
Start Your Own ISP - tomcam
https://startyourownisp.com
======
tegansnyder
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. Working with networking gear, setting up
FreeBSD servers, learning about NEMA enclosures, antennas, polarity, frequency
hopping FHSS vs DSSS, 2.4,5.2,5.8GHz, and 900Mhz. We had our ups and downs and
learned a lot about what gear worked the best. My senior year of high school
we sold the company. I still browse my google history to feel nostalgia from
those days :)

~~~
guiambros
+1. I had a similar experience, starting one of the first ISPs back in Brazil,
in 94-95. Me and my two co-founders came from an academic background, so we
were using BITNET for a few years by then, and saw firsthand when the internet
started to open up for commercial access.

Overall it was a great learning experience, but incredibly challenging. There
was nothing like OP's guide (or HN, or Google for that matter), so the
knowledge had to come from books, Usenet news, and mail lists. It helped that
we had experience managing Unix servers and WAN networks at the University,
but still had _tons_ of things to figure out, from setting up dial-up lines,
to keeping httpd servers up and running (we decided to use Linux 0.99 beta
from the get-go, but it kept crashing, usually in the middle of the night;
later we discovered it was a race condition in the multi-serial port card
driver, which manifested only when several ports were under heavy use, hence
only happening at night).

Although we could solve most of the technical challenges, we were _absolutely
clueless_ on how to run a business: selling, bizdev, billing customers, hiring
and building teams, etc. I have fond memories for those (usually bad)
decisions, but can't stop thinking how things would be different if I could
magically go back and do it all over again :)

We quickly reached a few thousand customers, and realized it was turning into
a capital intensive business - phone lines in Brazil in the 90's were crazily
expensive, plus Cisco routers, server upgrades, etc. We decided to pivot
towards B2B, thus becoming one of the first corporate ISPs: web hosting,
security consulting, leased lines, some web development.

We sold the company 5 years later, when the market started consolidating,
right before the dotcom crash.

~~~
swah
Fellow brazilian here - would love to hear your story on a longer form if it
exists.

------
grahamburger
Hey everyone! Author here. Happy to answer questions. Thanks for posting
@tomcam!

Just a quick note about me - I currently work with the great folks at
common.net running an ISP that is similar but not exactly like what's
described here. Look us up if you're in East Bay maybe we can get you better
Internet service! This site is not associated with common.net, though.

~~~
magneticmagnum
Hi Graham, thanks for authoring and sharing such an interesting topic!

My main question is, how is the latency of these wireless networks? How well
do these roof antennas perform in rain or covered in snow?

Is gaming suitable with wireless ISPs such as common.net?

And finally, what are the biggest complaints from your customers?

~~~
aphextron
Also very interested in knowing average latency numbers for your network,
Graham.

~~~
grahamburger
Most of our customers see 3 to 12 ms round trip times to the edge of our
network.

~~~
aphextron
That's incredible, thanks. Can't wait to dump Comcast.

------
NotSammyHagar
Wow, this is fascinating! I would love to invest and start a wireless ISP on
the eastside of Seattle. Suppose you have an area that is flat with lots of
exposure, where everyone hates Comcast (maybe that last part is superfluous).
I would think you'd find plenty of programmer customers if you have a say 200
mbit wireless connection without bandwidth caps (or maybe something insane
like 10 tb/month). This seems like a much better area to invest in instead of
putting more money in my 401k. It's not so much much money, less than two
year's 401k contributions to run it for a year and see if it catches on.

I hate comcast with a passion, they are on the only provider in my area.
Here's another fantasy, I imagine two points of presence, one at my house. I
run fiber to my house as part of this business, then I've got infinite
capacity. Who's up for this?

