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If I were a subscriber to "one of the largest WISPs in Spain" ... I'd be a bit concerned right now. Wow. To paraphrase: "It was working perfectly, so I didn't

by pbnjay 10y ago

If I were a subscriber to "one of the largest WISPs in Spain" ... I'd be a bit concerned right now. Wow. To paraphrase: "It was working perfectly, so I didn't bother checking for security updates, for my over 3000 access points, for over a year. Oh yeah and of course I exposed the admin interface over public http instead of something secure."

wmf 10y ago
WISP is a very hard business, so they can only survive by cutting corners. For many customers it's still worth it since they have no alternative.
- sathackr 10y ago
  Source please. I would very much disagree. I've been involved in the operation of several WISPS over the last 15 years and it's been my observation that they are typically run by people who do not understand basic networking and don't have the mindset to do things securely, and since they are small enough, they get away with it. And they make a ton of money doing it. Lets say I start a WISP in a typical Florida retirement community with 500 residential units. 50% penetration (because they don't have a choice) at $75/month per customer = $18,000/month. Get a 1GB Level3 fiber for $7000/month(it can be had cheaper). 8 to 1 oversubscribe rate gives you about 30mb/s per customer. Tower: $5000 Routers: $2500 Customer installation (Labor and equipment): Passed on to customer(about $200 each) Antennas and radios for tower: $2000 Operating labor $3000/month ( 1 person full time to do troubleshooting and support) So we have less than $10,000 build out, with up to $50,000 in customer equipment purchase. And $10,000/month in operating costs. 6 month ROI on the initial expense (Shorter if you can get all 250 hooked up in the frist month) then $96,000/yr in your pocket, minus Uncle Sam's cut of course. You could do the installs for free with a 1yr contract and still have a sub 12-month ROI What part of WISP is expensive?
  - wmf 10y ago
    My source is mostly Brett Glass's rants; I'm not sure how much of a crackpot he is. The concept of a suburban area that isn't already wired for DSL and/or cable sounds surprising to me. AFAIK WISPs are mostly in low-density rural areas which multiplies costs. I do get the impression that many WISPs are something like a hobby crossed with community service and aren't run professionally.
    - sathackr 10y ago
      I'm in FL -- there are many many small communities like Saddlebags Lakes Resort[1] that do not have any broadband services at all. The local cable/DSL providers have not seen it prudent to bother to provide service. I can list at least 100 similar communities. But you are correct many WISPs are in primarily rural areas, but then the costs are reduced if your customer base is reduced also, and you have the benefit of things like water towers, silos, etc... to use, often you can just give the owner of such structure free service in exchange for the use of it. The toughest area for a WISP is a heavily wooded rural area. Anywhere the ground is flat and trees are low or spares is a WISP paradise. This guy's blog[2] is usually fairly interesting, though I think he's drank a little too much of the Mimosa kool-aid. [1] http://www.saddlebaglakeresort.net/ http://www.saddlebaglakeresort.net/ (disclaimer: I am not involved in any way with the WISP that covers that area.) [2] http://muniwireless.com/author/roryconaway/ http://muniwireless.com/author/roryconaway/
    - jauer 10y ago
