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How difficult is it to build an ISP? I feel like net neutrality would prevail if the market was opened up, even without government help (but certainly not a mar

How difficult is it to build an ISP? I feel like net neutrality would prevail if the market was opened up, even without government help (but certainly not a market in which 95% of America has less than two choices for internet provider). Is the problem that cities have already sold their souls to get the internet deals they have? Broadcasting internet over the air seems like a much easier way of entering new markets than laying cable: where are the 4G home internet providers? I realize Google Fiber is likely just an elaborate negotiation tactic to scare AT&T et. al. into not being shitheads, but Fiber spreading everywhere would be good for everyone.

jsmthrowaway 12y ago
> How difficult is it to build an ISP? Technically speaking, it's a road well-traveled. It's just a big network. Would be a fun startup, actually -- billing systems, network design, IPv6, capacity modeling, peering, value-adds for your customers, all the data you could imagine for what your customers were doing if you're so ethically inclined. There's a cornucopia of stuff to hack on to make a good ISP. These days you're somewhat expected to deliver television and telephony as well, with even more fun projects buried in both (just ask the people hacking on X1 at Comcast). The hard part is legal, with regulation and government-supported anticompetitive practices making it nigh impossible. Ask Dane Jasper about his fiber rollout in the Bay Area and you'll see what I mean (he lurks here). > where are the 4G home internet providers? Sprint bought Clear, the only one I'm aware of.
ihsw 12y ago
The regulatory environment, private/public ownership intermingling, geographic terrain, and related infrastructure (roads, buildings, etc) make it quite difficult to assess that. They all vary from one location to the next, and it makes it quite difficult to penetrate. The larger the city (read: >1M residents) the far more entrenched incumbents are.
eksith 12y ago
Extremely difficult. There is plenty of technical expertise in networking, laying fiber, trenching, construction, equipment etc... around. Even with the local terrain. The problem is with the legal landscape. Take Google for instance. The biggest hurdles they had to deployment are the protective hurdles put in place by ISP friendly politicians. Some states have regulation in place that new deployments must reach last mile to virtually every resident, which is cost and time prohibitive when there's no profit initially. You have to bite the bullet and do the deployment as necessary, bend to the legal winds and bear the full cost (which, even for Google may be a bit high) with no guarantee of profit until years after deployment. 4G is a bit tricky as well since there are areas where you'll have little choice but to rent existing towers or build your own. In some places, the terrain gets in the way, so towers are fairly limited in what they can do. Then there are the issues with maintenance and safety for crews working on these towers, which cell providers don't seem to care much about http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities
- jsmthrowaway 12y ago
  > Then there are the issues with maintenance and safety for crews working on these towers, which cell providers don't seem to care much about http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities Speaking as a former radio engineer, I was surprised ProPublica focused specifically on mobile phone providers there (I watched that Frontline special with interest, given my former line of work; I've been to many towers and have seen many memorials at their bases). Tower climbing even in traditional broadcast has long been known to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Most climbers freeclimb a significant majority of the tower and, honestly, I can understand why: safely climbing a tall tower without an elevator takes hours. Jay Guilford is also a really bad example. To its credit, though, the documentary at least went into why, but oddly pushed blame back on the providers for his mistakes due to pressure. His was a weird citation when the message, which you clearly received and act upon, was cellular providers' negligence and attempts at liability minimization.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
>How difficult is it to build an ISP? The bandwith is cheap. There are a lot of solutions that can get you into peoples' homes. It is tough to get utility right of way access, but not impossible. Here is the kicker. If you succeed (after some expense) in setting all of these things up and getting more than a few customers; then the local incumbents will open up their DOCSIS 3 modems or "roll out U-verse upgrades", cut their prices, and destroy your baby ISP in its crib.
- noonespecial 12y ago
  We were able to use this against Comcast once. After years of promising that residential broadband was coming "within 6 months" as they again and again, re-upped their awful franchise agreements with the local politicos, we decided to build a limited WISP to serve certain local customers. We formed a 501(c)3, rented some roof space and hooked up about 15 households. It hit the fan when we put up the flyers. They had cable internet to the houses in that neighborhood less than 6 weeks later. We quietly took down our wisp, sold our Ubiquiti Wireless units on ebay, and basked in the new cheap cable modem goodness. I think all we really needed were the flyers.
raquo 12y ago
Broadcasting over the air is subject to radio spectrum licenses/auctions, which is the hardest part for a new "startup" entrant. Wireless is also very expensive per GB compared to cable internet, and doesn't provide too many economies of scale when deploying in urban areas, which have the most customers and are the most profitable for wired technologies (good luck competing in these areas...). ISPs are one of those industries that aren't going to be fixed by startups, you need government willpower and action.
smtddr 12y ago
>>How difficult is it to build an ISP? Check this out... http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/04/one-big-reason-we-lack-internet-competition-starting-an-isp-is-really-hard/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/04/one-big-reason-we-la...
crmd 12y ago
Not hard, if we did it like Israel. The company that lays cable is a utility, a natural monopoly, that sends a bill each month. Then there are a slew of ISPs that compete to terminate you and provide internet access. Some are cheap, some are fast, some have good customer service or are hacker friendly. By law the infrastructure company cannot be an ISP or favor one ISP over another. By firewalling off the natural monopoly part, competition is maximized and ISPs are forced to reduce costs and innovate. If Teddy Roosevelt was president today, the Time Warners and Comcasts would be broken up for leveraging the natural monopoly on the cable laying-side of the house to also be the only ISP provider in my city.

