I am going to start an ISP
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
So what is the latest on this project? Lots of interest, needs constant news!
I have numbers from both the tower and down-stream companies, know my offerings, and know how many subs that I need so far to make it profitable. However, I am still missing numbers for insurance ($5 million umbrella policy for the tower company, general business insurance, vehicle insurance for the vehicle that I need to buy), tower climbers (I don't know any so recommendations would be welcomed), and other taxes to put into overhead expenses.
Here is what I need to start up:
- $25k for startup costs
a) $1k for LLC licensing ($300 to Texas Secretary of State), rest to LegalZoom for documents and fees
b) $8k for a dedicated truck with wrap and necessary equipment.
c) $13k for Ubiquiti equipment to put on tower to operational status along with 50 CPE radios to get started. Current calculations shows that, at 4:1 oversubscription, I could support 400-800 subs with just this tower. My bottle neck would be at the tower transmitters as all they can handle is 1GB each. It would be nice if Ubiquiti could figure out a way of putting SFP+ transceivers directly into the APs. Then, my bottle neck would be the fiber coming down the tower. Another growth problem is wireless backhaul links, which are currently at 1GB for long hauls (greater than 1 mile), and 10GB for short hauls (1 mile and less). But that seems to be more of a physics problem then a technology problem.
d) $3k for other materials, tablet, cell phone, etc. - Enough line of credit to become profitable within 1 year, at most.
a) Current monthly expenses would be close to $11k (currently number could still go up) with most of that going to bandwidth.
b) I would work part time at $20/hour until company became profitable while continuing to work my current salary job.
I would be using Debian 9.1 for both UCRM and UNMS, hosted in Vultr in Dallas and linked to 2 routers (Ubiquiti Infinitys) stacked at the tower shack. IPs to the subs would be IPv6 (no need in starting with IPv4 and then moving to IPv6 later on). Both sub traffic and management traffic will be VLAN'd off of the default VLAN. My phone would be through voip.ms as there would only be about 1-2 extensions as of right now. As we grow, we would add FreePBX into Vultr in Dallas Email would be at Zoho, DNS is at Namecheap, registrar is at domain.com, and website is at Wix.
I already have a small list (4 right now) of subs that would sign up. As things starts up, I know that there will be some word of mouth, but I would supplement that with the wrapped truck, social media ads, and venue demos at local events with a CPE antenna, an EdgeRouter, and a UAP with a splash page for visitors.
My 5-year plan would be for this company to be totally self-supporting of itself and me as a full-time employee, with a number of other employees, the footprint expanding from the current city through microPOPs to neighboring cities that are suffering the same problems, and then diversifying into solar equipment and installations.
- $25k for startup costs
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Anybody want to invest?
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$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
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@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Like I said, its $300 for Texas. But yours seems expensive in comparison to @EddieJennings's $50 fee for Georgia.
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@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
I think I had a lawyer help me and it was still less than $1000, but the $300 fee might be what's killing you here.
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@dashrender said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
I think I had a lawyer help me and it was still less than $1000, but the $300 fee might be what's killing you here.
$535 total including the fee. if you need someone to do the paperwork for you.
Yes the $300 fee is much higher than other states
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Like I said, its $300 for Texas. But yours seems expensive in comparison to @EddieJennings's $50 fee for Georgia.
It's $50 here, plus online filling fee, but if you wanted to do it offline you could technically do it for $50. The state of Florida puts everything together online so you cant screw it up. That costs you like $100 total.
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@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Ya I don’t think it’s even that high in Taxylvania.
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@stacksofplates said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Ya I don’t think it’s even that high in Taxylvania.
High tax states often have cheaper fees. Low tax states often make money in other places, like this.
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@strongbad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@stacksofplates said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Ya I don’t think it’s even that high in Taxylvania.
High tax states often have cheaper fees. Low tax states often make money in other places, like this.
Maybe in some cases, but remember Florida has no state income tax just like Texas.
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@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
@strongbad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@stacksofplates said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Ya I don’t think it’s even that high in Taxylvania.
High tax states often have cheaper fees. Low tax states often make money in other places, like this.
Maybe in some cases, but remember Florida has no state income tax just like Texas.
I do miss that. However things like vehicle registration are way higher. My car in PA is like $25 a year. I think it was $70 something when we lived in Vero. But you guys also don’t have inspections.
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@stacksofplates said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
@strongbad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@stacksofplates said in I am going to start an ISP:
@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:
$1k to start LLC seems very expensive. You can do it in Florida for $100 and it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork...
Ya I don’t think it’s even that high in Taxylvania.
High tax states often have cheaper fees. Low tax states often make money in other places, like this.
Maybe in some cases, but remember Florida has no state income tax just like Texas.
I do miss that. However things like vehicle registration are way higher. My car in PA is like $25 a year. I think it was $70 something when we lived in Vero. But you guys also don’t have inspections.
Yeah. $78 here in Brevard.
No inspections is worth the extra money
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Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
Illinois is such a horrible state. Income taxes and high fees.
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@jaredbusch said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
Illinois is such a horrible state. Income taxes and high fees.
The only tough parts about Texas is high property taxes and sales tax on almost everything. In Texas, you never truly own your house as your always paying taxes on it. Miss a few years and the county repsees the property for back taxes. You can either pay up or the property gets auctioned off on county court steps.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
Lucky you... I just got the letter for renewal... it was $228. It's about that every year for both of our cars. (each)
Also all doable online, which is nice.
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@jaredbusch said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
Illinois is such a horrible state. Income taxes and high fees.
The only tough parts about Texas is high property taxes and sales tax on almost everything. In Texas, you never truly own your house as your always paying taxes on it. Miss a few years and the county repsees the property for back taxes. You can either pay up or the property gets auctioned off on county court steps.
That's how every state is. You don't think that there are states where you don't pay property tax for forever, do you?
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@jaredbusch said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
Illinois is such a horrible state. Income taxes and high fees.
The only tough parts about Texas is high property taxes and sales tax on almost everything. In Texas, you never truly own your house as your always paying taxes on it. Miss a few years and the county repsees the property for back taxes. You can either pay up or the property gets auctioned off on county court steps.
That's how every state is. You don't think that there are states where you don't pay property tax for forever, do you?
Yeah, you are never free from property tax...
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@jaredbusch said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
Just renewed in Texas, was about $80. Not bad. And all online.
Illinois is such a horrible state. Income taxes and high fees.
The only tough parts about Texas is high property taxes and sales tax on almost everything. In Texas, you never truly own your house as your always paying taxes on it. Miss a few years and the county repsees the property for back taxes. You can either pay up or the property gets auctioned off on county court steps.
That's literally what happens in every state in the US.
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When I lived in Indiana I was shocked when I registered my tags and the lady said "that'll be $1200". I laughed, she was serious. In Ohio you pay about $35 to $50 for a tag renewal.
In Indiana you pay around 1% of your cars value, and I had just bought a stupidly expensive new car (something I will NEVER repeat).
Prior to Indiana I lived in Florida and both my cars were leased, so I am really curious as to how different car tags are priced across other states.
