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I'm not sure if this qualifies as an "online business", but I started an ISP in November '15. It's also not entirely "one-person". I am the sole founder, but

I'm not sure if this qualifies as an "online business", but I started an ISP in November '15. It's also not entirely "one-person". I am the sole founder, but I do hire part-time help on occasion if I'm swamped. It started off as a WISP and has finally grown to the point where we are beginning to deploy fiber. The site is https://nepafiber.com https://nepafiber.com I still work full-time as a systems engineer, but the business started bringing in more money than my job does around 3 months ago. I'm only still at my job so that I can expand more rapidly; running fiber isn't cheap.

Dragonai 10y ago
I never would've imagined an ISP being run almost entirely by one person. This is super dope - best of luck in the continual expansion of your business! :)
- disordinary 10y ago
  It depends on your country I guess, it's very common here where most ISPs by capacity on other networks. But also in the rural / wireless broadband space where you actually have to manage infrastructure there are a few examples.
- jason_slack 10y ago
  I am currently starting a small ISP to bring internet to our lake community. Fiber from Level3 and Ubiquiti wireless gear (and other hardware, routing, packet shaping, firewalling, AV, e-mail, voucher system, etc). About 110 houses around the lake spanning about 1.5 miles long and .40 miles wide. e-mail in profile if you want to chat.
dbancajas 10y ago
Can you expand on this? How do you compete with AT&T/Google? Are you pretty much on business because AT&T/Goog/TWC are not serving in your area? Can you do summary of how you grow the business if it's not too much? Really curious about all the logistics. Best of luck!!
- chrishacken 10y ago
  > Are you pretty much on business because AT&T/Goog/TWC are not serving in your area? That's it exactly. Prior to me, the only service available in the area was Verizon DSL or Cable (40 Down/2 Up).
  - test6554 10y ago
    I'm curious about what your network connects to in order to access the broader internet. Do you call up an existing ISP, like Verizon and say you want to set up a peering arrangement, or do you have to purchase a business account with an existing provider and increase the bandwidth you pay for as your own network expands?
- beachstartup 10y ago
  i run a small tech company, though not an ISP. i hear this question a lot. "how do you compete with xyz megacorp?" delivering a better/faster product for less money, is the easy part. nearly everything is overpriced from megacorps. believe me, it's easy. even the accounting is harder. the hard part is selling it. people will complain all day about megacorp sucking, but when it comes right down to it, they won't go with the little guy 99% of the time even when the benefits are staring them right in the face. unless of course, you happen to offer a service in an area the big guys simply don't exist in, which is awesome and good for OP for spotting the opportunity.
  - chrishacken 10y ago
    I'm working on a deal with a local private school and that was the first question I got. "How can you offer faster speeds and better pricing than Frontier, Verizon, etc?". They were previously paying $2,000/m for 100 Mbps. It's not that hard to compete with that. haha
    - beachstartup 10y ago
      i've considered the psychology of our position. the difficult part is getting someone to understand that they have been vastly overpaying -- that means they must call into question their own (past) judgment, which for some people is easy, but for most people, is extremely hard (mild cognitive dissonance). i find it especially interesting that the question is coming from a small private school, who's business model is basically the same thing. i.e. offering a superior alternative to larger, better funded incumbent institutions.
equasar 10y ago
This is a naive question, how can you provide Internet services? Do you use the line of other providers? And how profitable is?
- chrishacken 10y ago
  > Do you use the line of other providers? And how profitable is? Yes, we're peering with Zayo and will also have Level 3 (waiting on build) in April. Don't really want to toss out numbers but the bandwidth itself is extremely profitable. The equipment and fiber needed to connect to end-users are 95% of the costs.
  - edw 10y ago
    Have you considered getting into colo or other services that might reduce the capital expenses per dollar of revenue? Seems like there may be an opportunity there. I once had a 2U FreeBSD box at a local dial-up ISP, and it was basically found money for them.
    - chrishacken 10y ago
      https://nepafiber.com/colocation https://nepafiber.com/colocation
      - justinclift 10y ago
        How much power do the cabinets get allocated? When (ages ago) talking to places about colo, it turns out places like HE would only allocate 7 amps for a full rack. Completely useless. ;)
        chrishacken 10y ago