      Roughly speaking Brett Glass is to WISPs as Richard Stallman is to the modern open source ecosystem. Maybe did some important things back in the day but for the past 10 years the situation has largely shifted from idealism to pragmatism. Yes, there are a lot of WISPs that are run basically as a hobby. There are also a lot of WISPs (and more broadly xISPs) that do things professionally.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      Some places have areas where the cable company has no mandate for universal service in a particular town (because dumb/corrupt politicians negotiating franchise agreements). So pulling cable means laying out some astronomical capital expense. One of my dad's friends lives about 30 minutes from the NY state capitol and would have to pay $15k for the privilege to pay $80/mo for 30/5 cable service. Puts my dads friend in a tough place -- he's afraid that he won't be able to sell his home with only satellite internet as an option. Also remember that it's 2016, and phone companies (cough Verizon) have no interest in providing phone service anymore. I looked into getting a backup DSL connection -- the POTS equipment here is so decrepit that the most Verizon would offer was 1.5/0.5 DSL for $50. And I live in a city, about 2 miles from the the big regional Verizon CO. I opted for a TMobile hotspot instead.
  - dboreham 10y ago
    Very much a rosy financial analysis. First thing I'd say about this is that if you are paying $3k/mo (remember cost to employ someone >> their salary, so you are paying "bottom $" there), then you will certainly not have someone who has a deep and good understanding of network security. You have hence proven the parent's point. Source: I run a small WISP in my copious spare time and have been involved in the WISP online scene since it began.
    - sathackr 10y ago
      I agree I left out a lot of incidentals, but it wasn't meant to be an all-encompassing analysis, just some napkin numbers. The $3000/month isn't for someone with a deep and good understanding of network security -- that should be you (the one making the $96k piece) -- it's for someone that can answer the phone, help people set their routers to DHCP, etc... $17/hr isn't bad pay(at least around here) for someone with basic network knowledge. Also many places the bandwidth is cheaper, some it's more expensive, but, being a WISP, you might be in a position to pipe your bandwidth from somewhere cheap to where you are. If your bandwidth isn't cheap, then you provide 10mb/s service instead of 30. While not considered actual broadband, it's plenty for gaming, netflix, most general web usage.
      - jauer 10y ago
        Exactly. We usually aim for a 10-month ROI and that's using higher-end Cambium radios (way better for ops at scale than something like Ubiquiti), Juniper network gear, batteries on everything, and proper telco circuits. We also have a few thousand subs so we get economies of scale on transport and transit. (digression) There's a kind of WISP valley of death roughly between the hobby WISP (0-500 users) with a owner/operator and one or two employees, maybe running on business DOCSIS for upstream and Ubiquity and/or Mikrotik radios & routers and the professional carrier WISP (2-5k+ users) with biz people, experienced ops people, longhaul fiber or licensed microwave for backhaul, etc. Small WISPs often can't afford the time or money to be proper (if they even have the experience to know what proper is) until they pass the valley of death. Many fall to bankruptcy or burnout trying to get past the valley.

