3 ms·

I got my own ASN a few months ago (and am in the three+ year waiting list for an IPv4 block), I've been thinking about trying to become a rural ISP in my area,

by abound 1y ago

I got my own ASN a few months ago (and am in the three+ year waiting list for an IPv4 block), I've been thinking about trying to become a rural ISP in my area, so this is very timely for me.

esseph 1y ago
If you want someone to bounce ideas off of, I've been involved in that space for a very long time and could probably answer a lot of questions with real world experience, regardless of the technology used.
- abound 1y ago
  I sincerely appreciate the offer, and would love to take you up on it! My email is available from my profile (via my website), or feel free to grab some time: https://cal.bsprague.com/meet https://cal.bsprague.com/meet I've mostly looked at wireless (we're in a valley) and fiber
  - jrklabs_com 1y ago
    I'm likely heading for the same destination as we're building a new house in a rural area that has limited Internet options. If you're open to it, I would love to join any meetings that you may have regarding building out a new WISP. I do have one wireless bridge live now that was my proof of concept.
    - esseph 1y ago
      Didn't see any contact info in your profile, but if you send an email to: jr331288726745 at nervous.ink I'll respond.
theideaofcoffee 1y ago
If you have serious intentions of starting an ISP, I'd recommend beginning conversations with a few transit providers right away, feeling out rates and commit terms. Armed with some market info and contacts there, start to look at v4 auctions via [0] or similar so you can jump the line, though you'll have to pay for the privilege. You probably won't be able to transfer blocks into your org until you have commits from one or more upstreams (I know ARIN, and I'm assuming you're in north america, has some more stringent reqs in terms of overall usage within a specified time period, so choose the auction size appropriately [1]). You may also want to consider taking a block from your transit, they will often reassign a small prefix out of their larger holdings for customer use. You can often use that as justification for transferring future blocks. After transit, start to look at facilities to host your equipment, 'cause you'll need to demarc somewhere and hand off to your transit as well. Lots and lots of details to get right, but I personally think it's a lot of fun. [0] https://auctions.ipv4.global/ https://auctions.ipv4.global/ [1] https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/#eight5 https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/#eight5
- abound 1y ago
  Thanks for the tips! Being in a rural area, there's only a few colocation facilities within ~50 miles, and I need to reach out to them to see who they're connected to. So far, I've only seen that Cogent has a presence here, but the internet doesn't have good things to say about them
  - bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
    > I've only seen that Cogent has a presence here, but the internet doesn't have good things to say about them They’re good enough and they’re dirt cheap. Pricing really matters since you pass savings on to your customers. Vermont Telecom, as an example of a reasonably sized regional ISP with thousands of customers, uses Cogent as their primary upstream. I wouldn’t fall into the trap of trying to build something out using hardware or upstream providers that people on Internet forums that don’t have a financial stake in making an ISP work financially and operationally approve of.
  - toast0 1y ago
    I think Cogent has earned their vibes, but if they're all you can get near you, they're ok enough to get started with. As you get bigger, you can put a router somewhere (or two somewheres) with cogent and more options and transport through cogent to get back to your service area. Looking at your profile, I think if you can get traffic to Denver, you should have more options there.
  - theideaofcoffee 1y ago
    Cogent is fine for most purposes. They have some odd choices upstream at times but for a smaller project, it shouldn’t be a problem. Later on you could look at a dedicated wave or ring (or tunnel, lots of options!) to another facility that has more diversity and peer through that, but make it work first!
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - inemesitaffia 1y ago
    Cogent can sell you transport to an IX where you'll get lots of traffic for free. You don't have to buy IP transit from who sells you physical connectivity. I've heard they have good connectivity with Comcast. Consider one of their customers, FDC.

by abound 1y ago

I got my own ASN a few months ago (and am in the three+ year waiting list for an IPv4 block), I've been thinking about trying to become a rural ISP in my area, so this is very timely for me.

esseph 1y ago

If you want someone to bounce ideas off of, I've been involved in that space for a very long time and could probably answer a lot of questions with real world experience, regardless of the technology used.

abound 1y ago
I sincerely appreciate the offer, and would love to take you up on it! My email is available from my profile (via my website), or feel free to grab some time: https://cal.bsprague.com/meet https://cal.bsprague.com/meet I've mostly looked at wireless (we're in a valley) and fiber
- jrklabs_com 1y ago
  I'm likely heading for the same destination as we're building a new house in a rural area that has limited Internet options. If you're open to it, I would love to join any meetings that you may have regarding building out a new WISP. I do have one wireless bridge live now that was my proof of concept.
  - esseph 1y ago
    Didn't see any contact info in your profile, but if you send an email to: jr331288726745 at nervous.ink I'll respond.

theideaofcoffee 1y ago

If you have serious intentions of starting an ISP, I'd recommend beginning conversations with a few transit providers right away, feeling out rates and commit terms. Armed with some market info and contacts there, start to look at v4 auctions via [0] or similar so you can jump the line, though you'll have to pay for the privilege. You probably won't be able to transfer blocks into your org until you have commits from one or more upstreams (I know ARIN, and I'm assuming you're in north america, has some more stringent reqs in terms of overall usage within a specified time period, so choose the auction size appropriately [1]). You may also want to consider taking a block from your transit, they will often reassign a small prefix out of their larger holdings for customer use. You can often use that as justification for transferring future blocks. After transit, start to look at facilities to host your equipment, 'cause you'll need to demarc somewhere and hand off to your transit as well. Lots and lots of details to get right, but I personally think it's a lot of fun. [0] https://auctions.ipv4.global/ https://auctions.ipv4.global/ [1] https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/#eight5 https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/#eight5

abound 1y ago
Thanks for the tips! Being in a rural area, there's only a few colocation facilities within ~50 miles, and I need to reach out to them to see who they're connected to. So far, I've only seen that Cogent has a presence here, but the internet doesn't have good things to say about them
- bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
  > I've only seen that Cogent has a presence here, but the internet doesn't have good things to say about them They’re good enough and they’re dirt cheap. Pricing really matters since you pass savings on to your customers. Vermont Telecom, as an example of a reasonably sized regional ISP with thousands of customers, uses Cogent as their primary upstream. I wouldn’t fall into the trap of trying to build something out using hardware or upstream providers that people on Internet forums that don’t have a financial stake in making an ISP work financially and operationally approve of.
- toast0 1y ago
  I think Cogent has earned their vibes, but if they're all you can get near you, they're ok enough to get started with. As you get bigger, you can put a router somewhere (or two somewheres) with cogent and more options and transport through cogent to get back to your service area. Looking at your profile, I think if you can get traffic to Denver, you should have more options there.
- theideaofcoffee 1y ago
  Cogent is fine for most purposes. They have some odd choices upstream at times but for a smaller project, it shouldn’t be a problem. Later on you could look at a dedicated wave or ring (or tunnel, lots of options!) to another facility that has more diversity and peer through that, but make it work first!
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- inemesitaffia 1y ago
  Cogent can sell you transport to an IX where you'll get lots of traffic for free. You don't have to buy IP transit from who sells you physical connectivity. I've heard they have good connectivity with Comcast. Consider one of their customers, FDC.