How much does it cut out if it rains, probably that is a problem here.

~~~
mseebach
It seems like there'd be a market for a "ISPaaS" style company. This company
would consult on the setup, in the style of this guide, but would remote-admin
all the gear, keep track of updates, security settings, make sure everything
is documented, run 24/7 NOC monitoring, spot bottlenecks early and recommend
upgrades, review site access contracts (or provide standard contracts), run
billing and customer service etc. Basically, all the things that are easier
and cheaper to run at scale. Their business model would be to take a cut of
billing. The local owner would scout, deal with negotiating site access and
provide the capital. The ISPaaS could provide detailed standard/lightly
customised installation documents that could be handed to local contractors,
or handled by the owner. They could also maintain a stash of marketing
collateral and website templates and of course provide a forum for network
owners to share ideas and best practices.

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) It's possible that this could turn in to something like that.
When I originally started writing it that's exactly what I had in mind,
actually - but I have since started working with common.net and I'm quite
happy there.

If this is something people are interested in though reach out to me! I may be
able to line something like this up.

~~~
cweagans
I am _very_ interested in this. Making it dead simple to set up an ISP would
be a very awesome thing.

~~~
grahamburger
shoot me an email graham at startyourownisp.com.

~~~
cweagans
Sent!

------
leesalminen
Great work! I recently moved to a rural area. My options were dialup,
satellite or WISP. I chose to sign up with the WISP and it has beat
expectations so far.

It’s run by 2 older guys who do software dev in Boulder. They use all Ubiquiti
gear, backhaul with microwave and then directional WiFi between the houses.

It’s quite impressive. We’re in a heavily mountainous area, handling ~2k
vertical feet and ~20 miles back to a fiber line.

Now if only I could get symmetrical 20mbps. Currently at 5/2 and it is a bit
slow. From what I understand they recently got licensed for some new spectrum.
Fingers crossed!

Watching them has really made me want to either join them or work on my own
WISP.

~~~
grahamburger
It's surprisingly feasible to do just that (hence why I made the site!) almost
everywhere I go in the U.S. and even on a recent trip through Italy I see
telltale signs of WISPs. I think it's a lot more common than people realize.

------
conexions
I had looked into doing something similar around 10 years ago. A couple of
things I found useful that aren't mentioned:

Find a program that can measure the propagation of EM waves(for a WISP that's
normally microwaves) Quite a few are listed at
[http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-review-propagation-
sof...](http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-review-propagation-software-
nonvoacap.htm)

I really liked the book Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks[1]
if you're completely new to large scale wireless.

[1] [http://www.ciscopress.com/store/deploying-license-free-
wirel...](http://www.ciscopress.com/store/deploying-license-free-wireless-
wide-area-networks-9781587050695)

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) great suggestions, thanks. If you don't mind I'll probably add
these links to the site somewhere.

------
arca_vorago
My very first real job at 16 was a WISP that served a small town in Arizona
(~8k pop), by having a microwave tower on top of a hill in the middle of the
town and just tying a few t1s in. The factor that got this WISP traction
though was that we were doing family friendly filtering for customers, and in
a religious town that went over pretty well. I left because I ended up doing
too much of the work for $6 dollars an hour and I was just discovering "hacker
culture" and started to disagree with the filtering we were doing.

I think my main question about starting a WISP these days is how the hell can
I find out who to talk to about getting access to a certain tower and if there
is fiber at the tower available for tie-in.

My grandparents live in a mountain village that gets lots of tourists in the
summer, and it's in a valley with a large tower on top of one of the mountains
that has los for the entire valley, but I can't seem to figure out who to ask
about costs/contracts etc. With the tourist influx though I could easily see
it being fairly profitable, and there is no other ISP option besides sat and
frontiernet.

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) This is actually probably the hardest part of the whole thing -
finding places to put the equipment and negotiating leases with all the right
people.

If it's an actual cell phone tower you're looking at you can usually find it
on the FCC website and find out who manages the tower. Most cell phone towers
are managed by a third party management company (like Crown Castle or American
Tower). The management company can usually tell you if there's fiber although
their info is often outdated or just wrong. Even if the tower is owned and
managed directly by a cell phone company they are still required to allow you
to collocate (FCC!) but they will usually drag their feet through the process
- plan on 9-12months and lots of red tape.

As for finding fiber - you can use a paid solution like fiberlocator.com. You
can also drive around and look for fiber infrastructure, although admittedly
it's hard to recognize if you don't know what you're looking for (or even if
you do.) Frustratingly even when you find a company with fiber in the area
they usually won't tell you where exactly the termination points are. You can
sometimes give them a list of addresses and they'll give back yes/no for each
one, though.

