I am going to start an ISP
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
SpaceX alone has a "all services like this will be dead" end date of 2024 with most being crushed between 2020 and that time. And that is just one carrier. You've got a dozen or more serious contenders for "making your market go away" playing in a similar time frame, and all of them aware of and racing against SpaceX.
5G in urban, LTE-A upgrades in rural. There is a trillion dollar domestic capital spend happening right now on the ground. SMB's are going to be a niche hobby business very quickly.
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@NerdyDad said in I am going to start an ISP:
Looks like I have a potential investor. We've talked about numbers and the biggest concern they have is the monthly backhaul charges. They're thinking that we can negotiate the supplier down if we offer to pay for a year up front
If you're talking about a Fiber/ISP backhaul they will factor in buildout costs on a 3-5 year contract but....
- You don't get to adopt price reduction over that time for peering.
- If your credit sucks they will likely take the risk even less.
- What happens if this supplier goes to crap? Do you have peering diversity as a plan? TWTC went from having amazing peering, to only being absolute crap. For IPv4 are you going to do carrier grade NAT?
Verizon is offering no caps, 300Mbps service for $50 soon in my city. I expect the wireless carriers to aggressively move into rural WISP business.
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@StorageNinja said in I am going to start an ISP:
Verizon is offering no caps, 300Mbps service for $50 soon in my city. I expect the wireless carriers to aggressively move into rural WISP business.
That's the biggest risk, the wireless carriers with 5G. TMobile promises nationwide roll out in like one year.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
That's the biggest risk, the wireless carriers with 5G. TMobile promises nationwide rollout in like one year.
To be fair Sprint and T-Mobile I thought were going to do fake 5G (LTE-A) initially but hey, if they can deliver a 500GB or higher data cap, 10ms to the tower, and 100Mbps connections I think rural WISPS are dead overnight.
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@StorageNinja said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
That's the biggest risk, the wireless carriers with 5G. TMobile promises nationwide rollout in like one year.
To be fair Sprint and T-Mobile I thought were going to do fake 5G (LTE-A) initially but hey, if they can deliver a 500GB or higher data cap, 10ms to the tower, and 100Mbps connections I think rural WISPS are dead overnight.
Pretty much this
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@StorageNinja said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
That's the biggest risk, the wireless carriers with 5G. TMobile promises nationwide rollout in like one year.
To be fair Sprint and T-Mobile I thought were going to do fake 5G (LTE-A) initially but hey, if they can deliver a 500GB or higher data cap, 10ms to the tower, and 100Mbps connections I think rural WISPS are dead overnight.
Who need that much speed, anyway. Almost no one can use 100Mb/s if they can get it. The needs for more speed is mostly a myth.
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
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@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
Current connection says LTE+. What's that?
I always thought that T-Mobile was giving me 4G/LTE. Didn't know it was 3G.
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@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
Current connection says LTE+. What's that?
I always thought that T-Mobile was giving me 4G/LTE. Didn't know it was 3G.
LTE is a specific 3G technology. 3G is a generation, LTE is a specific 3G implementation. It's the fastest tech currently deployed in the US until 5G rolls out.
LTE Advanced (written LTE+) is a better form of LTE, but is still 3G.
One of the key errors in American marketing is being concerned about how a product reaches its speeds, rather than the speeds and quality of the resulting service. No one should care that LTE is 3G or 4G, that's crazy to care. If you are a wireless scientist and interested in signally, sure, it is a point of interest. But as a consumer, there is literally no value in knowing the "generation of signalling" used. But for some reason in the US market, knowing the "generation" of the technology has become vastly more important to consumers than the quality or speed or even cost of the resulting service!
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
Current connection says LTE+. What's that?
I always thought that T-Mobile was giving me 4G/LTE. Didn't know it was 3G.
LTE is a specific 3G technology. 3G is a generation, LTE is a specific 3G implementation. It's the fastest tech currently deployed in the US until 5G rolls out.
