Canadian Broadband → Starting your own 1Gbps internet company

»www.cbc.ca/news/technolo ··· .1382428

Well, with this news I'm starting to get the feeling that anyone can achieve this as well.

I live in a small town in Northern Alberta whose internet is operated by TELUS/Eastlink via Satellite.

I'm looking for some reading material on what is required to start your own ISP. For a booming oil town, the cost shouldn't be a problem considering the investment opportunities that will surely come for any business that wants cheap and fast internet connections or even for local business for that matter.

The town runs along the Alberta Supernet (»www.servicealberta.ca/Al ··· rNet.cfm) so all I have to do is obtain the necessary equipment to connect to the supernet at or near 1Gbps and start installing fibre optics for the last mile.

Please tell me this is possible. If Olds, Alberta can do it then so can anyone else. Rural communities need to start building better internet speeds as it is one of the many influential factors to bring in raw talent.

There have been many wireless based providers whom have used the Alberta Supernet as a connectivity point, however there is a reason they chose wireless deployment over burying fiber - cost, and timeframe to deliver services. Obviously fixed broadband wireless compared to fiber is apples to oranges though.

Your comment "cost shouldn't be a problem" is always a problem. Either the ISP starting out doesn't have the investment needed or the cash flow often to survive. It is very capital intensive to deploy, especially in rural areas, making the business case often difficult to prove it.

There have been companies that have been successful in deploying FTTH though. A number of the independent telcos in Ontario have been doing it for a long time.

Personally, I'd first talk to people in the industry, specifically involved in laying the physical cabling.

There's going to be a TONNE of issues you're going to hit -- I'm not in this field myself, but off the top
of my head : right-of-way, trenching rights, permits, marking of (utility) lines, etc. Don't know if you
ever had to apply for a building permit before; imagine what kind of red tape nightmare it is if you asked
the town to start digging trenches to lay the copper or fibre to set this up.

Now this doesn't even mention the cost of equipment you're going to need, which is another expense.

Thirdly, what kind of equipment do you need? Wired? Wireless? Copper? Fibre? If fibre, how much?
Coarse-wave? Dense-wave? What kind of underlying protocol are you going to use? Sonet? xPON?
ATM? Metro-E? Pure IP? What kind of room for growth / expansion do you need to leave?

As pstewart mentions, all this falls under the Capital Expense side of the budgeting sheet. The next
thing is Operating Expense (OPEX). How much to pay your staff? How much for your lease fees, especially
if you can't / don't buy the equipment outright? How much for the vendor maintenence / support fees?

As a thought, you could see if you can contact one or two people involved in the OLDS setup and if they're
willing to provide some information / pointers, but my initial thought on this scheme? -- Possible : Yes.
Would I want to take it on without the right information / knowledge / staff : I'd rather swim in a pool full of
Carcharodon Carcharias, personally.

My 00000010bits.

Regards

You are going to need serious amounts of startup cash. Enough for build out, and then enough to keep the lights on for at least 1-2 years before you hit break even on cash flow. Think in the range of 500k - 1 mill to just get off the ground with a small build out. If that seems crazy to you, back out now :P

You will also need cooperation from the city/town itself for utility pole access to run the fiber. Many cities have exclusivity agreements in place as well with the big 3, be it Telus, Bell, Rogers for utility pole access. If you decide to go underground cable, your costs just got multiplied by a factor of 10.

Supernet access is also very expensive, last hook up we did on it just transport alone was $50/mbps. Add on actual transit (internet access) ontop of that to wherever your back hauling to, likely Edmonton where you can try and source cheap transit.

This all assumes you have the staff or consultants with the knowledge to actually pull it off.

Olds was able to do it with a large amount of grants (free money). From the article itself they describe the costs just to buy the networking equipment and basic telco space to house it. (this doesnt include the cost to BUILD OUT the actual fiber, just equipment).