~~~
vvanders
> managed directly by a cell phone company they are still required to allow
> you to collocate (FCC!) but they will usually drag their feet through the
> process

No way! Is that only for ISPs or could I get a ham repeater up there if I had
enough time/money?

~~~
grahamburger
I believe you could put a ham radio up there but it's quite expensive - most
tower contracts I've seen are $1200-$2500/month. Also if the tower is already
full (at it's structural capacity for wind loading) then you would have to pay
for upgrades before you could hang your HAM (which would be tremendously
expensive!)

~~~
vvanders
Uf! Yeah, that's pretty spendy but not out of line with what I expected.

Very cool though, always awesome to hear how this stuff works in practice.

------
fataliss
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!

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Someone please set it up in Hollywood

------
farazbabar
I have been wanting to do this in Phoenix, AZ. We have then ultimate duopoly
between cox and century link and no other alternatives for most neighborhoods.
I find it perplexing and think that market exists to offer better service. I
have some experience launching an ISP back in Pakistan when I was still a
teenager but this guide is exactly the kind of motivation I needed to get me
going.

~~~
thinkloop
You will have to hook into Cox or CenturyLink, it's not really competition I
don't think.

~~~
V99
Other companies have fiber around the Phoenix metro area too, including SRP
(the power company) to major buildings and along the paths they run power
lines.
[http://www.srptelecom.com/darkfiber/networkmap.aspx](http://www.srptelecom.com/darkfiber/networkmap.aspx)

------
Nelkins
Guide seems like a great fit for people trying to be on the ISP side of
projects like Althea Mesh [http://altheamesh.com/use-
cases/wisp](http://altheamesh.com/use-cases/wisp)

------
neosavvy
This reminds me of these guys out in Brooklyn building out a sick fiber
network.

[http://bkfiber.com/](http://bkfiber.com/)

They have some of the fastest speeds in NYC and they had uptime surpassing
numerous big names like Spectrum and Optimum after Sandy.

~~~
joejohnson
Their speeds don't seem very fast: [http://bkfiber.com/plans-service-
areas.php](http://bkfiber.com/plans-service-areas.php)

With Verizon Fios you can get 100 Mbps symmetric at $80/month. (Also, why are
bkfiber's speeds not symmetric? I thought all fiber connections had upload ==
download.)

~~~
nerflad
Wow, $75 for 15/3... I wish them well but that is seriously not competitive at
all.

~~~
neosavvy
I forgot to mention, these guys don't just optimize their speed test to show
high results.

They are getting real unthrottled results from their users who have had
similar speeds from Spectrum / Timewarner / Optimum.

I think their pitch (at least a few years ago) was that they would deliver the
actual speeds they are promising equally.

------
simonjgreen
Surprised no mention of Mikrotik in your vendors list. Ubiquity are great
though and would also be my first suggestion.

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) I debated adding MikroTik because I heard a rumor that they were
backing off on their wireless products and focusing more on routing /
switching. So I should at least add them as an option routing/switching
hardware.

But then they just released a 60Ghz short range radio ... so maybe the rumor
was wrong!

~~~
nerdbaggy
Any links about the rumor? That would be interesting if they switched
directions

~~~
grahamburger
I think it was something I heard in person .. can't remember where now!
Probably at Wispapalooza.

