I was seriously considering startong a WISP after I found out Comcast was the only option in my new neighborhood (checking what ISPs are available is now part of my home-buying criteria).
The 6Mbps upload was borderline unusable once COVID came and I started working from home. There were days when it would have seriously been faster for me to drive an hour in each way to transfer some large files.
Fortunately 5G came available in my neighborhood. My upload is more than 10x what was before, my download slightly improved, and my monthly cost is lower. At the cost of a bit of latency.
E: allow me to elaborate. I understood you meant to open your own WISP. Maybe I misunderstood, but if I haven’t, I was wondering how one would go about doing this.
The middle bit is the part that is daunting to me. How do you jack in without the intermediary ISP. How does the upstream ISP jack in? Where’s the source?
You’d either have the bulk of your infrastructure in a colo or carrier hotel, or you’d hopefully be able to host your own data center somewhere where there’s fiber run to a nearby carrier hotel.
Then it’s a matter of getting the signal to your transceivers.
You’d probably be setting up to peer with big tier 1 ISPs (in the US, these are Lumen, Cogent, AT&T, GTT, Verizon, or Zayo) and/or tier 2 ISPs (such as Hurricane or Comcast). You may even want to peer with other services such as Amazon or Netflix or Microsoft.
If you want better, diy.
And I don’t mean lbbby your city government or whatever; municipal broadband is illegal most places. Only way out of this one is syndicalism.
I was seriously considering startong a WISP after I found out Comcast was the only option in my new neighborhood (checking what ISPs are available is now part of my home-buying criteria).
The 6Mbps upload was borderline unusable once COVID came and I started working from home. There were days when it would have seriously been faster for me to drive an hour in each way to transfer some large files.
Fortunately 5G came available in my neighborhood. My upload is more than 10x what was before, my download slightly improved, and my monthly cost is lower. At the cost of a bit of latency.
Removed by mod
How would one go about establishing a WISP?
E: allow me to elaborate. I understood you meant to open your own WISP. Maybe I misunderstood, but if I haven’t, I was wondering how one would go about doing this.
With a lot of technical backing and startup capital. Network equipment isn’t cheap (but there are economical options available, like Mikrotik).
Then it’s a matter of acquiring an IP block, an upstream ISP, and tower rights.
Beyond that, basic business stuff like billing and asset management. Help desk, accounts payable, etc.
The middle bit is the part that is daunting to me. How do you jack in without the intermediary ISP. How does the upstream ISP jack in? Where’s the source?
You’d either have the bulk of your infrastructure in a colo or carrier hotel, or you’d hopefully be able to host your own data center somewhere where there’s fiber run to a nearby carrier hotel.
Then it’s a matter of getting the signal to your transceivers.
You’d probably be setting up to peer with big tier 1 ISPs (in the US, these are Lumen, Cogent, AT&T, GTT, Verizon, or Zayo) and/or tier 2 ISPs (such as Hurricane or Comcast). You may even want to peer with other services such as Amazon or Netflix or Microsoft.