any good stories or discoveries?

I seem to remember a funny video on YouTube where a tech opened a radome and a metric ton of acorns fell out. I'd pull it up, but I'm on mobile.

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#73

Post by fataliss » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 12:52 AM UTC

In the middle of LA and I only have 2 providers, 20mbps from ATT or 60 from Spectrum aka TimeWarner. Realistically I get ~50mbps from TW. I know that the LA area has TONS of internet access issue, where only newer buildings might get fiber. Even at work it was a whole ordeal for my company to get fiber to the building. This kind of solution in a city setup like LA, where most of it is flat, it rains 2ice a year and barely has any trees (palm trees don't cover much), seems ideal!

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#74

Post by grahamburger » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:07 AM UTC

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #72

What have you found works well for weather proofing? What is the weather like in your service area? Any good stories or discoveries? I seem to remember a funny video on YouTube where a tech opened a radome and a metric ton of acorns fell out. I'd pull it up, but I'm on mobile.

Oh wow lots of things yes! I think my scariest infrastructure-meets-nature moment was looking down as I took the last step off a tower and seeing I was about to step on a rattle snake.

At my current company we're in a lovely area (Bay area, no wonder everyone wants to live here!) Without too much weather to deal with.

In the past I've built networks in the Rocky Mountains (Utah, Idaho) and desert areas (Texas, Nevada, New Mexico) and Louisiana. So dealing with snow, ice, rain and lightning are the biggest issues I've seen. I'm planning a whole section dedicated to these things - sign up for updates on the site so you don't miss it :)

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#75

Post by iooi » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

tegansnyder wrote: post #9

I started one of the first 56k dial up ISPs in Nebraska when I was 13 years old with the help of my parents. In high school I partnered with some friends after reading a CNET article about a WISP in Washington state. My friend's dad had a few businesses that needed to share a T1 line so we connected them wirelessly and sold the excess capacity to farmers in rural Nebraska and Kansas. It was an amazing experience. Wor…

>We had our ups and downs

If it was intentional, great job :)

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#76

Post by VectorLock » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:13 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #51

Fiber cables are cheaper, and has much more capacity. The problem is getting them cables in the ground. If you can solve that, there's your unicorn startup.

I have a solution. I call it.. a trencher.

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#77

Post by VectorLock » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

I'd love to see a "Getting your community/municipality to install fiber" version of this.

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#78

Post by cottsak » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:18 AM UTC

re: https://startyourownisp.com/posts/introduction/ I think you mean "Customer-premises equipment" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer-premises_equipment rather than Customer Premise Equipment.

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#79

Post by newman314 » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:23 AM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #37

grahamburger wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have in my plan to include a section like that, not quite there yet though. But in general legal challenges are less of a problem than you might think - most of the legal challenges you hear about with running an ISP come from things like who owns/is allowed to use conduit, right of way for trenching new lines, those kinds of things. With wireless you sidestep all of that. 75mbps is what we feel like we ca…

Also I should add - what I've found is that the municipalities are somewhere between neutral and really excited to have another provider in town, as long as you're not putting too much ugly equipment on people's houses. Sometimes the municipality is a really great partner and will help find relay sites, etc. It's the incumbent cable cos who don't like the competition.

Cool, are you looking to expand inland (Danville, San Ramon etc.) at some point?

I'd certainly be interested in an option other than Comcast. However, I do admit to being spoiled with the 200+Mbps that I'm currently getting.

Re: Start Your Own ISP

#80

Post by stickmangallows » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 1:24 AM UTC

This is perfect. I started the ball rolling on my own ISP last month and have gathered advice from another local ISP and online sources. So far I've gotten one quote of $950/month for resellable 100/100mbps fiber, I'm about to start drumming up local support, and I have some various ideas about how to connect everything together. This will certainly help it along.