LTE Advanced (written LTE+) is a better form of LTE, but is still 3G.
One of the key errors in American marketing is being concerned about how a product reaches its speeds, rather than the speeds and quality of the resulting service. No one should care that LTE is 3G or 4G, that's crazy to care. If you are a wireless scientist and interested in signally, sure, it is a point of interest. But as a consumer, there is literally no value in knowing the "generation of signalling" used. But for some reason in the US market, knowing the "generation" of the technology has become vastly more important to consumers than the quality or speed or even cost of the resulting service!
Speed and latency matter to me. I simply got the name of what I have incorrect, due to marketing and me never caring enough to look into it.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
Current connection says LTE+. What's that?
I always thought that T-Mobile was giving me 4G/LTE. Didn't know it was 3G.
LTE is a specific 3G technology. 3G is a generation, LTE is a specific 3G implementation. It's the fastest tech currently deployed in the US until 5G rolls out.
LTE Advanced (written LTE+) is a better form of LTE, but is still 3G.
One of the key errors in American marketing is being concerned about how a product reaches its speeds, rather than the speeds and quality of the resulting service. No one should care that LTE is 3G or 4G, that's crazy to care. If you are a wireless scientist and interested in signally, sure, it is a point of interest. But as a consumer, there is literally no value in knowing the "generation of signalling" used. But for some reason in the US market, knowing the "generation" of the technology has become vastly more important to consumers than the quality or speed or even cost of the resulting service!
Kind of sounds like how Apple named there iPhones, 3/3gs and 4/4s.
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@black3dynamite said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
Current connection says LTE+. What's that?
I always thought that T-Mobile was giving me 4G/LTE. Didn't know it was 3G.
LTE is a specific 3G technology. 3G is a generation, LTE is a specific 3G implementation. It's the fastest tech currently deployed in the US until 5G rolls out.
LTE Advanced (written LTE+) is a better form of LTE, but is still 3G.
One of the key errors in American marketing is being concerned about how a product reaches its speeds, rather than the speeds and quality of the resulting service. No one should care that LTE is 3G or 4G, that's crazy to care. If you are a wireless scientist and interested in signally, sure, it is a point of interest. But as a consumer, there is literally no value in knowing the "generation of signalling" used. But for some reason in the US market, knowing the "generation" of the technology has become vastly more important to consumers than the quality or speed or even cost of the resulting service!
Kind of sounds like how Apple named there iPhones, 3/3gs and 4/4s.
Kinda, except at least 3G and 4G refer to specific signalling generations. The Apple iPhone names are nothing but names, nothing at all. Any association with meaning is totally made up by their customers.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@black3dynamite said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Obsolesce said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything
I'm lucky to get 30 Mbps 4G LTE here....
LTE is 3G. Most American 4G is actually slower than 3G (which is why all the big carriers here use 3G LTE instead of actual 4G). The "G" is the signally standard, not a reference to the speed. Each new generation can go faster than the old ones, but you can use it to go slower, if you want.
Real 4G will go much faster than 3G LTE. Real 5G will blow the doors off of that. If you give it the bandwidth.
Think of it like copper and fiber. Fiber can go faster, but in the real world, it's all down to the speed that you select and lots of copper goes faster than fiber in real deployments. Both go really fast and really slow, if you want them to. But if you need the ultimate speed, fiber can go insanely fast.
Current connection says LTE+. What's that?
I always thought that T-Mobile was giving me 4G/LTE. Didn't know it was 3G.
LTE is a specific 3G technology. 3G is a generation, LTE is a specific 3G implementation. It's the fastest tech currently deployed in the US until 5G rolls out.
LTE Advanced (written LTE+) is a better form of LTE, but is still 3G.
One of the key errors in American marketing is being concerned about how a product reaches its speeds, rather than the speeds and quality of the resulting service. No one should care that LTE is 3G or 4G, that's crazy to care. If you are a wireless scientist and interested in signally, sure, it is a point of interest. But as a consumer, there is literally no value in knowing the "generation of signalling" used. But for some reason in the US market, knowing the "generation" of the technology has become vastly more important to consumers than the quality or speed or even cost of the resulting service!