        Generally 30A for a full, 15A for a half, etc. Then $12/Amp for extra power.
        10y ago
jwn 10y ago
That's fantastic! I'm not too far from you (Lake Wallenpaupack region) and I've always wanted to start a WISP, but the lack of housing density out here makes it less than economical =(
useruser15 10y ago
I would like to start a self help project that can earn me income and improve my life. I am asking for help with $300. It will enable me start. I will appreciate your genorosity. My email: officew@yahoo.com
juliangoldsmith 10y ago
What sort of investment did it take to get started? Have you written anything about starting off, and your transition from a WISP to fiber?
- chrishacken 10y ago
  I started with around $15k, but that's nothing compared to what I've dumped into the business since then. If I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have started this. I have not written about it, yet.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Add my email to list of people you send that write-up to. Im collecting all the examples and experiences I can on this topic.
  - nathan_f77 10y ago
    > If I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have started this. You said you are making more money from this than from your full-time job. So I'm assuming the business is profitable and has a ton of potential. Are you saying that it requires too much work, and that it wasn't worth it?
    - chrishacken 10y ago
      Everything is all swell now, but there have been days, weeks, months, where everything was one payment, one customer, one ..., from imploding. I got lucky.
  - justinclift 10y ago
    Don't give up. It sounds like you've passed some important milestones and are in a good place business wise. (unsure about mental stress level/burn-out wise tho ;>)
drvdevd 10y ago
Very inspiring.
bkmartin 10y ago
Hey Chris, Hello Neighbor! Thought about this idea in the Lewisburg (Central Susquehanna Valley) region and was wondering how the pole access stuff works? Also, what kind of densities do you need to get the WISP profitable to be able to make a move to fiber? Would love to email with you - its in my bio.
- chrishacken 10y ago
  I don't see an email in your bio. Mine's chris at nepafiber
27182818284 10y ago
That's really cool! Good for you!
client4 10y ago
Hey! I run a new ISP in Montana. We're actually about to head to China to source more affordable fiber and OSP materials. If you want to chat we have a slack channel called #ispschool that has a bunch of ISP owners in it. http://slack.tsi.io http://slack.tsi.io
- chrishacken 10y ago
  Your link returns a 502 and ispschool.slack.com doesn't exist.
  - trafficlight 10y ago
    It's fixed now. The little slack invite app is temperamental.
Foxhuls 10y ago
Do you think starting an ISP is still a possible venture? I've been looking into it for the last few months but everyone around me tells me it isn't possible/worth while. How much capital did you have up front?
- dsr_ 10y ago
  It's going to be extremely location-dependent. Your best bet is to fill a niche that nobody else has gone after because it doesn't fit their national standards. Remote location, or otherwise protected against a national moving in? No current competitors, or only low-quality competition? But with enough latent demand? If all three of those are yes, you might be able to make it work. You'll need to think about fiber or wireless, and if you're doing wireless, how to get fiber to your distribution points. Licenses: right-of-way for fiber, radio operation for wireless. IPv4 space? Good luck. IPv6 space? Much easier, but people still won't find it compelling all by itself. (On the other hand, starting an ISP today means you can probably do all your internal work on IPv6. Do so! Can you get two independent high-bandwidth connections? If not, can your customers stand the inevitable downtime? What level of reliability are you aiming for, anyway? What services are you going to provide besides bandwidth, IP addressing, routing, NTP and DNS? Are you prepared for customer service? Business or residential? Either way, you will eventually have to listen to someone on the phone telling you that they deleted the internet.
  - itchyouch 10y ago
    I have a friend that runs as a WISP on the side in Michigan as there are no other options. He only has a /26 given to him by a single provider, so the 5-10 customers he has are behind a NAT.
imgabe 10y ago
As someone who grew up in NEPA, thank you for bringing more ISP options there!
itchyouch 10y ago
Oh man. I hope this works out and it expands. My old company (now defunct) tried to do FTTX back in the early 2000s transitioning from dial-up. Got 15M from investors to run fiber in Hazelton, then Service Electric sued and funding dried out and everything when to crap. http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fiber-optic-cable-fiber-optic-system-hazleton http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fibe...
- ticklememoomoe 10y ago
  I didn't work with any koreans at nni... and I literally helped roll the gear into the markle building and setup ;p

Dragonai 10y ago

I never would've imagined an ISP being run almost entirely by one person. This is super dope - best of luck in the continual expansion of your business! :)

disordinary 10y ago
It depends on your country I guess, it's very common here where most ISPs by capacity on other networks. But also in the rural / wireless broadband space where you actually have to manage infrastructure there are a few examples.
jason_slack 10y ago
I am currently starting a small ISP to bring internet to our lake community. Fiber from Level3 and Ubiquiti wireless gear (and other hardware, routing, packet shaping, firewalling, AV, e-mail, voucher system, etc). About 110 houses around the lake spanning about 1.5 miles long and .40 miles wide. e-mail in profile if you want to chat.

dbancajas 10y ago

Can you expand on this? How do you compete with AT&T/Google? Are you pretty much on business because AT&T/Goog/TWC are not serving in your area? Can you do summary of how you grow the business if it's not too much? Really curious about all the logistics. Best of luck!!

chrishacken 10y ago
> Are you pretty much on business because AT&T/Goog/TWC are not serving in your area? That's it exactly. Prior to me, the only service available in the area was Verizon DSL or Cable (40 Down/2 Up).
- test6554 10y ago
  I'm curious about what your network connects to in order to access the broader internet. Do you call up an existing ISP, like Verizon and say you want to set up a peering arrangement, or do you have to purchase a business account with an existing provider and increase the bandwidth you pay for as your own network expands?
beachstartup 10y ago
i run a small tech company, though not an ISP. i hear this question a lot. "how do you compete with xyz megacorp?" delivering a better/faster product for less money, is the easy part. nearly everything is overpriced from megacorps. believe me, it's easy. even the accounting is harder. the hard part is selling it. people will complain all day about megacorp sucking, but when it comes right down to it, they won't go with the little guy 99% of the time even when the benefits are staring them right in the face. unless of course, you happen to offer a service in an area the big guys simply don't exist in, which is awesome and good for OP for spotting the opportunity.
- chrishacken 10y ago
  I'm working on a deal with a local private school and that was the first question I got. "How can you offer faster speeds and better pricing than Frontier, Verizon, etc?". They were previously paying $2,000/m for 100 Mbps. It's not that hard to compete with that. haha
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    i've considered the psychology of our position. the difficult part is getting someone to understand that they have been vastly overpaying -- that means they must call into question their own (past) judgment, which for some people is easy, but for most people, is extremely hard (mild cognitive dissonance). i find it especially interesting that the question is coming from a small private school, who's business model is basically the same thing. i.e. offering a superior alternative to larger, better funded incumbent institutions.

equasar 10y ago

This is a naive question, how can you provide Internet services? Do you use the line of other providers? And how profitable is?

chrishacken 10y ago
> Do you use the line of other providers? And how profitable is? Yes, we're peering with Zayo and will also have Level 3 (waiting on build) in April. Don't really want to toss out numbers but the bandwidth itself is extremely profitable. The equipment and fiber needed to connect to end-users are 95% of the costs.
- edw 10y ago
  Have you considered getting into colo or other services that might reduce the capital expenses per dollar of revenue? Seems like there may be an opportunity there. I once had a 2U FreeBSD box at a local dial-up ISP, and it was basically found money for them.
  - chrishacken 10y ago
    https://nepafiber.com/colocation https://nepafiber.com/colocation
    - justinclift 10y ago
      How much power do the cabinets get allocated? When (ages ago) talking to places about colo, it turns out places like HE would only allocate 7 amps for a full rack. Completely useless. ;)
      - chrishacken 10y ago
        Generally 30A for a full, 15A for a half, etc. Then $12/Amp for extra power.
        10y ago

jwn 10y ago

That's fantastic! I'm not too far from you (Lake Wallenpaupack region) and I've always wanted to start a WISP, but the lack of housing density out here makes it less than economical =(

useruser15 10y ago

I would like to start a self help project that can earn me income and improve my life. I am asking for help with $300. It will enable me start. I will appreciate your genorosity. My email: officew@yahoo.com

juliangoldsmith 10y ago

What sort of investment did it take to get started? Have you written anything about starting off, and your transition from a WISP to fiber?

