4 ms·

Start your own ISP in US - there, I fixed the title for you. I would love to start my own ISP in my country, except that dealing with my corrupt government and

Start your own ISP in US - there, I fixed the title for you. I would love to start my own ISP in my country, except that dealing with my corrupt government and corrupt bureaucracy existing here would mean I would have to have triple the cash of official investment, because here without "greasing the wheels" nothing works, and all of that is done by discretely leaving an envelope with cash on the corner of the discussion table that nobody in your presence will touch it. Also the amount of cash itself is a mind game on its own. You must discreetly research the person to see how much money they take as bribe. Too much and news about you being a newbie will spread like wild fire and all your future discussions will drain you of even more cash in discreet envelopes. Too little money and your request will get denied making you face the same person handing over another discreet envelope, and you better have at least the correct sum in there. So waste time asking for this mind game, waste cash that you'll never be able to officially report as deductible and then start implementing the points in article. Welcome to Romania ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

allana 7y ago
Sounds like the perfect place for a bribe transparency website to name and shame officals that take bribes.
- bronson 7y ago
  The thing about name and shame websites is how easily they are gamed.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    Also I wouldnt host any of it within the same country.
Hard_Space 7y ago
Ironic, because this kind of neighborhood ISP scheme was how Romania got a good foothold on internet connectivity in the 1990s, according to my Romanian friends who remember the period.
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  Yes, 90's were Wild West for Romania. We had no legislation hence a lot of stuff could and was done by ignoring the state. Those in charge were more busy selling stuff to fill their pockets then legislating. And all those neighborhood networks eventually merged so right now in Romania, on any given city, you can have a maximum of 3 ISP to chose from. We still do have good internet but we are starting to fall behind and soon I'm afraid I'll see here the same situation that is in US as in one ISP on any given zone and crappy internet speed.
  - Hard_Space 7y ago
    I'm in Bucharest, and on UPS. Since I'm from the UK, frankly, the price and quality (speed, uptime, etc.) are a continuing marvel to me.
FDSGSG 7y ago
Weird, I'd imagine the ubiquitous and insanely cheap pole fiber would be a much bigger problem for WISPs in Romania than the corruption. Seems like it would be very hard to make a profit unless you can find hundreds of customers close to each other who are willing to pay unusually high prices for internet connectivity.
timurlenk 7y ago
Romania has 14.3M (1) Internet users for an active population of 9.2M (2) As the same time, about 98% of the population has mobile phone coverage (which implies some form of data access) with terminals that can be had for 0 upfront cost and ~10€ per month subscription with very large traffic allowance. Telekom (previous Romtelecom) can offer DSL services in most villages where a phone exchange is present. Corruption or not, its probably a bad idea to start a wireless Internet provider in Romania because it already has excellent commodity connectivity virtually everywhere. 1. https://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm 2. https://www.romania-insider.com/romania-active-population-down-2018 https://www.romania-insider.com/romania-active-population-do...
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  That is the situation for cities, yes. On villages is another dimension. Broadcast is almost non-existent and everybody is relying on mobile. The few that have Digi (that's the actual former Romtelecom) are a drop in a bucket. As corruption is rampart, those on villages that require constant high speed connection usually bribe some city hall workers to let them get a fiber from the city hall to their house. The big majority of people, like I said, rely on cell data by doing hot-spots with them, and that gives them most of the time 3G due to weakness of the signal. Romania has coverage over its territory, but just enough to allow you to call an ambulance or police, but to rely a country side business like a farm that sell its products over internet that's not happening. We all wait to see what happens with 5G, and see wtf is the outcome of the current trade war US/China and most importantly to see from where to get 5G equipment for infrastructure. Huwaei is currently the incontestable leader of 5G tech but with shots fired from US govt. against it, and due to Romania being in NATO and having a US military presence we can't really just say "you know what? we'll get 5G from Huwaei". On the other side we are part of EU and current movement is to kinda ignore Trump and the trade war (see EU stance vis-a-vis Iran issue) and most big telecom companies from France/Germany do have talk with Huwaei. So we, a small fish, are caught between a rock and a hard place...and we wait...and we started to fall behind. That being said, a WISP for villages would definitely has its place in current situation.
  - 7y ago

allana 7y ago

Sounds like the perfect place for a bribe transparency website to name and shame officals that take bribes.

bronson 7y ago
The thing about name and shame websites is how easily they are gamed.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Also I wouldnt host any of it within the same country.

Hard_Space 7y ago

Ironic, because this kind of neighborhood ISP scheme was how Romania got a good foothold on internet connectivity in the 1990s, according to my Romanian friends who remember the period.

unnouinceput 7y ago
Yes, 90's were Wild West for Romania. We had no legislation hence a lot of stuff could and was done by ignoring the state. Those in charge were more busy selling stuff to fill their pockets then legislating. And all those neighborhood networks eventually merged so right now in Romania, on any given city, you can have a maximum of 3 ISP to chose from. We still do have good internet but we are starting to fall behind and soon I'm afraid I'll see here the same situation that is in US as in one ISP on any given zone and crappy internet speed.
- Hard_Space 7y ago
  I'm in Bucharest, and on UPS. Since I'm from the UK, frankly, the price and quality (speed, uptime, etc.) are a continuing marvel to me.

FDSGSG 7y ago

Weird, I'd imagine the ubiquitous and insanely cheap pole fiber would be a much bigger problem for WISPs in Romania than the corruption. Seems like it would be very hard to make a profit unless you can find hundreds of customers close to each other who are willing to pay unusually high prices for internet connectivity.

timurlenk 7y ago

Romania has 14.3M (1) Internet users for an active population of 9.2M (2) As the same time, about 98% of the population has mobile phone coverage (which implies some form of data access) with terminals that can be had for 0 upfront cost and ~10€ per month subscription with very large traffic allowance. Telekom (previous Romtelecom) can offer DSL services in most villages where a phone exchange is present. Corruption or not, its probably a bad idea to start a wireless Internet provider in Romania because it already has excellent commodity connectivity virtually everywhere. 1. https://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm 2. https://www.romania-insider.com/romania-active-population-down-2018 https://www.romania-insider.com/romania-active-population-do...

unnouinceput 7y ago
That is the situation for cities, yes. On villages is another dimension. Broadcast is almost non-existent and everybody is relying on mobile. The few that have Digi (that's the actual former Romtelecom) are a drop in a bucket. As corruption is rampart, those on villages that require constant high speed connection usually bribe some city hall workers to let them get a fiber from the city hall to their house. The big majority of people, like I said, rely on cell data by doing hot-spots with them, and that gives them most of the time 3G due to weakness of the signal. Romania has coverage over its territory, but just enough to allow you to call an ambulance or police, but to rely a country side business like a farm that sell its products over internet that's not happening. We all wait to see what happens with 5G, and see wtf is the outcome of the current trade war US/China and most importantly to see from where to get 5G equipment for infrastructure. Huwaei is currently the incontestable leader of 5G tech but with shots fired from US govt. against it, and due to Romania being in NATO and having a US military presence we can't really just say "you know what? we'll get 5G from Huwaei". On the other side we are part of EU and current movement is to kinda ignore Trump and the trade war (see EU stance vis-a-vis Iran issue) and most big telecom companies from France/Germany do have talk with Huwaei. So we, a small fish, are caught between a rock and a hard place...and we wait...and we started to fall behind. That being said, a WISP for villages would definitely has its place in current situation.
- 7y ago