[lug] OT: Starting an ISP...

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 07:16:14AM -0700, tshooter91 at earthlink.net wrote:
>I've now moved to Parachute, which is on the western slope.  The only
>ISP possibilities right now are dialup out of Rifle, broadband through
>Earthlink (or similar) satellite service, or wireless broadband through
>netbeam.

Geeze, I remember a time when I would have been happy to have *ANY ONE*
of those choices available.  ;-)

>what it would take to start an ISP.  I know some have worked on co-op

To start a coop you need to start talking to people in the community and
find enough people that are interested in the connectivity...  We were
talking to somone up in Hot Sulphur and she was saying that they have
fiber, but no net connectivity because while people there are
interested, nobody is so interested that they want to PAY for it.


>other possibilities there might be.  I guess I'm just too cheap to pay
>the high monthly fee and don't like the proprietary equipment that the

Your heart definitely can't handle being an ISP then...

Even doing it on the cheap you're probably talking around $5,000 to get
up-stream net connectivity and basic equipment to be a dial-up ISP, and
at least $1,000/month for line charges, IP connectivity, and phone lines.
If you want to distribute net via wireless, figure up to $10k per tower...

Sean
-- 
 "I can sum it up in one word:  Indescribable!"  -- Gonzo
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995.  Qmail, Python, SysAdmin
      Back off man. I'm a scientist.   http://HackingSociety.org/