chrishacken 10y ago
I started with around $15k, but that's nothing compared to what I've dumped into the business since then. If I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have started this. I have not written about it, yet.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Add my email to list of people you send that write-up to. Im collecting all the examples and experiences I can on this topic.
- nathan_f77 10y ago
  > If I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have started this. You said you are making more money from this than from your full-time job. So I'm assuming the business is profitable and has a ton of potential. Are you saying that it requires too much work, and that it wasn't worth it?
  - chrishacken 10y ago
    Everything is all swell now, but there have been days, weeks, months, where everything was one payment, one customer, one ..., from imploding. I got lucky.
- justinclift 10y ago
  Don't give up. It sounds like you've passed some important milestones and are in a good place business wise. (unsure about mental stress level/burn-out wise tho ;>)

drvdevd 10y ago

Very inspiring.

bkmartin 10y ago

Hey Chris, Hello Neighbor! Thought about this idea in the Lewisburg (Central Susquehanna Valley) region and was wondering how the pole access stuff works? Also, what kind of densities do you need to get the WISP profitable to be able to make a move to fiber? Would love to email with you - its in my bio.

chrishacken 10y ago
I don't see an email in your bio. Mine's chris at nepafiber

27182818284 10y ago

That's really cool! Good for you!

client4 10y ago

Hey! I run a new ISP in Montana. We're actually about to head to China to source more affordable fiber and OSP materials. If you want to chat we have a slack channel called #ispschool that has a bunch of ISP owners in it. http://slack.tsi.io http://slack.tsi.io

chrishacken 10y ago
Your link returns a 502 and ispschool.slack.com doesn't exist.
- trafficlight 10y ago
  It's fixed now. The little slack invite app is temperamental.

Foxhuls 10y ago

Do you think starting an ISP is still a possible venture? I've been looking into it for the last few months but everyone around me tells me it isn't possible/worth while. How much capital did you have up front?

dsr_ 10y ago
It's going to be extremely location-dependent. Your best bet is to fill a niche that nobody else has gone after because it doesn't fit their national standards. Remote location, or otherwise protected against a national moving in? No current competitors, or only low-quality competition? But with enough latent demand? If all three of those are yes, you might be able to make it work. You'll need to think about fiber or wireless, and if you're doing wireless, how to get fiber to your distribution points. Licenses: right-of-way for fiber, radio operation for wireless. IPv4 space? Good luck. IPv6 space? Much easier, but people still won't find it compelling all by itself. (On the other hand, starting an ISP today means you can probably do all your internal work on IPv6. Do so! Can you get two independent high-bandwidth connections? If not, can your customers stand the inevitable downtime? What level of reliability are you aiming for, anyway? What services are you going to provide besides bandwidth, IP addressing, routing, NTP and DNS? Are you prepared for customer service? Business or residential? Either way, you will eventually have to listen to someone on the phone telling you that they deleted the internet.
- itchyouch 10y ago
  I have a friend that runs as a WISP on the side in Michigan as there are no other options. He only has a /26 given to him by a single provider, so the 5-10 customers he has are behind a NAT.

imgabe 10y ago

As someone who grew up in NEPA, thank you for bringing more ISP options there!

itchyouch 10y ago

Oh man. I hope this works out and it expands. My old company (now defunct) tried to do FTTX back in the early 2000s transitioning from dial-up. Got 15M from investors to run fiber in Hazelton, then Service Electric sued and funding dried out and everything when to crap. http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fiber-optic-cable-fiber-optic-system-hazleton http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fibe...

ticklememoomoe 10y ago
I didn't work with any koreans at nni... and I literally helped roll the gear into the markle building and setup ;p