From the FAQ: Q: How can I start an Internet Service Provider (ISP)? A: Starting an Internet service provider - that can be a daunting undertaking. My person

From the FAQ: Q: How can I start an Internet Service Provider (ISP)? A: Starting an Internet service provider - that can be a daunting undertaking. My personal advice is - don't do it. I say this simply because I think the market is flooded right now. Internet service has become a commodity item. It is very difficult to distinguish yourself from the competition on anything but price. To compete at the $20/mo level now prevailing in the consumer industry, you'll need a user base of several hundred to run in the black, and who knows how long before you can pay off the initial investment in hardware, which could easily run over $10,000 - not to mention payroll, rent, headaches, etc, etc You need to somehow find several hundred people who want to use the Internet. Daunting! (The author was presumably right that the dial-up ISP market was saturated already in 1997, but it’s still neat to see how the Internet went from reaching millions to billions.)