how can i build a wisp

trunet

hi, i have been looking at a lot of sites and reading a lot about ISP companies and i would like to open my own. I am sick of the poorly run companies that are available. i live in wexford and i am lucky to get a down speed of 1mb and that's a good day, i am paying for more but the company that provide the service only care about getting paid, i am locked into a contract that if not paid will effect my credit rating so i have no choice but to pay. i have had enough of this attitude from communication companies and would like to change how the market works. i know its a big job and it can cost a lot but i don't care, i feel its time for a change.
for to many years the communication market has been controlled by greedy people with no care for the customer or value for money, so i would like to provided a fast uncapped wireless broadband service for 10euro per month without contracts to trap people, i want to let the great service that the company provided be the reason why people pay and not because they are trapped. i am hoping to start in Wexford and expand out from there but i don't know where to start. i have looked in to how to do it and i find the whole thing to be very confusing. i know some things but not enough, my biggest question is how do i get connected (my internet backbone). is there a company in Ireland that can provided this. i am looking for as much advice and info on everything involved,connection, how it all works, best equipment, best service i can provide with what service and anything else that could help.

watty

Getting backhaul, mast site and Comreg licence are major issues. Who to use for backhaul and mast site depends on location.

You need a lot of money.

Hire smart engineers that have experience in the area, dealing with Comreg and Equipment vendors.

clohamon

Have look at this thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74983299&postcount=1

aphex™

Is it realistic for someone to invest now when 4g spectrum which belonged to analog tv is going up for auction shortly?

bealtine

Have a look at the IrelandOffline website:

http://irelandoffline.org/2012/07/the-story-of-a-broadband-seeker-in-rural-ireland/

watty

The TV spectrum will only give same or poorer performance as 3G.

There are lots of reasons NOT to invest in WISP. None are really to do with LTE inherently, but the entire broken structure of Regulation and Infrastructure in Ireland.

There is no sensible licence available with economy of scale, or sensible planning provision for masts and backhaul.

3G data is unfairly priced and dishonestly marketed. It's subsidised by voice calls. Three doesn't make a profit. It's not Broadband, nor will 4G /LTE be broadband.

If 3G was honestly priced and sold a WISP would be able to compete. At the minute you can't. We don't know what price LTE will be. In Germany it's more expensive than most Broadband, which inherently it is. For the same speed and quality delivered, LTE is about x5 the cost of Fixed Wireless and 100x to 500x cost of fibre. To deliver the quality of Fixed Wireless, the 3G and LTE would need about x10 as many masts as any mobile operator will ever build. It's dishonestly marketed.

Big Lar

We were like you and got fed up so we have our own little WISP, as a matter of fact thats us in the two links above .
You can forget about trying to make money out of it, for that you will need 100's of customers.
Backhaul is the key to your success, gear is cheap and high sites are plenty full, you don't have to spend big money on masts starting out, you can locate gear on sheds on high points and transmit from there.
The dongle is youre enemy, most people don't realise the potential of what a good connection has to offer and therefore the dongle suffices their needs, so you must price to compete with it.
But Backhaul....... get the Backhaul and you can go from there.

jbkenn

trunet wrote: »

hi, i have been looking at a lot of sites and reading a lot about ISP companies and i would like to open my own. I am sick of the poorly run companies that are available. i live in wexford and i am lucky to get a down speed of 1mb and that's a good day, i am paying for more but the company that provide the service only care about getting paid, i am locked into a contract that if not paid will effect my credit rating so i have no choice but to pay. i have had enough of this attitude from communication companies and would like to change how the market works. i know its a big job and it can cost a lot but i don't care, i feel its time for a change.
for to many years the communication market has been controlled by greedy people with no care for the customer or value for money, so i would like to provided a fast uncapped wireless broadband service for 10euro per month without contracts to trap people, i want to let the great service that the company provided be the reason why people pay and not because they are trapped. i am hoping to start in Wexford and expand out from there but i don't know where to start. i have looked in to how to do it and i find the whole thing to be very confusing. i know some things but not enough, my biggest question is how do i get connected (my internet backbone). is there a company in Ireland that can provided this. i am looking for as much advice and info on everything involved,connection, how it all works, best equipment, best service i can provide with what service and anything else that could help.

