We'd hire one. I'm not confident in my abilities to keep a network up myself.
Crowdfunding - Custom WHMCS Implementation
- Thread starter shovenose
- Start date
What you're saying here is that you're wanting to build a business who's sole purpose is to build out a network yet have no experience in building out a network and don't have the expertise in house.
You need to get approval from the FCC as well as necessary permits from your local governments. ( Verizon had a hell of a time building a new tower here. )
Although I agree with this post & all of the points everyone has made, it's worth mentioning there are ISP consultancy agencies out there who will almost kick-start this type of idea for you. I'm not saying its viable @ $40k or that it's an avenue you should take, but it exists. A local group of people in a town with a population of around 1-2k had nearly no internet access and wanted to build out a local ISP with the latest technology and what not. It ended up costing them around $160k but the important factor is that the consultancy handled almost everything and the community group just managed financing.
If you wanted to do this to provide stellar service & make the community a better place, non-profit wouldn't seem like that much of a sacrifice for you. @drmike mentioned it and you shot the idea down - but its the only way I can see this being even remotely viable, and quadruple your budget to get anywhere half decent.
If this is a viable business plan then you could take it to investors and gather local interest through networking (again, as @drmike mentioned) - crowdfunding on the net for something like this shows me that the idea isn't as neat as you would like to think it is, and I wouldn't expect any one person never mind group of people to trust a young person with no background experience with $40k without one hell of a business plan.
Good luck if you decide to go ahead, but take everyone's advice on board - they aren't just shooting your idea down for the hell of it. It's just not realistic.
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Any business like this involves out of necessity leveraging liquidity.
Right now, leveraging $0.
Networking is a necessity in a local project like this. Otherwise your project will fail from lack of public awareness (you can't pay/afford for such), red tape (localities will stomp your idealism into the floor), site acquisition cost/operating main tower sites (full rates, union labor, blueprints, engineering firms, etc.).
If you network and build true local tie-in, stand to be able to utilize city/county infrastructure. Existing towers, local water tower, etc. Greatly reduces costs, makes the project more viable.
Have to remember, the locality and county both probably handsomely extort money from the greedy telco + cable incumbents via franchising fees and tons of freebies (bandwidth to government, schools, libraries, etc.). So angling against the incumbents, means reduction in these forms of extortion and free stuff. Politicos aren't allowing their free lunch ticket to walk and will punching bag you in the process.
Right now, leveraging $0.
Networking is a necessity in a local project like this. Otherwise your project will fail from lack of public awareness (you can't pay/afford for such), red tape (localities will stomp your idealism into the floor), site acquisition cost/operating main tower sites (full rates, union labor, blueprints, engineering firms, etc.).
If you network and build true local tie-in, stand to be able to utilize city/county infrastructure. Existing towers, local water tower, etc. Greatly reduces costs, makes the project more viable.
Have to remember, the locality and county both probably handsomely extort money from the greedy telco + cable incumbents via franchising fees and tons of freebies (bandwidth to government, schools, libraries, etc.). So angling against the incumbents, means reduction in these forms of extortion and free stuff. Politicos aren't allowing their free lunch ticket to walk and will punching bag you in the process.
Last edited by a moderator:
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
Red tape and greedy local officials are easily bypassed if you talk to the right people. Call the Office of Small Business Programs at (443)-479-2384 and they should be able to help you out with funding, licensing, and will probably even provide you with some specialized equipment for your wireless ISP venture.
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
Doesn't matter if it's unintentional, the issue is that it sends the wrong message. I'm not trying to kick you down or anything but I highly doubt a good portion of the people who are interested would read through all of these long-winded question and answer sessions to find out that the image was sending an unintended message.
Look. My point being about the 40k is that you want so much with so little money. An actual capable individual worth 80k (cheap side) is much better than four 25k unskilled workers (not to offend anyone. I've seen people who work for 25k who are absolutely amazing in their fields. But in general that's usually the issue.). Hell all of my peers who did not continue their engineering education after graduation and went out into the industry makes at minimum 35k a year (and that's on the shorter side, our average salary is 60k (for 2013 graduates), my roommate got 72k a year contract (granted his company's focused on petroleum but the point still stands)). But you don't want fresh undergraduate kids who only understand the theory. You want specialists who know what they're doing. Veterans who understand the theory/concept behind networking but also an individual who have physical experience. Those people run a high market number that you just can't supply with that budget. What's even worse is that those who receive their undergraduate degrees don't know crap (not being offensive here, a good portion of the first job/time is spent in training). You go out into the industry and you realize the knowledge you received from College only laid out the groundworks for even more information that you need to learn over the course of your career. So the first few months the company again has to invest even more money into education and getting you caught up to speed. The point of it being is that people obviously don't work for free, hell you shouldn't work for free, and that hiring people takes up more resources than just salary. Factoring in hardware costs, licensing costs, your office rent, your office hardware (because what good is an office without a few computers?), you mentioned trucks? (if they're company trucks then you should also include maintenance costs, insurance, etc.), plus salary... 40k can't cover all of that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_broadband <- this is basically what you want to do.