jsmthrowaway 12y ago

> How difficult is it to build an ISP? Technically speaking, it's a road well-traveled. It's just a big network. Would be a fun startup, actually -- billing systems, network design, IPv6, capacity modeling, peering, value-adds for your customers, all the data you could imagine for what your customers were doing if you're so ethically inclined. There's a cornucopia of stuff to hack on to make a good ISP. These days you're somewhat expected to deliver television and telephony as well, with even more fun projects buried in both (just ask the people hacking on X1 at Comcast). The hard part is legal, with regulation and government-supported anticompetitive practices making it nigh impossible. Ask Dane Jasper about his fiber rollout in the Bay Area and you'll see what I mean (he lurks here). > where are the 4G home internet providers? Sprint bought Clear, the only one I'm aware of.

ihsw 12y ago

The regulatory environment, private/public ownership intermingling, geographic terrain, and related infrastructure (roads, buildings, etc) make it quite difficult to assess that. They all vary from one location to the next, and it makes it quite difficult to penetrate. The larger the city (read: >1M residents) the far more entrenched incumbents are.

eksith 12y ago

Extremely difficult. There is plenty of technical expertise in networking, laying fiber, trenching, construction, equipment etc... around. Even with the local terrain. The problem is with the legal landscape. Take Google for instance. The biggest hurdles they had to deployment are the protective hurdles put in place by ISP friendly politicians. Some states have regulation in place that new deployments must reach last mile to virtually every resident, which is cost and time prohibitive when there's no profit initially. You have to bite the bullet and do the deployment as necessary, bend to the legal winds and bear the full cost (which, even for Google may be a bit high) with no guarantee of profit until years after deployment. 4G is a bit tricky as well since there are areas where you'll have little choice but to rent existing towers or build your own. In some places, the terrain gets in the way, so towers are fairly limited in what they can do. Then there are the issues with maintenance and safety for crews working on these towers, which cell providers don't seem to care much about http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities

jsmthrowaway 12y ago
> Then there are the issues with maintenance and safety for crews working on these towers, which cell providers don't seem to care much about http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities Speaking as a former radio engineer, I was surprised ProPublica focused specifically on mobile phone providers there (I watched that Frontline special with interest, given my former line of work; I've been to many towers and have seen many memorials at their bases). Tower climbing even in traditional broadcast has long been known to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Most climbers freeclimb a significant majority of the tower and, honestly, I can understand why: safely climbing a tall tower without an elevator takes hours. Jay Guilford is also a really bad example. To its credit, though, the documentary at least went into why, but oddly pushed blame back on the providers for his mistakes due to pressure. His was a weird citation when the message, which you clearly received and act upon, was cellular providers' negligence and attempts at liability minimization.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

>How difficult is it to build an ISP? The bandwith is cheap. There are a lot of solutions that can get you into peoples' homes. It is tough to get utility right of way access, but not impossible. Here is the kicker. If you succeed (after some expense) in setting all of these things up and getting more than a few customers; then the local incumbents will open up their DOCSIS 3 modems or "roll out U-verse upgrades", cut their prices, and destroy your baby ISP in its crib.

noonespecial 12y ago
We were able to use this against Comcast once. After years of promising that residential broadband was coming "within 6 months" as they again and again, re-upped their awful franchise agreements with the local politicos, we decided to build a limited WISP to serve certain local customers. We formed a 501(c)3, rented some roof space and hooked up about 15 households. It hit the fan when we put up the flyers. They had cable internet to the houses in that neighborhood less than 6 weeks later. We quietly took down our wisp, sold our Ubiquiti Wireless units on ebay, and basked in the new cheap cable modem goodness. I think all we really needed were the flyers.

raquo 12y ago

Broadcasting over the air is subject to radio spectrum licenses/auctions, which is the hardest part for a new "startup" entrant. Wireless is also very expensive per GB compared to cable internet, and doesn't provide too many economies of scale when deploying in urban areas, which have the most customers and are the most profitable for wired technologies (good luck competing in these areas...). ISPs are one of those industries that aren't going to be fixed by startups, you need government willpower and action.

smtddr 12y ago

>>How difficult is it to build an ISP? Check this out... http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/04/one-big-reason-we-lack-internet-competition-starting-an-isp-is-really-hard/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/04/one-big-reason-we-la...

crmd 12y ago

Not hard, if we did it like Israel. The company that lays cable is a utility, a natural monopoly, that sends a bill each month. Then there are a slew of ISPs that compete to terminate you and provide internet access. Some are cheap, some are fast, some have good customer service or are hacker friendly. By law the infrastructure company cannot be an ISP or favor one ISP over another. By firewalling off the natural monopoly part, competition is maximized and ISPs are forced to reduce costs and innovate. If Teddy Roosevelt was president today, the Time Warners and Comcasts would be broken up for leveraging the natural monopoly on the cable laying-side of the house to also be the only ISP provider in my city.