You want to become an ISP in Ireland, God love your innocence, €10 per month?, you are having a laugh, right?, lets do the sums, and I am being conservative here.
Register a Company €350
Register with ComReg for authorisation, free
Obtain premises, 3 year lease, upward only rent review
Rent, Rates, Light and Heat, Insurance €1500 per month plus V.A.T.
Install 100Mb backhaul (if you can get anyone to supply you) €10,000 plus V.A.T.
100Mb I.P.Transit €20,000 p.a. Plus V.A.T.
I.P. allocation? depends how many you want, cost? (there will be a cost)
Initial equipment purchase, presuming you intend to offer FWA service say €5,000 plus V.A.T
Direct Debit processing to collect your money (you have'nt lived until you get into this, great sport)
Advertising? unquantifiable bottomless pit
Installer recruitment (crucial) and payment, budget €40,000 p.a.
Back office personnel? €25,000 - €65,000 p.a.(unless you can get a network guru on a Jobbridge scheme, who will also answer the phone)
Your salary? €45,000, at least (you do realise you will be working 7 days a week)
So lets say €25,000 for startup.
Conservative Monthly cost
RRLHI €1500
Backhaul €1666
Salaries €12000
Misc. €1000
Profit? what's that?

Grand Total €15166 per month
Do you propose an Installation/Connection fee? (you had better)
You propose to charge €10 per Month (inc. V.A.T.@ 23%)?
net figure €8.13 (excluding V.A.T)
So you need to find 15166/8.13 = 1865 customers at a rate of knots
Best of luck with that.

Do yourself a favour, open a chipper instead, you will live longer.

Big Lar

Looking at the time of the post, I'd say there was drink involved :-).

Lot of good points thou.

P.S. you forgot insurance

jbkenn

Big Lar wrote: »

Looking at the time of the post, I'd say there was drink involved :-).

Lot of good points thou.

P.S. you forgot insurance

No drink involved, firmware upgrades on a shed load of routers, and I still got the texts from the all night gamers :-)
I threw in a few bob for insurance

trunet

big lar and watty. the back-haul seems to be the problem but i do have options. i really don't care about profit. i have 100s of customers waiting to pay because they know if i do it then they can trust the company.
i have signed up 1000s of customers for a collection of communication companies as a freelancer for a very long time but i stopped doing this a few years ago because i was sick of them letting down people that i signed up.
jbkenn i registered my company for 20 euro not 350 euro and a lot of your prices are way over the top. i know it is a big hill to climb but most business is.
a chipper hahahaha my sister in law has been running one for years and is still losing money, she works a second job to keep the chipper open.
the sport of direct debit is something that would be connected to contracts and i don't want to do contracts. i wrote a pay as you go based operating program that would be installed onto a wifi device that any customer could pay with, this would also remove a lot of equipment and running costs.

i stated i knew it would be hard and expensive

bealtine thank you for the link, i went to the site and then went to the companies site and they are proof it can be done. thank you again.

thanks to everyone who answered my post and thank you for the help you have provided:):):):):)

i have a new question. i never explained this before but i think i should have. i am looking to create a large wifi hot spot that any customer who has the right software can connect to, i don't want to provide customers with equipment i just want to allow them into my hot spot, i am not sure if that would be the best way to put that. the program i wrote would connect with my equipment and verafy the connection without the customer ever having to have use of or contact with a password but i am not sure if the equipment is available with a long enough range. the program has a few little secrets to cut hacking to a minumum what i mean is that you would need the program to use the service and the program dies every month from the date it was installed.
my question, is there equipment that can create a large wifi hot spot????

cgarvey

trunet, as you've discovered it can be done, however it seems you're grossly underestimating the effort involved.

1) You need contracts. To provide a public Internet service without contracts would be a very silly thing to do, IMO. Contracts don't have to be 30 pages of complicated legal jargon. You need to consult/hire someone with regulatory and legal experience in this field.

2) A WiFi hotspot does not a reliable ISP make. Anywhere. Ever. Especially not for "100s of customers".

3) To build a reliable network (which seems to be your main selling point), you'll need something better than a simple hotspot (and if you're writing your own auth software, chances are you're doing something wrong). With figures of €10 per subscriber month, you imply that your backhaul will be heavily contended; again, that doesn't make for a reliable network in users' eyes.

4) Your claims of having 100s of customers, and/or having signed up 1000s of customers to other networks makes me wonder why you haven't already partnered with a WISP to provide service. WISPs are happily serving communities with as few as 50 signups, and you most have forged some relationships with WISPs already. I can't think of any large/small WISP that wouldn't personally know someone who brought them 100 customers (nevermind 1000s)! So, either you think you can do it better, or cheaper, or there's a piece of the puzzle that we're not aware of. There are plenty not-profit-motivated WISPs out there (indeed, I'd lump the poster you seem to want to discredit in that bracket) who would happily provide coverage if it was that easy.

Anyway, good luck with the venture; it's great to see people take up the slack where markets have failed. However, I do think you need to do a lot more research.

watty

WiFi is a non-starter for many reasons. You need dedicated Point to multipoint hardware and FWA licence. Public WiFi is only suitable for a coffee shop or hotel lobby etc, secure "auth" software is readily available and widely used.

