Stuck In Broadband No Man's Land > It's called a "business opportunity"

reply to kontos

Re: It's called a "business opportunity"

reply to BF69
Grab some investors and make your own private entity. Might be doing that myself in a similar situation...town of 10k and TWC is the only decent broadband here. Verizon never bothered to roll out DSL since their lines are pretty screwy; a telephone company ~40 miles over put in a DSLAM awhile back but it can't service most of the town and speeds and prices are uncompetitive (1.5/512 for $50) unless you're a business within range.

reply to kontos
"I was mentioning that a private entrepreneur could start an ISP and (allegedly) make a killing serving these areas."

Private small(but still kick butt) business FTW! Well small compared to the big ISPs.

There is a lot of rural towns in the KC area(both sides of the state line. and kc area= places that get the kc OTA tv channels) and even some places in the heart of KC[down town] that have NO wired internet, other than Tx. the WISP I subscribe to serves most of said areas on both sides of the state line. You think he would do that is he was not making money? I don't. So so there is some money in the areas, just not enough for the big ISPs to take them seriously.

So we agree that the private marketplace should be able to take care of this problem on its own (without gov't help)

'Course I wonder how much the potential for government intervention keeps private industry out of the marketplace.
It would really suck to spend your own money to build out a network just before some form of government aided broadband stimulus goes through. All of a sudden you could be competing with other business that got their start-up costs covered in one form or another. Ouch.

That would kinda suck, but some entrepreneurs will not wait for the Gov they will get it done. They see a way to make money, give the people there a much needed product, and make something of himself. And you would have no tie to the Gov, as far as start up is concerned.. Plus there is a chance that the one that did not get money from the Gov is the better WISP. The WISP I have treats is costumers almost like family. And if the WISP that did not get the Gov money dies in the end it was just not meant to be. Also competition is a good thing, maybe it will make the WISPs increase speed and or lower prices.

reply to iansltx

It's not broadband, but 128/64 DSL is provided by the neighboring telephone co-op for $17.95 per month plus a phone line (maybe $15 for that), and they're highly rural.

20k in a town on the other hand is NOT rural. Granted, it may not be MDU city, but there are plenty of paying customers there.

Additionally, WISP service tends to be in the $40-$50 range for a low-end plan. Probably cheaper than non-triple-play cable internet in fact, albeit for MUCH slower speeds. The local WISP here has charged $41.95 per month for their basic service for several years now, even when they had decent quality, albeit on a 384/128 connection (but hey, you got a static IP, which is freaking awesome).

Bottom line: if your area is truly underserved, there is a market for an additional internet pipe. If there's no DSL in an area, only one cable company and no fiber, you're underserved and could probably make a buck off of people wanting better service.

elray, don't know where you got the $60-$75 number from. Even satellite internet starts off cheaper than that, so no WISP in their right mind catering to residences would decide not to parovide a $50 plan...if WIldBlue is cheaper by $10/mo than decent broadband, some people won't switch, and WISPs generally need all the customers they can get to try for economies of scale.

Let me put it this way: if you sell your service for more than $50 at the entry level, you're missing out on potential WB converts because your service is more expensive than WB.

For the biz-class WISPS, charging high rates is fine. However if you want to hit the residential market you have to price yourself around $40-$50 per month, the average for cable and DSL in town. Otherwise only high-end users will use your system...the low-end users, as long as they know halfway what they're doing, are more profitable if you've got expensive backhaul, since they won't such down as many bits.

From what I've seen around here, WISPS can survive perfectly charging $40 per month for their basic tier of service. The TExas market may well be different than others, but I'm seeing $50 per month as the baseline in most places that I look. Coincidence, considering rates for WildBlue? I think not.