IamA Guy Who Setup a Low-Latency Rural Wireless ISP That Launches in January, AMA!

How many customers do you need to break even?

A year from now, if a customer was going through some hard times, and was two months late on payment, what would be your policy on cutting them off?

How many customers do you need to break even?

I would require 24 customers to break even on operating expenses and capital investment.

A year from now, if a customer was going through some hard times, and was two months late on payment, what would be your policy on cutting them off?

We're actually considering a community outreach for low-income and elderly people in our area. We would provide them with free internet access. Seeing as we're in a tight-knit community, I would find out they hit hard times before they even missed their first payment. The fact is, we can cover our operating expenses on my wife and my salaries alone. We are simply doing this project as a service to our community.

What are your thoughts on expanding beyond your own neighborhood in the future?

I'm not sure. On one hand, it gives the opportunity for a lot more revenue. On the other, it transforms the company from a small community project to an actual business endeavor. I think I'd be willing to do it so long as I could find a way that doesn't actually impact service quality.

Franchise it.

That's actually not a bad idea.

I live in a rural community (Southern VA) with no access to broadband at all (Other than 4g which is spotty). I have been thinking on and off for a long time about starting a WISP like yours but really don't know where to start. I am a IT Systems Engineer with loads of networking experience (Although more an applications system engineer now than anything to do with the network itself). If you do decide that you would like to figure out how to expand or are willing to work with someone to help start a new project other places I would be VERY interested. Thanks...

I wouldn't mind collaborating with you. It really depends on your location. I'm fortunate that my area is a mountain valley and that there are homes up on the mountainside. I am basically beaming a direct 2gbps signal to the mountainside home with zero trees blocking valley view. Then I'm setting up 4x 45-degree 500mbps antennas to broadcast to the whole valley with a completely unimpeded line of sight. If an area becomes more congested than others, I can simply add another antenna.

I also have been very interested in a WISP for a rural community in Montana / Idaho. May I contact you to get some more information regarding the fiber purchasing process? I am quite familiar with Ubiquiti radios, so I feel the business side of things would be the hardest part.

Yes, you may! Idaho and Montana are probably great analogs for the environment I'm in.

How easy is this to replicate?

If you have $40k and are within 3 miles of a fiber node, you can replicate it pretty easily. I'm simply using off-the-shelf equipment for long range wifi connections with clear LOS.

If you live in a suburban area though, you're probably going to run into issues with trees blocking LOS. However, you won't need as much startup capital as you're usually within a couple hundred feet of a fiber node.

Hardest obstacle you’ve had to overcome to make this happen?

Also you’re doing some amazing work.

Getting the fiber line to an actual completion date. It required so much red tape and capital, it's ridiculous. The permits alone took a couple months.

Did you have to overcome any bureaucratic hurdles, i.e. local/county/state approval? I'm asking because I thought that a lot of PUCs passed regulations prohibiting competition and giving monopolies to the Big Players. I'm looking at you, Arizona Corporation Commission and Cox, you bastards.

Yes, yes and yes. Easement rights are a big pain, but luckily Centurylink played nice since I'm using them for my fiber node tie-in. It took several months for permits and planning to get an actual completion date forecasted.

What technology are you using to provide service?

Who are you using as your backbone provider?

How many households will you be able to service with your initial setup?

What technology are you using to provide service?

We're running a fiber backbone to a tower. The tower currently has AirFiber WiFi dishes. A corresponding AirFiber dish will be installed on each customer's roof. This wifi network creates an internal network with a 1 to 5ms latency.

Who are you using as your backbone provider?

We ran our own dedicated fiber line that is connected to the nearest Centurylink Fiber Node. The connection has a scalable dedicated capacity of 10gbps.

How many households will you be able to service with your initial setup?

Initial setup will be able to serve 100 households at a contention ratio of 3:1. This is actually the best contention ratio in the state, with Centurylink's Urban Fiber being 10:1 and Comcast's Urban Gigabit being 12:1.

You're installing dedicated radios for each customer? You're not doing PtMP? Ooooh that's interesting. What's your equipment cost per customer?

The dedicated radios substantially decrease latency. Basically, it will be NSM5 -> Tower AF-5X Receiver -> Fiber. The tower has 4 AF-5X on 45-degree antennas that will broadcast to its 120-degree view of the valley.

Equipment cost will be $120 to $150 per install. Customers will be charged a $100 install fee and they will own the equipment.

oh okay, you are doing PtMP. That's good. I thought you were putting up microwave links on each house. I was wondering how damn tall your tower was.

Did you build a tower? Leasing?

Show us some pictures of your buildout!

As of right now, the "Tower" is basically a mountainside home's roof with a clear LOS of the whole valley. My buildout is:

1x NetVanta 5660

1x Linksys LGS124

2x APC Smart-UPS C 1000VA

2x AF24HD

2x Rocket 5AC Prism Gen2

2x AM-5G17-90

Ubiquiti AirFiber5x? Those aren't PtMP currently. They have plans to make their LTU stuff "like airFibers but ptmp."

I'm an idiot. The AF-5X is direct line mapping I was thinking about implementing higher speeds with. Its the RP‑5AC‑Gen2 with an AM-5G17-90.

I paid $100 to own my centurylink modem, so the price point is about right, especially if you're offering better, cheaper service than them.

Thanks!

What are the legal ramifications of this? If I'm understanding correctly, which maybe I'm not, you're basically the middle man for a community funded century link line? Is it possible the ISPs will crack down on this? And how will the net neutrality fight impact you? Can you bypass your providers restrictions and pass it to your customers?

As far as ISPs cracking down on this, Centurylink is fully aware of what I'm doing. They are quite happy with the price I am paying for the dedicated bandwidth access for my fiber line. Also, my only competition is another bloated, overpriced and underperforming wireless ISP. The maximum bandwidth they provide is just over half my minimum and is the same price, not to mention a 250gb data cap. So, unless Centurylink plans on rolling out DSL to my customers, they're perceiving me as a revenue stream.

How much bandwidth would a customer need to use to the point you would be taking a loss on their monthly subscription cost?

At my maximum contention ratio of 5:1, a 25mbps customer would have to use 13.4TB of data download before they started overstepping their connection bounds.

Now that people know how to take advantage of you, better write a monthly 13 TB data cap into your contracts.

No joke! I better watch out!

When I did the math it made me realize how absurd ISP data caps are.

Here, enjoy 250mbps with a 1TB cap. Hope you weren't planning on using more than a sustained 5mbps.

How much does your backbone connection cost in recurring fees?

$2k/mo per gigabit.

Ok so I am not getting this. It costs you 2k per gig or in your case it is 20k per month. Above you said you need 24 customers to break even on the operating costs. Assuming you have at least some overhead you are charging 1k per month per customer?

It's scalable. The line I ran has a capacity of 10gbps. I am starting with 1gbps. Hope that helps!

Not gonna lie, that's significantly more expensive then I would have thought, but I've never really liked into it before too.

Where did you even go to find information on pricing for a straight up backbone connection?

I went straight to the enterprise solutions department of my telco. I asked where their nearest fiber node was that I could tie into with a dedicated 10gbps connection.

So you're providing 100 homes a 30mbps down link for $2k a month?

My website has my pricing. It is $50 for 25mbps, $80 for 50mbps and $125 for 100mbps.

Essentially, you've paid for a business level fiber connection and will be selling connection through yours?

Yes. It is a 10gbps fiber line we paid to run to the nearest Centurylink Fiber Node. We'll be using AirFiber WiFi dishes to distribute the connection from a tower to households.

How would weather affect that connection?

The fiber line itself wouldn't be affected by weather. So long as there isn't snow obstructing the antennas and wind speeds don't exceed 150kmh, the antennas will transmit just fine.

how much is cost?

$30k to run the line and $2k/mo per gigabit. Equipment and tower costs were $10k. I've done a lot of the work myself, which has saved a considerable amount of money.

So $20k a month for your 10Gbps line?

It's scalable in increments of 100mbps. My line capacity is 10gbps, however, I am starting out with 1gbps access.

Don't know much about these wireless connections, but I assume all is encrypted and no one can connect to someone elses connection etc?

Yes. It is all encrypted and no one can connect to someone else's connection. Well, unless they have an open WiFi router. In that case, it would only impact the customer who did such a thing and anyone within router range.

Do most homes in your area already have access to DSL or cable infrastructure?

Actually, no. We're basically at the end of our road for DSL access and there is no cable access. The fastest DSL connection we can get is 3mbps at $80/mo. There are nearly 100 homes within 5km of my home that must rely on aged and overpriced wireless internet. They charge $50/mo for up to 10mbps with a 250gb data cap. From talking to my neighbors, they are actually paying $150-$200 a month for a high-latency wireless connection that peaks at 10mbps.

I just want to say, reading from this thread, internet in the US seems really expensive and freaking slow... I'm in Chengdu, China, I get 200mbps fiber and 40GB 4G data on mobile for 199rmb/mo, about 30usd/mo. I also bought a VPS server in the US to bypass the GFW, and on a good day, I can get over 30mbps accessing YouTube. That traffic went across the whole Pacific Ocean...

When I lived in the city, a 250mbps connection was 4 times that amount.

Dude I feel you I've got 500kbps for $60 month sucks But we are getting cable soon I can see the workers putting up the cables from my window.

Best of luck to you! I've always had great experiences with cable internet.

First, I want to say thanks for putting in the effort to provide quality Internet access at a reasonable price.

Mainly, I'm curious about the initial process of starting your own ISP. For example, roughly how much money would I need in the beginning to start an ISP similar to yours (securing a fiber connection, basic equipment, etc). I know you said you live in a small mountain community, so I'm guessing getting the first couple of customers was easy but did you ever have any issues with customers worrying about a small business providing reliable Internet?

My family has established quite the reputation for quality up here. So, getting customers on board with quality expectations was pretty easy. Also, neighbors have been bragging to their neighbors about their soon-to-be fast cheap connection, which has drummed up more prospects. I already have several customers pledged to the highest speed package.

As for the cost, it was $30k to run the fiber line and the dedicated access fee is $2k/gigabit. The tower and equipment cost $10k. I've done most of the work myself, which has saved us a lot of money.

Since the Net Neutrality debate is currently red-hot, what is your opinion on it, and, independent of your personal thoughts, do you think slashing it would be good, bad, or a mix of both for the company?

I think Net Neutrality is critical for economic growth. Small businesses wouldn't be able to compete with larger companies that can simply pay for a fast lane to customers. I also think it is totally unethical, considering there is ample existing infrastructure to tie into and companies are already making massive revenue off it.

For instance, if I were to use Centurylink's contention ratio, I would be able to make 4 times the revenue of my operating expenses.

Slashing net neutrality seems like a huge step in the wrong direction to me. I grew up when home internet was brand new, slow and expensive. I really hope that 25 years later we don't end up with it being that way again.

Hey! Wow, I used to be in this business. It's a tough one, so kudos.

Questions:

Do you climb the towers to place the distribution antennas yourself? I ask because, the first time I climbed a 200' tower, I was terrified. They couldn't get me on the 300' towers.

You mentioned you're using AirFiber for the distribution points. TBH, that's a product I have no experience with. Have you ever considered making your own with Mikrotik Routerboard based radios? Back in the day, we found it extremely cost effective and flexible. Are the AirFiber products better when you consider cost/performance/ease-of-setup/management? I bet the Mikrotik board solutions only win on the cost part.

How big of an area are you serving? I may have made an assumption that you had to set up multiple towers.

Thanks for this AMA!

I will be using a mountainside roof with a clear LOS of the whole community's section of the valley for a "tower". I eventually want to set up a dedicated tower with a vantage of the entire valley. I hate heights, so I'd likely hire a contractor for that work.

AirFiber is extremely low latency and high bandwidth. Each of the 4 propagation antennas has a 500mbps throughput at a range of 100km. The main trunk relay has a 2gbps throughput at a range of 20km. The 500mbps antennas have a 45-degree reliable coverage area (they can cover up to 80 degrees, however, I prefer staying in a comfortable margin). The internal wireless network latency is 1-5ms between customer and fiber.

I have zero experience with building routerboards and radios. These products are relatively cheap, high bandwidth and extremely reliable, so I decided to go with them.

From what I understand you're providing wireless internet using a 10gbps fiber line to a century link tower correct? You say you can service up to 100 clients, would that fiber line be limiting people to certain plans or everyone gets the same rate? By rate I mean price and actual speeds.

For example 100 people from a 10gbps line means like 100mbps line each right? If it's wireless are you limited by wireless speeds? Is latency a huge issue?

Thanks for your time

Yes, I want an extremely low contention ratio. That is the amount of backbone provided for the speed promised. For example, a 1gbps backbone with 10 subscribers at 1gbps each would be a contention ratio of 10:1. Most ISPs have contention ratios of 20:1. Centurylink provides a 10:1 ratio on their urban gigabit and Comcast is 12:1 on their urban gigabit service. The max I am considering is a maximum of 5:1. If customers opt for speeds lower than 100mbps, I can support more actual customers. As of right now, I'm thinking that I will only have upwards of 100 clients in my area.

The radios we are using are very low latency. The manufacturer claims latency as low as 0.1ms. My real-world implementation has shown 1-5ms.

Are the speeds contingent on the amount of customers or are there different rates people would be paying for? For example is it closer to having a separate ISP per person in a 5 person household or is it closer to having one connection in a house with 5 people? Basically would everyone be sharing or so you offer separate rates per account?

Sorry for asking so many questions just curious how you're going about the service itself :]

It will be a per household basis. Basically, I will put an antenna on their roof and run an Ethernet line into their home. If they don't have a wireless router, they can lease one for $10/mo or they can pay the price I paid for it.

I have three plans that I provide.

solid pricing.

Thanks!

Would it be possible to have an Internet that works peer to peer?

Yes and I actually considered this option. The major trade-off though is latency. Using DD-WRT would require less infrastructure cost, but create an internal network latency measured in the hundreds of milliseconds. Our setup has an internal latency of 1-5ms.

Even if net neutrality goes down, will you still act like it didn't in terms of your business practices?

Absolutely.

If this becomes successful, what are your plans for expansion?

As far as expansion goes, simply setting up repeater AirFiber stations with 2gbps capacity is the best route. I can set up a repeater backbone on the main roof of each neighborhood.

On hauls longer than 20km I could do a 1.4gbps 100km AirFiber station. Someone suggested that I consider setting up a franchise. As for now, I'm focusing on my community though.

If you don't mind saying what does it actually take to setup a ISP?

Cashwise? It will require about $40k with roughly $25k in annual operating expenses.

As far as equipment goes, a fiber link and several long-range wifi antennas are about all you need. The rest is scale and quality of service.

What frequency is the AirFiber using? Do you need Line-of-Sight for a good connection? What is the max throughput each tower would be able to handle? If you sell multiple 100mb plans can the tower handle 200mb of overall traffic? Are you worried about over subscribing a tower? Do you have plans to deal with interference? Are you able to provide good upload speeds?

What frequency is the AirFiber using?

24ghz on the connection to the tower. 5.5 to 5.8ghz on the propagation towers.

Do you need Line-of-Sight for a good connection?

I would highly recommend it. Although, there have been cases where AirFiber Antennas have been used for non-LOS 2-mile old-tree growth suburban roof-to-roof links with speeds of 100mbps.

What is the max throughput each tower would be able to handle?

As of right now, 2gbps. It's scalable though with multiple AirFiber relays.

Are you worried about over subscribing a tower?

No. I'm actually worried about actually using all the bandwidth right now. I could service 20 100mbps customers on the current tower. Also, over-subscription is the norm for ISPs. 20:1 is the industry standard. My maximum will be 5:1, but I don't think I'll ever need to over-subscribe.

Do you expect to be able to keep it running off of what you make from it alone? Or are you prepared to put some extra money into it?

I expect to cover operating expenses and make some return on investment. The community really needs this and I already have customers lined up for installation. I only require 24 customers to cover operating expenses. That's with 6 at 100mbps, 6 at 50mbps and 12 at 25mbps. I expect most people to pick the lower speed, mostly due to the fact that it's still stinkin' fast and pretty cheap. However, I have several customers that have already pledged to the max speed.

So I noticed you briefly mentioned technology in one of the other questions. What exactly are you using for your CPE? You say your fiber circuit has a maximum capacity of 10gbps, what capacity are you currently provisioned at? What radios are you using on your tower? Any plans to multi-home? Are you using a carrier grade NAT or did you purchase/rent some IP space? What are you using for routing and switching? Will you support IPv6 right from the start? Do you have emergency power at your headend (in this case, a tower)? Would you be willing to share the pricing on your backhaul and some of the build out costs?

I'm using an NSM5 on a 3-foot roof mounted pole. A shielded outdoor rated Cat 5e line will then be run from NSM5 to a customer provided or leased router. There's a POE injector that will be between the router and NSM5. The maximum link distance will be 5km with 100% clear LOS.

I'm sorry. I broke some Reddit etiquette by editing right after I posted it. I realized I had more questions but you responded too quick.

No problem! There's lots of questions coming in, so I answer them as quickly as I can.

I have multiple rack-mount UPS for the fiber trunk router, switches, and POE injectors. I will be able to support IPv6 right off the bat, though I will also allow IPv4.

The price is $2k/gigabit. The build-out cost was $30k.

Hey man,

Army satcom Veteran here, Africa deployment, going to school for IS

What your doing is basically my goal in the future, although I’m shooting rural areas outside the United States, what hurdles and what we’re the biggest issues for you getting started?

The biggest hurdles were getting the fiber permits and installation timeline. There's a lot of red tape involved in this sort of thing.

Also, figuring out exactly what equipment I wanted to use was pretty important as well. I basically just dove in for a couple weeks and just hammered out all the infrastructure details for my network map.

How many potential customers in your service area?

Great job sir. Wish you all the best with this venture.

I'm forecasting about 100 customers. I only need 24 to break even though.

Thanks!

How low latency is "low latency"?

1-5ms internal network latency to the fiber backbone. Fiber is a direct line to the telecom central office.

[removed]

Proof was provided by linking to my website that was established months before the thread creation. I created a "Reddit Visitors" link on the homepage that directly links to this thread.

If you need more proof, I can provide a copy of my fiber contract with Centurylink and LLC paperwork.