"The Olds Institute spent $3.5 million to buy the necessary electronic equipment to run internet and other services on the network and to build a central office to house it all. Last July, it launched O-Net."

Im a network engineer in the data center industry, we do a lot of fiber build outs in my area. Its not a cheap endeavor and the telcos will do everything to block you along the way.

Wish you all the luck, its a serious uphill battle but not impossible.

While this is from 2010 and the UK it might be of some interest --> »www.techradar.com/news/i ··· p-699959

Marc can probably shed some light on this, giving some insight as to what it cost to get Teksavvy off the ground.

The technical aspect of it is not the problem, you can easily hire a consulting firm to engineer the network.

The problem is the bureaucratic red tape. And lawyers get paid more than engineers.

What kind of law or regulation could help make the deployment of fiber more competition friendly?

I mean purely as only having to deal with the cost of laying fiber/copper/whatever with as little as possible of bureaucratic mess. How could local or provincial governments make it so that there is less red tape?

I am simply asking out of curiosity, I know this won't ever happen. I want to know what needs to happen to facilitate these kind of endeavors.

better regulations and legislation. I would think the incumbents have enough lobbying power to sway the opinion of municipalities. Incumbents may own the poles, but they don't own the right of way. It's up to the municipality on how easily things go in the end.

I speak out of common sense, maybe someone better versed with these things can chime in.

Edit:
The ideal solution IMO would be for the utility companies (i.e. hydro) to act as a common carrier. They've got the poles and, in many places, the connectivity. They are also not in the business of media/communication so there is not much conflict of interest (as opposed to the bell/rogers retail business).

Since your in my neck of the woods here is some real world numbers

100mbit from Supernet is $1500/mnth on a 5 year $1750/mnth on a 3year term.

Internet Gateway access is per Mbps basis – 3 year term is $12/Mpbs and 5 year term is $9/Mbps.

Rural Fiber laying cost $50/m trenched $150/m for drilled + $50k bond for any road crossing.

Let me know if you want the POP and Colo location for alberta supernet I have the KMZ file available

Agreed, but I can speak better to the technical than the lawyering aspects of this.
And I never said technical was the end-all of the problems the OP is going to face.Thanks for pointing that out Wootles ; at least gives a dollar value we can look at and either
"ooooh" at or faint at.... or both.

Regards

I completely agree with you, but you have to go in with your eyes open. Olds has the support of the municipality and the college, plus a fair bit of money, as has already been mentioned.

I too live in northern Alberta, and was not satisfied with Telus (slow) and Eastlink's (nonexistent) offerings. So I started selling wireless. Without taking on debt and without advertising, I have grown steadily and taken many customers from Telus.

I've never ventured into fiber, but here are a few things I've learned along the way.

1. There are many people out there who are dissatisfied with their current service provider.

2. People don't mind paying more if your service is more reliable. Businesses especially.

3. Supernet is expensive. There are cheaper alternatives, but you have to assess them for reliability. See #2.

4. Although I've never run fiber, I have spoken with a guy that laid a lot of the fiber for the Supernet in northern Alberta. He said to bury rural fiber you should budget $10,000 per mile. Obviously it will be more in town.

5. A little cooperation from the municipal officers goes a long way. I spoke to my town administrator about laying fiber during their scheduled underground utilities maintenance. He looked at me like I had two heads.

Good luck, and pm me if you want to discuss your venture further. I'd be glad to share what I know if I can be of assistance.

I'm interested in the reference to Supernet being expensive. Who are the other Backhaul providers in alberta?

If you check with Telus, Eastlink and Shaw, there's a good chance that two or three of them will offer transit and/or gateway services in your area. Last I checked though, none of them were any more affordable than Supernet + an urban provider.

There are some unconventional options that are far more affordable that I would be glad to tell you about if you want to pm me.

yeah the prices are all the same since thats regulated pricing. But Supernet is offered pretty much everywhere. But the incumbents dont offer transit everywhere.