In Over My Head -- What do I need to setup a tiny ISP?

Sun Oct 20 13:12:39 UTC 2013

Notify Me wrote:
>
> That being said, some people who have a lot more faith in my abilities than
> I do seem to think I am the go-to guy for network information. And they
> foolishly asked me for assistance in putting together a small ISP network
> which is supposed to cater for home users inside of a residential area,
> very likely wireless (wifi/WIMAX).
>

A key question: is this going to be a commercial service run as a
business, or an internal operation like a campus network?  The
operations aren't that different, but the scope and organiation can be
different.

Another key question:  Are you focusing just on the infrastructure
(wireless IP) or will you be providing email, hosting services, and so
forth?

> I confess I am really interested in helping my questioners put this
> together, not just for whatever material gain (which is unlikely at this
> point), but just for the experience which is very valuable to me. I also
> have to state that I live in Nigeria, so whatever advice you offer has to
> be fourth-world applicable.
>
>

I admit that your query raised my interest, so I did a little looking,
and found this:
http://www.fnbc.info/sites/default/files/fck-uploads/file/fntc/ISP%20Guide%20-%20V1.2.pdf
A guide put together by the "First Nations Technology Council" - on how
to put together an ISP on tribal lands in Canada - which might be
somewhat analogous to your situation.  It's somewhat basic, but gives an
overview - then you can start looking into the individual topics it
talks about.  You might drop them an email.
There's also been a lot of work on US tribal reservations that might
apply - you'll have to do some googling to find resources.

Now the guy you really want to talk to is Dave Hughes, of Big Sky
Telegraph - who used to do a lot of network building for rural areas in
the US and remote areas around the world - unfortunately he's long
retired - but two sources you could look at that might give you a lot
of background:
http://www.bigskytelegraph.com/ (which now seems to lead to the Dillon
Center of Excellence, focusing on best practices for rural America,
including networking)
and
http://www.davehugheslegacy.net/

There used to be an "Association for Community Networking" - folks
involved in building cooperative local networks (used to be a lot of
what I was involved in the 1990s) but that kind of activity has dried up
as more and more commercial players entered the market. And an
"Organization for Community Networks" (http://ofcn.org/) - but their web
site seems to be kind of dead (some useful links, though).  If you
google "community network" you'll find a buch of current operations -
and you might want to contact some of them.

There are also a growing number of community mesh networks in various
places - WikiPedia's page on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_community_network might be a good
starting point.  There's also an association of wireless ISPs
http://www.wispa.org/

Then there's this guy: https://www.facebook.com/theispguy - who seems to
have written a book on "so you want to be an ISP" - can't say anything
about how good it is.

Or.. you might just go looking for other ISPs in Nigeria (of which there
are quite a few) and see if you can get some advice (amazing what you
can learn over a few beers).  Maybe contact the networking people at the
nearest college or university.  I don't know what it's like in Nigeria,
but in the US, the academic community was really active in getting a lot
of early ISPs started - particularly in smaller communities.

One other thought: there are quite a few software packages floating
around for managing aspects of ISP operations (see
https://wiki.debian.org/HostingControlPanels for starters) - I expect
their user communities (and email lists) would be excellent sources of
information.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra