Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)

[shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green)]

At 1:08 1/3/96, Steve Gibbons wrote:

>I'd be interested in seeing your numbers and cost breakdowns.  I'd really be
>interested in the up-front costs that would be associated with the equipment
>and set-up time/training that will help "insure" data privacy over wideley
>broadcast media.  The up-front costs for ~T1 capable tranceivers isn't
>insignificant either.  I figure ~$10K up front (maybe half of that, maybe twice
>when you include management overhead)  Amortize  over 3 years, and compare.

You can get by with one base station per five remote receivers. This is no
different than the 5/1 to 12/1 oversale ratios common to the T1 ISP
business. As long as you prohibit resale of bandwidth and specialize in
hooking up business lans you'll have no problems with this layout. Latency,
which really is more important than bandwidth in many cases, is actually
better using wireless than using traditional T1s. The set-up costs are also
less to the customer than if they used a regular ISP. Only difference is
that by paying the set-up fees they are buying the equipment for _you_. So
once they leave your ISP, you still have all the hardware :-)

>All of this is assuming that the bandwidth is available on the airwaves to
>handle ~200 ~T1s.  (If we're talking $200.00/mo. for T1, sign me up tomorrow,
>and my neighbor, and his, and hers, and...  *poof* no more bandwidth in a
>"decently" populated metro area or even a downtown.

900MHz spread spectrum can get a bit crowded, but you don't need to sell
200 connections to make money. Breakeven based on competitive montly fees
(in my original calculations that ment less than the lowest priced local
ISP) is about 10 customers. Of course this is not at <$200 per customer.
That figure is the lowest possible if you max out a T3, but still, no
landline based ISP will be able to deliver bandwidth that cheap. Remember
that the fees _include_ the cost for the pipe. Breakeven based on the
set-up fees (meaning zero dollars investment by you) is about 18 customers.

>I apologize if this is off topic, but the crypto part still applies (moreso,
>even!) to broadcast over the airwaves.

All major wireless vendors offer DES encryption at about $300 per node.


-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com>
   PGP encrypted mail preferred.