~~~
d00bianista
From what I've observed, a while back they at least stopped selling their
products in the US and then appeared again with FCC approval and limited radio
frequencies in the US-models. Non-US -models are unlimited and did not seem to
disappear off the shelves during that time. All of the products available
today, to my knowledge, come in both US and Non-US -variants.

Having been employed by an ISP and decided to do something with less night
time hours and more floors above ground with windows, I have the habit of
doing free consultations (meddling) in order to stay up to date.

Currently I warmly recommend Mikrotik (not their CRS-series though) since they
have very little limitations. The most recent case involved pre-purchased
AirOS-devices and it's lack of virtual AP:s. Why I find this a drawback is how
Ethernet and Internet Protocol are designed. It was never meant to be that
customers should share broadcast domains, a privilege that enterprise
customers are granted but consumers rarely are.

To make a first class network experience for both ISP and customer, give every
legal entity their own broadcast domain and subnet (read: routing in access
layer). As WISP:s, you should be conservative on allowing unnecesary brodcast-
packets to propagate, especially through half-duplex links. This also defends
your network from rogue DHCP and what not that might bring the entire network
more or less down. I've designed a few FTTH-networks this way and these
networks have never been disturbed by customer shenanigans.

I route because my cheap devices can route ;)

------
ilaksh
Would it be feasible to provide an alternate to fiber for intranet within an
ISP over a city using FSOC (freespace optical communications)? I kind of doubt
it is practical but it seems like having some amazing high bandwidth safe way
to transmit data from private homes rooftops over significant distance would
solve another one of the technical/logistical hurdles (digging streets and
laying fiber) keeping monopolies in place.

~~~
grahamburger
I would not use free space optics for this but there are licensed wireless
backhauls that can do this with high enough capacity and reliability. Feel
free to contact me directly (contact info in the about me section of this
site) for more info.

~~~
nickpsecurity
FSO was one of neatest things I learned to solve the "fiber is expensive to
run in cities" problem back when I studied wireless. Just one class on that.
I'd like to know why you recommend against FSO for this, if there's any time
you would recommend it for smaller players, or drawbacks compared to LTE. I
just haven't seen anyone bring up FSO in a while and wondered why.

~~~
grahamburger
Possibly you know more about it than I do! When I've used it (admittedly only
once) it was very susceptible to anything in the air (dust, rain, snow) and
was not very reliable over even a very short distance (less than 30meters
iirc). I guess I can see how it could work with lots of buffering so there's
not much packet loss but it seems like that would negatively affect latency.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Well, they told us they work around a mile or so in good conditions with more
in near-perfect conditions. They could miss a _lot_ of packets if weather
interference happened. So, they were often paired up with another link (slow
wired or fast wireless) as backup for highest-priority stuff. They were also
sold as more secure from taps. They were also really expensive back when I
studied them. Aside from being low volume, that was probably because (as our
course materials said) they were deployed in areas where laying fiber was
_really, really expensive._ So, maximizing profit meant charging significantly
less than that but not too much less, ya know? ;)

A long time ago, I looked it up again to see what the cheapest, budget setup
was. I still have this bookmark of an open design I found:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA)

Past that, I don't know any more since I just had basic training on it as I
said.

~~~
Swannie
Whoa, RONJA - that's a blast from the past!

------
stickmangallows
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.

~~~
aphextron
What has been your biggest hang up so far? Have you worked out a viable
business plan?

~~~
stickmangallows
It takes weeks to actually get the fiber quotes. I only got that one quote
last week after a month and still trying to get others. Now I need to spread
the word more and gauge how much interest there is before I can really commit
to it. So far, it seems promising.

What finally got me started up on it was seeing how fast and cheap some of the
wireless equipment had gotten, specifically Ubiquiti's wireless mesh
equipment. Still need a lot of research on how to engineer a solution to my
situation.