by pbnjay 10y ago

wmf 10y ago

WISP is a very hard business, so they can only survive by cutting corners. For many customers it's still worth it since they have no alternative.

sathackr 10y ago
Source please. I would very much disagree. I've been involved in the operation of several WISPS over the last 15 years and it's been my observation that they are typically run by people who do not understand basic networking and don't have the mindset to do things securely, and since they are small enough, they get away with it. And they make a ton of money doing it. Lets say I start a WISP in a typical Florida retirement community with 500 residential units. 50% penetration (because they don't have a choice) at $75/month per customer = $18,000/month. Get a 1GB Level3 fiber for $7000/month(it can be had cheaper). 8 to 1 oversubscribe rate gives you about 30mb/s per customer. Tower: $5000 Routers: $2500 Customer installation (Labor and equipment): Passed on to customer(about $200 each) Antennas and radios for tower: $2000 Operating labor $3000/month ( 1 person full time to do troubleshooting and support) So we have less than $10,000 build out, with up to $50,000 in customer equipment purchase. And $10,000/month in operating costs. 6 month ROI on the initial expense (Shorter if you can get all 250 hooked up in the frist month) then $96,000/yr in your pocket, minus Uncle Sam's cut of course. You could do the installs for free with a 1yr contract and still have a sub 12-month ROI What part of WISP is expensive?
- wmf 10y ago
  My source is mostly Brett Glass's rants; I'm not sure how much of a crackpot he is. The concept of a suburban area that isn't already wired for DSL and/or cable sounds surprising to me. AFAIK WISPs are mostly in low-density rural areas which multiplies costs. I do get the impression that many WISPs are something like a hobby crossed with community service and aren't run professionally.
  - sathackr 10y ago
    I'm in FL -- there are many many small communities like Saddlebags Lakes Resort[1] that do not have any broadband services at all. The local cable/DSL providers have not seen it prudent to bother to provide service. I can list at least 100 similar communities. But you are correct many WISPs are in primarily rural areas, but then the costs are reduced if your customer base is reduced also, and you have the benefit of things like water towers, silos, etc... to use, often you can just give the owner of such structure free service in exchange for the use of it. The toughest area for a WISP is a heavily wooded rural area. Anywhere the ground is flat and trees are low or spares is a WISP paradise. This guy's blog[2] is usually fairly interesting, though I think he's drank a little too much of the Mimosa kool-aid. [1] http://www.saddlebaglakeresort.net/ http://www.saddlebaglakeresort.net/ (disclaimer: I am not involved in any way with the WISP that covers that area.) [2] http://muniwireless.com/author/roryconaway/ http://muniwireless.com/author/roryconaway/
  - jauer 10y ago
    Roughly speaking Brett Glass is to WISPs as Richard Stallman is to the modern open source ecosystem. Maybe did some important things back in the day but for the past 10 years the situation has largely shifted from idealism to pragmatism. Yes, there are a lot of WISPs that are run basically as a hobby. There are also a lot of WISPs (and more broadly xISPs) that do things professionally.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Some places have areas where the cable company has no mandate for universal service in a particular town (because dumb/corrupt politicians negotiating franchise agreements). So pulling cable means laying out some astronomical capital expense. One of my dad's friends lives about 30 minutes from the NY state capitol and would have to pay $15k for the privilege to pay $80/mo for 30/5 cable service. Puts my dads friend in a tough place -- he's afraid that he won't be able to sell his home with only satellite internet as an option. Also remember that it's 2016, and phone companies (cough Verizon) have no interest in providing phone service anymore. I looked into getting a backup DSL connection -- the POTS equipment here is so decrepit that the most Verizon would offer was 1.5/0.5 DSL for $50. And I live in a city, about 2 miles from the the big regional Verizon CO. I opted for a TMobile hotspot instead.
- dboreham 10y ago
  Very much a rosy financial analysis. First thing I'd say about this is that if you are paying $3k/mo (remember cost to employ someone >> their salary, so you are paying "bottom $" there), then you will certainly not have someone who has a deep and good understanding of network security. You have hence proven the parent's point. Source: I run a small WISP in my copious spare time and have been involved in the WISP online scene since it began.
  - sathackr 10y ago
    I agree I left out a lot of incidentals, but it wasn't meant to be an all-encompassing analysis, just some napkin numbers. The $3000/month isn't for someone with a deep and good understanding of network security -- that should be you (the one making the $96k piece) -- it's for someone that can answer the phone, help people set their routers to DHCP, etc... $17/hr isn't bad pay(at least around here) for someone with basic network knowledge. Also many places the bandwidth is cheaper, some it's more expensive, but, being a WISP, you might be in a position to pipe your bandwidth from somewhere cheap to where you are. If your bandwidth isn't cheap, then you provide 10mb/s service instead of 30. While not considered actual broadband, it's plenty for gaming, netflix, most general web usage.
    - jauer 10y ago
      Exactly. We usually aim for a 10-month ROI and that's using higher-end Cambium radios (way better for ops at scale than something like Ubiquiti), Juniper network gear, batteries on everything, and proper telco circuits. We also have a few thousand subs so we get economies of scale on transport and transit. (digression) There's a kind of WISP valley of death roughly between the hobby WISP (0-500 users) with a owner/operator and one or two employees, maybe running on business DOCSIS for upstream and Ubiquity and/or Mikrotik radios & routers and the professional carrier WISP (2-5k+ users) with biz people, experienced ops people, longhaul fiber or licensed microwave for backhaul, etc. Small WISPs often can't afford the time or money to be proper (if they even have the experience to know what proper is) until they pass the valley of death. Many fall to bankruptcy or burnout trying to get past the valley.