Wireless DOCSIS, Fixed Wimax (NOT mobile WiMax), and various proprietary WiMax like systems. You need external wall, roof or chimney mounted aerials. This gives up to x8 improvement in performance compared to an ad hoc mobile or nomadic aerial, even on frequencies suitable for Mobile. The Wireless DOCSIS systems are cheaper for backend and modems (the modem is just a regular cable modem) and use ordinary satellite TV coax from outdoor radio at "aerial" (can be built into radio aerial panel). Radio sets are available off the shelf for 750, 800MHz, 2.5GHz/2.6GHz, 3.5GHz to 3.8GHz, 10.5GHz and 12GHz. The 2.5GHz to 12GHz types are available as a flatish panel with built in aerial and "radio". Power is over the coax cable to the ordinary Cable Modem. The cable modem can have router & Wifi built in or connect via Cat5e to a regular indoor router/WiFi point. You can add QOS managed VOIP that uses ordinary phone sockets on the Modem.

Fixed Wimax is the commonest type now for new 3.5GHz to 3.8GHz installs. Some use CAT5e cable (with power on it) to a regular indoor router/WiFi point.

A third family of hardware is used for 20Mbps to 100Mbps Fixed Wireless. Cambridge is one supplier. It's expensive and you need Gbit fibre backhaul.

Most broadband in the world over 3Mbps is DOCSIS (all Cable Broadband), increasingly FTTC with DOCSIS on coax rather than VDSL on copper pair. UPC Broadband will soon be 30Mbps minimum and average of about 45Mbps, it's entirely DOCSIS as Digiweb Metro Wireless Broadband. Even with 100% VDSL in exchanges, phone line broadband can't get much better than about 5Mbps to 6Mbps average due to line length.

trunet

cgarvey, thank you for your input its greatly wanted and needed and i am very grateful for any help i get.
i signed land-line customer for one company and mobile customers for another. both company's tried to rip me off but i won in court and i would never do business with them again.
i have no real problem with small community isp's as i have not used any but i must say i was living in cork a few years ago and one wanted close to 300 euro to set me up for a poor service that would then cost me over 50 euro per month, i have only seen up to pricing and that is what i want to try to get rid of. watty mentioned that upc is looking to provide a minumum service and that i like if that's what they advertis instead of an up to service.

watty thank you for your advise, it is appreciated so much. i am not in the know with networking on the scale i need to be and i was hoping that this was to be some of my research. i have been surfing from site to site to learn as much as i can but i am also going to sign up in collage to do some cisco courses. not sure if that's what i need to do but the collage will hopefully point me to the right courses. they cost a pretty penny but they also will be worth a lot more to me in the end, i am 40 and feel a bit strainge going back to school but it needs to be done.

i am learning and learning is growing .

i was looking at the bt wholesale page and they are advertising some services that i don't understand enough about. from what you watty and cgarvey have told me i would be stupid to go in the wifi network direction in the way i wanted so i need a new direction and their Etherflow looks good, they claim to provide Uncontended bandwidth up to 1Gbps and in another site they have they claim a back-haul of up to 10Gbps, they don't mention price but i can find that out later, is this a good enough service as i mentioned i know little.
if there was someone here that was willing to be my teacher that would be perfect, i would be very happy to travel if the price was right. i understand that learning in this way would not come with the paperwork but the knowledge is what i am after not paperwork. i live in the Wexford area BIG LAR


one last thing, the 10 euro price sounds like a dream but its a target and wouldn't it be great if all providers charged such a fair price. if i need to do large installs and supply equipment i might be forced to do contracts but i still don't want to head in that direction. i could sell the equipment at just above cost to customers or even work out an easy pay system over a few months but both are complicated in their own ways and i don't see this being too important at this moment. the first thing is what service do i want to provide based on who i will be connecting to for my back-haul/backbone.

Thanks again for the help.

oscarBravo

Here's what I find myself thinking while I've been reading this thread: I'm imagining that I'm a bank manager or a potential investor, and you're pitching a business idea to me. And I'm running as fast as I can in the other direction.

You should never enter into a business without a business plan. You don't even have the outline of a business plan; you have some vague aspirations, but no way of knowing whether or not they are realistic.

I get that you're asking here in order to try to find out how realistic your ideas are, but I think you'll find that anyone you talk to who actually works in the business will tell you that they're not.