------
simonpantzare
Brings back memories. 15 or so years ago in rural Sweden, me and some friends
were frustrated about only having access to 56 k. There was this local
networking guy who set up the networks at local LAN parties that we asked for
help. It ended up with the brave one of us climbing a local mast to see how
many roofs we could see. Then we called the mast/tower owner to ask what it
would cost to put some equipment there. We could see around 20 roofs and it
would cost ~2k USD/mo. On top of that we'd have to pay for other equipment of
course. We figured it wouldn't be worth it really.

Years later we got ADSL but last year they cut the copper wires and now
wireless (up to 4G) is the only option, and it works so so.

There's kind of a battle going on between proper fiber (realistic because of
subsidies/EU grants) and WISP proponents currently. Marketers of the latter
like to call it "air fiber" but that's not really fair IMHO.

------
rb808
Anyone created shared access for their condo building? Our building is wired
for xfinity cable and Fios gig Fiber, but I was thinking of having a building
provided internet for a low price. I'm not sure if Verizon will give us a
wholesale connection when they'd prefer everyone pay separately.

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) I'm interested in talking to you more directly about this.
Contact info is in the about me section on this site, shoot me an email if you
get a chance.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I notice you're trying to answer a lot of people's questions in private.
That's really kind of you. I am concerned that there's probably a lot more
people out there with similar questions that would take a lot of time to help.
Like in my other comment, I suggest making notes during all of those exchanges
to see if you have any general tips you could share. You don't even have to do
full write-ups on them: just a FAQ page for this thread or something that
warns on top you are dropping it somewhat unfiltered due to being low on time.
It can say email you for any follow-up questions which you might just put back
in those parts of the FAQ. Then, people can just share the link, discuss what
was said on other forums, generate more info, and so on.

------
Chaebixi
I'd love to do something like this, but I'm too afraid of dealing with the
police if someone uses my service to do anything illegal. If it's very small
(e.g. a neighborhood), might they just accuse the operator (me) and I'd have
to prove my innocence?

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) My experience has been that if you're up front with the police
about what you're doing they won't beat your door down and haul you away. What
usually happens is that the police look up the IP address they've identified
as a problem and then check the ARIN database to see who owns it. ARIN is
going to give them the name of the ISP not of the subscriber, so they're
accustomed to then calling the ISP to subpoena the name of the customer. If
you purchase service from a fiber provider then the name in ARIN's database
will either be your provider or (if they SWIP the IPs to you) the name you
give your ISP.

In the past what I've seen is that the police will ask you to identify who was
using an IP and also to help them catch the person in the act if they do the
thing again. So far I haven't seen them get too pushy if you can't do the
first thing as long as you're willing to do the second.

~~~
mhasbini
Thanks for your great work!

> In the past what I've seen is that the police will ask you to identify who
> was using an IP and also to help them catch the person in the act if they do
> the thing again

What's the method to catch the person in the act? Is it something like
creating a rule: "if [this website] was visited between [foo] and [bar] notify
me" at the routing level?

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) When I've been involved in this it's been using a traffic
sniffer (tcpdump or iptraf or wireshark) to watch the customer's traffic and
see what they connect to.

------
fouadf
Shameless plug: if you're using Mikrtotik give
[http://zima.cloud](http://zima.cloud) a go, it saves you the hassle of owning
a radius server, among other nice features

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

------
caio1982
That's some good info and knowledge shared there, thanks for this! I have a
question as I just started reading it on mobile (skimming it): does the cost
apply mostly to US or that could be extrapolated to other places? Is the total
conservative or what? I mean, I had to idea how expensive it is to set up a
small ISP, at least considering my local currency and the fact that there were
people actually doing this in the past here. Apparently it costs the same as
1/3 of a house in Brazil (nothing fancy, but decent in an average city). In
fact I would expect the costs to be a bit higher than stated, right? Again,
thanks for sharing all that!

------
cottsak
re:
[https://startyourownisp.com/posts/introduction/](https://startyourownisp.com/posts/introduction/)
I think you mean "Customer-premises equipment"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer-
premises_equipment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer-premises_equipment)
rather than Customer __Premise __Equipment.

------
Gnarl
Hate to be the grumpy uncle at the party, but seriously, you don't want to
build a business on microwave radiation based wireless. Why? Its a potent
biological toxin and the wireless industry is just walking dead until
Governments are forced to shut them down to prevent getting bankrupted through
cost to the health-care system. The scientific evidence is abundant and its
strong. Countries are already passing laws to reduce exposure. Ignore at your
peril.