Kind of sounds like how Apple named there iPhones, 3/3gs and 4/4s.
Kinda, except at least 3G and 4G refer to specific signalling generations. The Apple iPhone names are nothing but names, nothing at all. Any association with meaning is totally made up by their customers.
Sort of. The original iPhone did not use the 3G data network. That is why they used iPhone 3g for the name instead of iPhone 2. After that, yeah, it never mattered.
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@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything.
And yet here I am in Porto with 1.78mbps down on 3G
Not exactly rural EU and still crap wireless. -
@StorageNinja said in I am going to start an ISP:
@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:
In rural eastern Europe, 300Mb/s 4G is a reality and has been for years. Plenty speed to handle almost anything.
And yet here I am in Porto with 1.78mbps down on 3G
Not exactly rural EU and still crap wireless.Yeah, Porto is western Europe, though. More like the US (e.g. slow.)
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While really interesting, every day the idea of starting a new ISP gets more and more difficult. A year ago what was feasible would not be today. Terrestrial lines keep being laid, new wireless standards keep rolling out, new satellite options keep being launched, and potential customers slowly find their own solutions, as well. It is a market that dries up very rapidly.
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@Reid-Cooper Tell that to rural America that is still on less than 1 Mbps speed DSL while cities like New York, Dallas, and LA are pushing towards 1 Gbps. Given, it is the peoples choice to live in rural America, but the phone companies also have no interest in upgrading their infrastructure because the ROI is crap.
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@NerdyDad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Reid-Cooper Tell that to rural America that is still on less than 1 Mbps speed DSL while cities like New York, Dallas, and LA are pushing towards 1 Gbps. Given, it is the peoples choice to live in rural America, but the phone companies also have no interest in upgrading their infrastructure because the ROI is crap.
People who can't live without 50Mbps do not live live in non-rural area's. In theory, a WISP might open up housing markets for people like me who work remotely but the other inconveniences of rural life (no 1-2 hour delivery for groceries/Amazon, poor restaurant choice, crazy bad schools, long distance to airports, poor job opportunities for my spouse) stack the deck that the Total Addressable market is going to grow much except for area's JUST outside the city that a telco will eventually expand as they get denser.
You have to hope for a large enough TAM to break even, but NOT too BIG of one that Comcast comes in and fucks up your monopoly. Welcome to being an ISP where your break-even can't get too good before someone ruins it. Also, your access to capital for refresh can dry up at any moment, regulations could 10x your operational costs.
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@StorageNinja said in I am going to start an ISP:
@NerdyDad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@Reid-Cooper Tell that to rural America that is still on less than 1 Mbps speed DSL while cities like New York, Dallas, and LA are pushing towards 1 Gbps. Given, it is the peoples choice to live in rural America, but the phone companies also have no interest in upgrading their infrastructure because the ROI is crap.
People who can't live without 50Mbps do not live live in non-rural area's. In theory, a WISP might open up housing markets for people like me who work remotely but the other inconveniences of rural life (no 1-2 hour delivery for groceries/Amazon, poor restaurant choice, crazy bad schools, long distance to airports, poor job opportunities for my spouse) stack the deck that the Total Addressable market is going to grow much except for area's JUST outside the city that a telco will eventually expand as they get denser.
You have to hope for a large enough TAM to break even, but NOT too BIG of one that Comcast comes in and fucks up your monopoly. Welcome to being an ISP where your break-even can't get too good before someone ruins it. Also, your access to capital for refresh can dry up at any moment, regulations could 10x your operational costs.
And people who need the speed, but also want to be rural, have often already moved to countries where doing so is even cheaper.
This is one spot where the US really struggles. So many countries offer great Internet, and dirt cheap rural living, that allows for working from home while being completely remote.