FCC licensing just to get started will cost a tonnnnn. You're going to need to expand your budget (in my opinion). If i was to invest I wouldn't want the service to be skimped out. I want it to last.
Ignoring the financial part. I'm sorry man, but you can't be serious about the staffing. You have two individuals who have no experience in wireless networking who want to make a wireless internet company. You're underqualified (sorry to say this man but it's true), and more than likely a large portion of the startup funds will probably go to waste, either by purchasing unneeded equipment or just unoptimized spending in general. A person who's a specialist in this field should know exactly what they need, how much it should run them, how to take care of it, and basically get an idea about it even without a ton of explanations.
Edit: Added undergrad/professional salary numbers
Last edited by a moderator:
HaitiBrother
New Member
No, no, no, just no.
It feels like it'll end with a new ''product idea" by mtwiscool.
But seriously, if I really wanted my own custom WHMCS, I'd probably A) do it myself or B) hire someone and pay them like $100,000 to do it for me.
Why should I pay you to just modify simple code from WHMCS, probably breaking their TOS? Is it to help pay for the lawsuits you'll be getting?
I will only donate if you promise me the toaster in my closet will run it without any bugs.
It feels like it'll end with a new ''product idea" by mtwiscool.
But seriously, if I really wanted my own custom WHMCS, I'd probably A) do it myself or B) hire someone and pay them like $100,000 to do it for me.
Why should I pay you to just modify simple code from WHMCS, probably breaking their TOS? Is it to help pay for the lawsuits you'll be getting?
I will only donate if you promise me the toaster in my closet will run it without any bugs.
Last edited by a moderator:
HaitiBrother
New Member
I read it as "I'm going to decompile WHMCS with bugs, re-skin it, change around directory setup, call it my own"
Did I miss something?
nunim
VPS Junkie
<Insert link to WHT about 16 year old starting a DC>
That about sums up my feelings on the matter. Mostly people don't want Wireless home internet and in a non-urban area the build out is going to cost you millions.
I looked at getting a point to point link with a nearby DC... I hope you've already priced out rooftop rights..
I've seen plenty of nice WHMCS integrations out there and since you won't be using any of the features WHMCS was designed for, why bother with it?
That about sums up my feelings on the matter. Mostly people don't want Wireless home internet and in a non-urban area the build out is going to cost you millions.
I looked at getting a point to point link with a nearby DC... I hope you've already priced out rooftop rights..
I've seen plenty of nice WHMCS integrations out there and since you won't be using any of the features WHMCS was designed for, why bother with it?
Last edited by a moderator:
As someone with extensive real-world WISP experience, I thought I might chime in here.
First, you don't want to use NanoStations for your AP's, they just don't have the capacity. You're far better served with the Rocket-M's, and multiple 120 degree sectors.
Second, you want to do either a fiber or copper backhaul from your connectivity to either a tower of your own construction, or, better, an existing structure that you can get long-term rights on (we used municipal water towers to great effect).
Using Rocket-M's for the AP, and either NanoStation or Bullet-M's with directional antennas, you can hit 7-10 miles nLOS fairly easily at 10-90Mbps (variable on any number of real-world conditions). End of the day, you're looking at a full tower build-out cost of between $2k and $15k, plus whatever you pay for access rights and backhaul. That leaves you with a capacity of approx 30-40 users per sector.
First, you don't want to use NanoStations for your AP's, they just don't have the capacity. You're far better served with the Rocket-M's, and multiple 120 degree sectors.
Second, you want to do either a fiber or copper backhaul from your connectivity to either a tower of your own construction, or, better, an existing structure that you can get long-term rights on (we used municipal water towers to great effect).
Using Rocket-M's for the AP, and either NanoStation or Bullet-M's with directional antennas, you can hit 7-10 miles nLOS fairly easily at 10-90Mbps (variable on any number of real-world conditions). End of the day, you're looking at a full tower build-out cost of between $2k and $15k, plus whatever you pay for access rights and backhaul. That leaves you with a capacity of approx 30-40 users per sector.
It seems that WISP companies are sort of like VPS companies, there are guides on the internet: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/wisp/2_How_to_start and some people just start them on a whim.
Wintereise
New Member
Running one is a hell lot harder than running a Lelervm VPS company, though.
Because unlike that, building out a proper network takes effort.
Because unlike that, building out a proper network takes effort.
This thread happened.