~~~
sophistry
>a potent biological toxin

 _A toxin is a poisonous substance produced within living cells or organisms
[...]

Toxins can be small molecules, peptides, or proteins that are capable of
causing disease on contact with or absorption by body tissues interacting with
biological macromolecules such as enzymes or cellular receptors._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxin)

~~~
Gnarl
Quote from my #1 ref. below: "Analysis of the currently available peer-
reviewed scientific literature reveals molecular effects induced by low-
intensity RFR in living cells; this includes significant activation of key
pathways generating reactive oxygen species (ROS), activation of peroxidation,
oxidative damage of DNA and changes in the activity of antioxidant enzymes."

~~~
sophistry
Microwave radiation is not itself a toxin though. It may or may not _create_
toxins, but EM radiation is not a molecule, peptide, or protein.

------
yorby
If you have fiber to your home from a local ISP, can you convert it to a
business account for using it for a WISP? (Comcast offers fiber/2000 Mbps in
my area)

~~~
ac29
Tack a 0 or two onto the monthly cost, and possibly. Comcast (and most other
large ISPs) contractually prohibits you from reselling either residential or
business connections, so you'd have to negotiate something else.

------
z3t4
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.

~~~
swalsh
I think this is more common in rural area where it's not economically feasible
to run fiber to everyone.

------
matte_black
In practice, is this profitable?

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) I personally know probably a dozen or so people who have built a
network like this, got enough customers to live comfortably for a while, and
are either still doing that or eventually sold to a larger company and moved
on to other things. So yes it can be profitable on a small scale.

~~~
ImSkeptical
Thanks for putting this together and sharing it. Really interesting read.

I know it's a bit personal, but would you mind attaching numbers to the notion
of small scale profitability?

~~~
grahamburger
It varies pretty dramatically depending on how much you have to pay for fiber,
how many customers you're able to get per tower, what you're able to charge
(competition) and what type of customers you get (business / residential /
mdu).

My back of the napkin calculations usually show that to give one person a
health salary ($80-120k) and pay a few contractors or lower wage workers to do
some of the grunt work you would need 300-500 residential customers.

~~~
matte_black
And how long should you expect it to take to reach 300-500 customers with
average effort? The operation wouldn’t be profitable from day one so you’d
need to have some runway.

------
vermilingua
I'm trying to translate this into Australian. Is there anyone here who's
run/worked an ISP or WISP in Australia that can weigh in on how applicable
this is to our situation? Confidence in our telcos is at an all time low, and
seeing smaller WISPs crop up to put the transnationals back on track would be
fantastic.

~~~
Swannie
It's quite applicable.

There are already plenty in Aus: Clear Networks (VIC - Melbourne & many
regional) BigAir (NSW) Uniti (VIC - Melbourne, SA - Adelaide) The Signal co
(ACT - Canberra) Netspeed (ACT - Canberra) nuSkope (SA - Adelaide, QLD -
Brisbane) Red Broadband (WA - Perth) Node 1 (WA - Perth & Geraldton) AirFiber
(NSW - West Sydney)

And others.

Good discussions on
[http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/18](http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/18)

Your biggest challenge is likely to be access to dark fibre or leased-lines at
acceptable prices that allow you to make money. Licensed wireless backhaul is
often the way to go, but that gets expensive quickly and also some existing
spectrum there is likely to get re-allocated to 5G.

------
client4
Oh hey, we have a slack channel for this. Email staff@tsi.io, we'll combine
what we have with what you have.

