Starting Your Own Personal ISP?

Hi everyone,

I'm new and this may be a dumb question but here it goes anyway.

Is it possible for me to start my own personal ISP?

This is my situation... I live in a small town and we only have one ISP provider who not only price gouges us ( https://www.azci.net/order.htm )and gives us crappy service, but he also moniters what we do on the internet. I have actually recieved phone calls in the middle of the night from this man threatening to shut me down if I didn't stop viewing the page I was viewing on the internet. Let's just say he's rather "conservative".

Right now I'm paying $50 per month for download speeds ranging anywhere from .07-.17 kbps (once in a rare while at 3am I can get almost 500 kbps) and according to my ISP I can get "UP TO" 3 megs, which I've never been even close to. The guy blames the speed on my computer, which is complete crap because when I go to a friends house in another town my computer gets download speeds of 10 megs and up!

I don't want to start my own ISP company to compete with him or anything of that nature, I just want to have it for my own personal use. I am willing to make an investment if it will last me a lifetime. I do not wish to move to the big city, we like our small town because it is the perfect place to raise our son. What I don't like is my privacy being violated and being ripped off.

I'm a chick that can turn a wrench and I'm always looking to learn new things... So if anyone has any suggestions it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Tags: isp

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by JT on April 26, 2009 at 11:02pm: You would need a server or 2 or 3 and also, I would think, a T1 from a telephone company.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Stormy on April 27, 2009 at 12:48am: Thanks for the replies... I'll have to look into it. What is considered a "nice" cpu? I wonder how much a server would cost.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jake on April 27, 2009 at 1:14am: ive got an x work server from my mums work
specs
3ghz intel xeon quad core processor 64bit
2gb ddr2 ram
it has currently 6 scsi hdds
but can hold 8
it has well server stuff
raid, satta
floppy drive
2x network ports
a seccond cpu slot that im gonna fill sometime
dual power supply; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by medinamatt on April 27, 2009 at 4:17am: the intel xenon is a good server processor.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by IMPMAC on April 27, 2009 at 3:31am: It will cost you quite a lot. And you dont just need a server, you need large cooling rooms. You probably need something like solaris or linux. T1 line (a dedicated internet line) installed, programmers, gateway setup, lots and lots of money!

I would say all of your neighbors come together and contact an existing good ISP and they will lay down new cables and you should get new service!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael Wagner on April 27, 2009 at 4:33am: You might want to google "broadband internet" and (your town). Quite often you can find some of the national isp's are available and just don't advertise in your area.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Snick on April 27, 2009 at 4:36am: To start your own ISP you need the following (and it's not all of it)

A backbone - via, AT&T, Internap, even Comcast(though may be more expensive) now - some type of bandwidth motivated network willing to help you route. Which will cost a fortune to have them install.
OR
You could probably invest in your states Internet, they would probably provide you with a DS-1(/3) connection. Although once again, that costs a lot. Probably $200/month and up, depending on the area. I've seen DSs (T1s) run $450/month standard before.

You need to be a registered IP Owner - Thus to distribute IPs (even if it's to yourself, or you can rent an IP. via an IP vendor.). To have your own IPs can be a long process. If you go the states way, they'd probably help you register all this information at once. But the first way is doing things separate (sort-of).

Misc:

You need to know about DNS/NS, *nix (Linux/Unix - Recommended).

Etc:

If you're thinking "Holy crap that's too much money" - Then you're probably better off sticking with the slow Internet even though it's a rip off. But, even so then, if you go THAT far to provide yourself with your own Internet, you could resell it. Then I suggest reporting this to the Government or ELSE! lol.

However, you'd be doing the same thing other ISPs do (well most), and that's overselling bandwidth. You *hope* that all of your customers won't use every bit of bandwidth on that node and congest the network.

You see, when people have cable Internet that is 8-10-20-30 mb download, that 8mb connection should really cost them $5,000+/month. But it doesn't, because they're actually buying from a stock, sharing bandwidth with others on the network. So your priority is lowered and you get ran over by others on the Internet (not noticeably). Take a T1, and Cable line, and the cable is "faster" - 95% of the time any URL you go to will come up faster on a T1 than it will a cable line; The T1 has higher priority - So it cost way more. Then you have your big-big fiber lines, 100mb-1gb-13gb lines (way out of most peoples price range).

anywho *stops self from going on*; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CK13 on April 27, 2009 at 9:46am: thats alot of money for a t1, why not make this guy's life hell, contact BBB and any other groups, local media (about 10 years ago i dealt with an isp similar to this, because he was the only local number in dialup, just a real ass, and rip people off selling them used pc's that were ancient at the time for almost as much as buying a new one, till people started compaining to those higher up than in this town; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Stormy on April 27, 2009 at 7:51pm: Thanks for all of the info.

I am definately going to learn more about this. I found out there are loans that will fund this sort of thing.

I have thought about contacting the BBB but I'm afraid the guy will just cut me off. This is a small town operation, he doesn't really give a crap who thinks what of him. I could show you some emails between us and you'd be shocked at the way this man talks to me. If I don't have internet, I can't make money.

I think developing my own ISP is definately in my future, especially with the loans available for it... But I'm not going down that road until I educate myself a lot more about this.

Thanks for getting me in the right direction!!!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cookenstein on April 27, 2009 at 8:08pm: You are gettin hosed for what you are paying. You could set up your own ISP, and it might be worth your while after the initial investment which may be a little steep to start, but I'd love to see a small town person beat out one of these greedy bastard ISP's.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Travicemo on April 27, 2009 at 8:14pm: I can't believe he is charging $180.00 for 15Mbps down. That is INSANE!; ▶ Reply to This