This business is hard.

trunet

hi oscarbravo, i agree you should never go into business without a buisness plan but i am so early i dont need a plan yet, i need to know the buisness before i can draw up anything even close to a plan. as for investors they are what is driving me as much as i am, they too are sick of the service they receive. every business or market place i have entered over the last 20 years was a hard business but i am still standing and stronger for it, if there is a simple or easy one please tell me because i would like to invest there also . please don't think i am being bad in anyway by saying that because i am not. i know its a hard business but everything in life is until you learn it or master it.
i will go forward and succeed, it will take time and will be hard but there is one thing i know and that is i will provided the best service i can for the lowest price, even if it means making little to no profit. small profit from one customer is nothing but with a trusted brand or company that keeps its word and provides a great service at a rock bottom price we will have enough customers one day to turn them penny's in to pounds and before you know it there will be a profit worth having, but as i said providing a real service is my main goal not profit.
i could not even open a single site for most of yesterday because my service is that bad and when i phoned my provided they basically said "so what", they can provide as bad a service as they like and there is nothing i can do because they stated UP TO in their contract and that is the same for all the providers i have signed up with over the last 10 years. all they care about is money and nothing more, i am talking about the big players and not the smaller community providers as i have only ever been with the big providers. the markup in the market is very high as in most and the door is open for someone to cut their price and thrive because of it, greed is ruling Ireland and i say no more and my money and my investors money also says no more., i started a toy company a while back and i was in shock to see that the markup on some toys was close to 500% and even higher in some cases, i can buy a large rc airplane for about 60 euro and get it to my place of business for less and the retail price for that plane is 550 euro and that is a joke.

thank you for the comment oscarbravo, take care and have a great day.

oscarBravo

I'll wish you luck with it, but I'll also predict that the more you find out about the business, the less keen you'll be to get involved. Providing a great service at a rock bottom price is a laudable goal, but your in order to provide a truly great service your capex and opex will both be high - if they're not, you're going to find out just how hard it is to provide that great service.

You talk about not having a contract with your customers: if you sell something to somebody, you have a contract with them. If it's not in writing, you're insane, which you'll find out in court some day.

Maybe you just meant no minimum contract term - that can work (sort of) if the customers pay for their own equipment up front, and install it themselves, but DIY installation of carrier-grade equipment is doomed to failure, and your customers won't care whose fault it is when the promised great service doesn't materialise.

You'll have to figure out how to balance privacy issues with the demands of law enforcement, including what to do the first day a guard knocks at your door demanding to know which of your customers is downloading kiddie porn. You'll either have to deal with RIPE in time to get your hands on an allocation of IPv4 addresses before they run out, or figure out how to deal with the mess that is carrier-grade NAT. Alternatively, you could do IPv6 from day one - if you can find equipment that can handle it, and figure out how to deploy it.

And that's not the smallest fraction of the stuff you'll have to deal with on a daily basis.

Finally, if you're not doing this to make money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. That may sound capitalist and mercenary, but if your business isn't making a respectable profit as soon as possible, it's inherently doomed to failure.

Again: good luck.

Big Lar

oscarBravo wrote: »

Here's what I find myself thinking while I've been reading this thread: I'm imagining that I'm a bank manager or a potential investor, and you're pitching a business idea to me. And I'm running as fast as I can in the other direction.

I'm going to agree with this, your a bit all over the shop trunet. Get a few prices for your backhaul and then have a think.

bealtine

Building a wisp is a complicated business...it's not just sticking a wifi hotspot on a pole. It requires knowledge of wireless communications and networking expertise. It can be done...

You'd be well advised to find someone in your area with some knowledge in wireless communications to help you draw up a plan of attack.

You need to think of subscriptions as income that pays for your backhaul and will allow you to invest in the future of your concern, that income is key to expansion and maintenance of your system.

Of the many regulatory things you have to deal with : Comreg, that in itself is a nightmare.

Verres

@trunet - similar to the other posters, I think what you're trying to do can't actually be done. "Cut Price / High Quality" is a really difficult combo to pull off. In the few places it can be done the companies in question pretty much own the whole supply chain - be it cattle and cheese going to McDonalds, Guns & Ammo going to Walmart or Processors & Cables going to Dell.

Guys like Michael O'Leary would be all over this if they could produce RyanWifi. But it's the backhaul that prevents it. Unless you have the riches of Croesus and can build out your own fibre network (in which case - dude! GTFO of Wexford and go to Hawaii!) you won't manage top quality, reliable PAYG broadband for €10 a month.

However, if you and your potential customers are currently trapped in €50 per month 3 year contracts for crappy service, you could beat that!

Why not aim to provide a low-speed, reliable-ish connection for €10 per month. It doesn't have to be way fast or "always" on. Take it and run with it - the service you'd provide would be on a par with a dongle, but since you don't want to make any profit you could run it cheaper?

Just a thought

Verres

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/how-one-man-is-bringing-voip-net-access-where-telecoms-fear-to-tread/

From today's ArsTechnica. Something similar?