------
aphextron
Direct link to the author's price breakdown:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jjUYOQMuZ4cRyTv1M5X8...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jjUYOQMuZ4cRyTv1M5X8HGtrKFiW96_gNlfG8BBzRN0/edit#gid=0)

------
bjt2n3904
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.

~~~
grahamburger
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 :)

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pascalxus
Is anyone starting anything here in the bay area Eastbay? say around the tri-
valley area?

Judging by how extensive the guide is, I guess there's a lot of room to make
things easier? perhaps someone can build a suite of tools to assist in this
process, perhaps automate things?

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Googolaire
This is amazing I have tried even today to research starting an ISP it is
still such a hard thing to learn about. Not sure if that's just because the
isp hides it or what haha thanks so much for your share more info would be
awesome

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Googolaire
I have tried even now to learn this stuff it's as if it's being censorsed haha
its still hard but I can't even imagine back then. I would love to learn all
you know on this subject

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known
Sounds like
[https://www.liveport.com/services/](https://www.liveport.com/services/)

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remir
Great initiative! I would like to know what you think of Artemis Network's
stuff? Is it legit?

~~~
miscreanity
I can say one thing... after having learned most of what the article outlines
the hard way, I'm still waiting for hardware to trial.

Meanwhile, MIMO capabilities are improving steadily; not quite the same
approach but functional and proven for use today. Never plan a business model
on another company's promises.

Another piece of delayed hardware was Mimosa's window CPE that never made it
to full production due to underperforming results.

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mgav
Has anyone done this who would share their experience? Thanks!

~~~
tomcam
The website is completely free and was Created by a guy who is doing it all
right now – his ISP already works great

~~~
neosavvy
I just moved to a new town and was thinking it would be great to do something
like this. I was inspired by the guys I posted in the earlier article.

Curious about startup costs/financing.

~~~
AFNobody
$12-36K for 12 months fiber. ~$36k in software/equipment costs is probably a
safe floor. Lease is toooooooo variable to ballpark.

I wouldn't do it with less than $100k on the assumption you are burning money
for the first year and any income is reinvested into marketing.

You probably need a minimum of 500 people for this to be viable.

~~~
grahamburger
(author here) this sounds about right to me. I definitely know people who have
gotten started for less (a friend recently just sold a car for $10k and went
for it - making enough now to support his family) but obviously safer to have
some cushion.

I usually guess 300-500 customers to be able to pay yourself a reasonable
salary and maintain the business, depending on how much you hire vs do
yourself.

~~~
neosavvy
This is really good to hear, as it seems like a very viable business in a
small town like the one I have moved to.

We have a high population density in the downtown area and folks favor local
over corporate offerings around here.

Keep up the good work on documentation - it was very interesting to read
yesterday.

One aside, what do you consider an appropriate salary to pay yourself when you
reach that 300-500 user mark.

I currently run a business and it's been a situation where at times I'll trim
my salary back, and make my money on the backend when I am profitable. I'd
presume much of the same approach would work here, just curious.

Also seems 100MB rates down and 5mb up in my neighborhood costs around
$40/month - do you try to compete heavily on rates?

~~~
grahamburger
Hi Neo!

> what do you consider an appropriate salary to pay yourself when you reach
> that 300-500 user mark.

Depends on your situation obviously but something like 80-120k.

> Also seems 100MB rates down and 5mb up in my neighborhood costs around
> $40/month - do you try to compete heavily on rates?

That's not too bad! If people are satisfied with that then it might be tough
to get customers. It could be that those are advertised speeds but people
aren't actually seeing those speeds, esp at night when they try to watch
netflix, so that could be a selling point - even a lower but more consistent
speed package can sometimes win over a flashy marketed package that doesn't
deliver. Also if people really hate the cable company enough (many do!) then
they'll switch even for the same price. Doesn't have to be the lowest cost
option (but it definitely helps!)

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ohiovr
Thanks for sharing your experience!

