I am going to start an ISP
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
Update.
I know this person well enough that they are not going to steal my business idea, start their own, and leave me out in the cold.
Maybe you are right. Everyone thinks this until they are proven wrong though
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This still moving forward?
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I've been mulling this one over long and hard. A couple of problems still in my way:
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Initial costs for 1st year startup. I can become profitable within 6 months if I quit this job and work solely on that, but coming up with the money upfront to get it up and going, getting customers, cash flow, etc, is a little daunting. There is an opportunity for me to receive a good investment if I can get one of the costs down. Haven't tackled that avenue yet. I need to get back on that.
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With Elon Musk's potential of Stars coming to fruition would just about put this project to bed within a couple of years. To me, there is a 50/50 chance of Stars coming into fruition, and, if it does, its going to still be a couple of years down the road. If it doesn't, or doesn't pan out to what I'm thinking it is going to be, then I still have a market to compete in.
Advice?
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
Initial costs for 1st year startup. I can become profitable within 6 months if I quit this job and work solely on that, but coming up with the money upfront to get it up and going, getting customers, cash flow, etc, is a little daunting. There is an opportunity for me to receive a good investment if I can get one of the costs down. Haven't tackled that avenue yet. I need to get back on that.
6 Month turn around! That's pretty amazing. Most SMBs never turn a profit and if they do it's several years down the road. Several people I've talked to say you should be prepared to not make a profit (and potentially not pay yourself) in the first 5 years.
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
I've been mulling this one over long and hard. A couple of problems still in my way:
- Initial costs for 1st year startup. I can become profitable within 6 months if I quit this job and work solely on that, but coming up with the money upfront to get it up and going, getting customers, cash flow, etc, is a little daunting. There is an opportunity for me to receive a good investment if I can get one of the costs down. Haven't tackled that avenue yet. I need to get back on that.
I would only do this with investment. you need to hit the ground hard and fast and you'll likely want to sell the company off in under five years as the market for this stuff is volatile and could go away any second.
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@coliver said in I am going to start an ISP:
@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
Initial costs for 1st year startup. I can become profitable within 6 months if I quit this job and work solely on that, but coming up with the money upfront to get it up and going, getting customers, cash flow, etc, is a little daunting. There is an opportunity for me to receive a good investment if I can get one of the costs down. Haven't tackled that avenue yet. I need to get back on that.
6 Month turn around! That's pretty amazing. Most SMBs never turn a profit and if they do it's several years down the road. Several people I've talked to say you should be prepared to not make a profit (and potentially not pay yourself) in the first 5 years.
Chad's right, six months to profits is insanely fast. That's unheard of.
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
With Elon Musk's potential of Stars coming to fruition would just about put this project to bed within a couple of years. To me, there is a 50/50 chance of Stars coming into fruition, and, if it does, its going to still be a couple of years down the road. If it doesn't, or doesn't pan out to what I'm thinking it is going to be, then I still have a market to compete in.
Starlink is going to be a game changer for the WISP market. You won't have much of a market in 5-10 years if/when it comes out for the masses.
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@coliver said in I am going to start an ISP:
@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
With Elon Musk's potential of Stars coming to fruition would just about put this project to bed within a couple of years. To me, there is a 50/50 chance of Stars coming into fruition, and, if it does, its going to still be a couple of years down the road. If it doesn't, or doesn't pan out to what I'm thinking it is going to be, then I still have a market to compete in.
Starlink is going to be a game changer for the WISP market. You won't have much of a market in 5-10 years if/when it comes out for the masses.
Is that what everybody is predicting? 5-10 years? I think I could do about everything that I wanted to do with it in 5 years, then sell off the company.
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@coliver said in I am going to start an ISP:
@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
With Elon Musk's potential of Stars coming to fruition would just about put this project to bed within a couple of years. To me, there is a 50/50 chance of Stars coming into fruition, and, if it does, its going to still be a couple of years down the road. If it doesn't, or doesn't pan out to what I'm thinking it is going to be, then I still have a market to compete in.
Starlink is going to be a game changer for the WISP market. You won't have much of a market in 5-10 years if/when it comes out for the masses.
Is that what everybody is predicting? 5-10 years? I think I could do about everything that I wanted to do with it in 5 years, then sell off the company.
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.
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
@coliver said in I am going to start an ISP:
@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
With Elon Musk's potential of Stars coming to fruition would just about put this project to bed within a couple of years. To me, there is a 50/50 chance of Stars coming into fruition, and, if it does, its going to still be a couple of years down the road. If it doesn't, or doesn't pan out to what I'm thinking it is going to be, then I still have a market to compete in.
Starlink is going to be a game changer for the WISP market. You won't have much of a market in 5-10 years if/when it comes out for the masses.
Is that what everybody is predicting? 5-10 years? I think I could do about everything that I wanted to do with it in 5 years, then sell off the company.
That's what I've heard, I think it was an Ars article that was predicting 2023 would be the go live date.
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@nerdydad said in I am going to start an ISP:
I think I could do about everything that I wanted to do with it in 5 years, then sell off the company.
Selling companies is a hard thing to do. You need someone with money, who things that the company has a future. You will likely have to sell before five years. Because once you have a competitor, it's all over.
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So the first thought is... every day you don't get this rolling, if it really is six months to profits, is massively lost opportunity. Each day represents a sizable chunk of your total run time.
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I'm still amazed at the 6 month turn around. If your RIO is under or about 6 months then this is a really good opportunity.
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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....
