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I also totally agree that a lot of the challenges are not exactly 'network engineer' related, trying to run a small WISP has so many other things that aren't wh

I also totally agree that a lot of the challenges are not exactly 'network engineer' related, trying to run a small WISP has so many other things that aren't what you would find in CCNA/CCIE study materials or similar. One can feel much more confident in what they're doing once they have a real firm grasp of BGP, OSPF, various types of MPLS, metro ethernet stuff, optical networking, ptp microwave, linux sysadmin stuff for operational support systems and so on, but that's only one piece of the puzzle of many business process related things to cover.

hhw 5y ago
This is not imperative to do in-house. My company (*shameless plug for Astute Internet) has expertise in those areas you describe, and will provide and/or support the edge network infrastructure for small ISP's in exchange for selling them some of those services (we're a mini-carrier and value added reseller) and charging a nominal retainer to be an available path of escalation 24/7. Due to our purchasing volume and industry knowledge, we are able to sell these services for the same or less than what our customers would be able to negotiate on their own, while getting a lot of support from us in the process. Although this type of knowledge and expertise is rather specialized, we are able to focus on these specific areas without getting involved in the intricacies of the downstream side of our clients' networks, thus avoiding the need for us to have too much client specific or institutional knowledge. This has worked out very well with the handful of eyeball networks we're currently working with in the Pacific Northwest, and we intend to more actively extend this line of business down the coast in the near future.