dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
2802

CondoDude
@sbcglobal.net

CondoDude

Anon

[HELP] Small ISP oversubscription ration?

I'm looking into making a small "ISP" for a condo building I live in that has ~150 units. Looking to get about a 400mbps circuit to the building and rate limiting each unit to 20mbps. That would give me about a 8:1 oversubscription ratio.

I'm curious what kind of oversubcription any of you Internet Service Provider type engineers are using or recommending. Is 8:1 too over subscribed? Do i need more bandwidth? Could we get away with less?

Appreciate any advice you guys have.
cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
Westell 6100
Cisco PIX 501

cramer

Premium Member

I would go with a 100M service on a gig line. You can add bandwidth as necessary from there. It's hard to say what you'll need as I have no clue what types of users those condos hold. 12:1 is (was) a more typical ratio, but it depends entirely on your userbase and the complaints you're willing to tolerate.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to CondoDude

Member

to CondoDude
I would feed it with 50Mb and go from there. I have hotels 3 times that size that are fed with 10-20Mb circuits that consume about 50% of their circuits on average.

OSUGoose
join:2007-12-27
Columbus, OH

OSUGoose

Member

That's a hotel, what we don't know is if this a condo that is vacation only, or year round living. If Vacation, then your model works if year round living once Jr starts to discover streaming video, its going to saturate fast.

CondoDude
@sbcglobal.net

CondoDude to CondoDude

Anon

to CondoDude
Yeah.. 95% of the condo/home owners live here all year round. Wide range of users... from retired folks that just do email, to younger professionals that do a lot of video streaming and file sharing.

I have a couple of pending RFPs; requesting GigE hand off, with the ability to go full Gig if requested. We'll most likely start under 100mb as users migrate over from local carriers/cable, and bump it up as time goes on to maintain a consistent oversubcription ratio.

Thanks for the advice guys

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

50 will be more than enough to start with. You won't see a 100% take rate and it will take same time to ramp up. Make sure your provider can increase bandwidth in a reasonable amount of time. The best way to make sure you get a gig hand off is to request an optical handoff instead do an electrical.
cramer
Premium Member
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
Westell 6100
Cisco PIX 501

cramer to CondoDude

Premium Member

to CondoDude
said by CondoDude :

... and bump it up as time goes on to maintain a consistent oversubcription ratio.

You're looking at the wrong metric. Actual peak and average usage are the numbers you should be watching. (i.e. if you're reaching 95% capacity for an hour every evening, you might want to increase the bandwidth.)
meta
join:2004-12-27
00000

meta

Member

Agreed, oversubscription ratio is dependant on congestion and your congestion management strategy. Keep in mind that you cant degrade grandma's voip calls because billy is hammering bittorrent.

TomS_
Git-r-done
MVM
join:2002-07-19
London, UK

TomS_ to CondoDude

MVM

to CondoDude
Youre assuming that you will have 100% market penetration.

If you hold some secret sauce for how to achieve such success, quit your dreams to open an ISP and start consulting with the big guys, you'll make a lot more money.

Being more serious, start small, like battleop suggested, and increase as you need to.
meta
join:2004-12-27
00000

meta

Member

TomS_ captive audience is easy if you own an apartment building or office park... or you are the one and only show in town building into a small city on the coast of british columbia lol
20$ a month times 4000 people in the city = 3 year ROI on the oceanic cable route down to seattle... ah life rocks ;P

TomS_
Git-r-done
MVM
join:2002-07-19
London, UK

TomS_

MVM

Captive audience doesn't always mean 100% penetration though.

The company I used to work for were the only broadband provider in many of the areas where we operated, but that still didn't persuade everyone to hook up. Some people continued on with dialup, others chose mobile broadband if they had coverage, and others either went with or were stuck with satellite.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the plans we were offering, they were comparable with what you could get on a metro DSL service because that was a condition of the Government subsidy scheme we were operating under. Some people just aren't swayed by change or don't trust "those little guys" over the national carrier.