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A new Silicon Valley startup by the name of Necto received ample hype this week after a profile piece by Business Insider highlighted the company's goal of letting consumers build their own ISP. Leaning on the recent death of net neutrality as potential user motivation, the company's website states that the company's focus is in enabling entrepreneurs to build their own small local broadband networks, handling customer acquisition and marketing while Necto handles network engineering, monitoring, troubleshooting and billing. The service leans on fixed wireless connectivity, with Necto primarily marketing the idea to building owners and managers or contractors."Starting an ISP has gotten way cheaper, but there is still some investment required to get started," the company's website proclaims. "You’ll need to have access to (or be able to raise within a month of acceptance) at least $25,000 to cover your initial infrastructure hardware, business setup, and startup expenses." But the startup insists that broadband remains a great business for entrepreneurs to be in. “Running an ISP is a great business,” the company states. “You have highly recurring revenue, low variable & fixed costs, and a low capital expenditure requirement from using next generation distribution gear. The exact numbers will depend on your specific circumstances and unique advantages (access to potential customers, competitive landscape, etc.)." Historically smaller ISPs in this country have seen more heartache than success, thanks in large part to regulatory capture and potent anti-competitive lobbying from Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Charter, and CenturyLink. And while $25,000 is steep for some, it's significant less money than were a local entrepreneur try to build their entire ISP from scratch. "That's the problem we're seeing, there's not enough individual last mile networks delivering broadband to individual homes," Necto co-founder Ben Huang told Business Insider. "Comcast, AT&T, they have all the power because they own the last-mile networks -- that last piece between wholesale and the individual is controlled by the large telecom incumbents. We want to increase the infrastructure that can service this last mile network."With Google Fiber pausing deployments to consider a pivot to wireless, San Francisco is one of several cities left standing at the altar. The city had been part of an effort by Google Fiber to deploy service to a few key locations where fiber was already deployed. With Google Fiber pausing deployments to consider a pivot to wireless, San Francisco is one of several cities left standing at the altar. The city had been part of an effort by Google Fiber to deploy service to a few key locations where fiber was already deployed. For two decades now we've noted how more than 21 states have passed laws, quite literally written by giant ISP lobbyists, preventing towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. In many instances these laws even ban towns and cities from striking public private partnerships with companies like Ting or Google Fiber, often the only way many of these areas are able to get better, cheaper, and faster broadband. Like countless other cities, Los Angeles isn't happy with the lack of broadband competition and the high prices, slow speeds, and poor customer service that result. As such, the Los Angeles Times notes that city councilman Paul Krekorian is urging the city to study the creation of a "new publicly owned and operated department" to provide "affordable broadband internet services to residents." "Los Angeles owns a network of fiber-optic cable that runs through every part of the city," Krekorian said. ISPs continue to buy state laws preventing towns and cities from making their own, local broadband infrastructure decisions. An effort in Wyoming to pass legislation that would award state grants to help rural Wyoming communities get high-speed internet instead got hijacked by CenturyLink and Charter Spectrum lobbyists, resulting in a bill getting passed this week that simply blocked towns and cities from being able to deploy their own broadband networks. A small cable company named Fidelity Communications has been caught covertly attacking community run broadband efforts in the Midwest. Terrified of additional competition and disruption, ISPs have long engaged in sleazy attacks on municipal broadband, some going so far as to claim that allowing such networks will result in the government rationing your TV viewing, or will result in taxpayer dollars going to fund pornography. The city of San Francisco is not only building the biggest community broadband network in the nation, but it's promising that the new network will adhere to net neutrality. Driven by consumer annoyance at high prices and limited competition, the city has been exploring the option for a while, a recent consultant's report (pdf) indicating that the city could build an open access (where multiple ISPs come in to compete) citywide fiber network for around $1.9 billion. The trend of towns and cities building their own broadband networks only continues to grow. According to an updated map by the Institute for Local-Self Reliance, more than 750 towns and cities in the United States now have some variety of community-owned broadband network. We've noted for years how state legislators are so corrupt, ISP lawyers and lobbyists have long been able to literally write awful state law protecting them from competition. There's more than 21 state laws across the country written by the likes of AT&T and Comcast that prevent towns and cities from building their own broadband networks, even if incumbent ISPs have failed to deploy adequate service. Comcast and CenturyLink have begun showing lobbying interest in the Seattle Mayoral race, clearly concerned that the next city leader could explore building a citywide broadband network. Despite being a tech-centric city, Seattle suffers from the same duopoly problem plaguing most cities. ArchivesMost Popular |