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Ask About Setting Up a Community ISP
The Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative (RRIC) is one of the best-known member-owned ISPs around. It provides DSL service to the Ruby Ranch neighborhood in Summit County, Colorado. Carl Oppedahl, the RRIC "main man," has agreed to answer Slashdot questions about the possibilities and pitfalls of setting up something similar in other areas. Please read the RRIC FAQs before posting a question so that you don't ask something Carl has already answered a million times. Otherwise, the usual Slashdot interview rules apply: One question per post, we'll email Carl 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and post his answers as soon as he gets them back to us.
How did you website (which I assume is located on your ISP) handle the slashdotting you just recieved? Didn't expect that, did ya??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
What is the first step in creating a rural co-op?
Dear Mr. Oppedahl:
Your ISP reminds me much of a credit union, which is essentially a nonprofit, member-owned bank. I recall reading about large, commercial banks lobbying to prevent credit unions from gaining some of the same priviledges enjoyed by regular banks.
In this age of utility monopoly abuse, do you have any concerns about any of the large, commercial telecom interests (ie Qwest) lobbying the government to make it difficult, if not impossible to set up or maintain ISPs similar to yours? Thank you.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It seems that a lot of the problems/issues related specifically to the Colorado Public Utilities Board and their laws.
What items/issues do you feel are universal to any broadband/ISP startup? [Licensing, incorporation, etc.]
Where would one go for the state/county specific issues for each particular ISP?
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What is the most difficult part about starting a community ISP? Is it getting people interested, obtaining finances, finding people with the technical knowledge required to set up and maintain the system, licencing requirements, infrastructure, or something else? More importantly, how did you overcome this problem?
$60/month seems relatively expensive for a 206Kbps SDSL connection when compared to other cable/satellite/DSL offerings. While this may provide users with greater upstream speeds, most users would benefit more from the faster downstream connections from the aforementioned providers than a better upstream rate.
What advantages does the co-op model offer to subscribers over a traditional ISP that would justify the added expense? How is the subscriber experience different from what would be expected from a large national provider?
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Since you pay directly for your traffic, and you've said that you pay from 75-450$ per month (quite a stretch!) have you considered local caching of sites like yahoo, slashdot, etc to save on bandwidth? Also, since you do monitor your network, have you been in a situation where you've had to ask a subscriber to "please use less bandwidth." If not -- if you came to a point where a single household was putting undue strain on the network -- what would the Co-op do?
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
How problematic have you found such issues?
What advice would you give a fledgling ISP regarding dealing with vendors?
When I was in Westcliffe, CO on vacation, I loved the environment so much I considered quitting my job and starting my own business, providing internet access for the acres of sparse plots of land connected only by dirt roads. However, it seemed fairly unfeasible -- since there's no power grid to fuel wireless repeaters and no public roads or conduits to piggyback -- so it was back to the grindstone for me.
How were you able to overcome the conditional sensitivity of high speed data in a rugged area with little or no public utilities? More importantly, how were you able to offset infrastructure costs for such a risky and inherently profitless venture -- did you receive any grants or did you simply float loans?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
In today's tight economy, what are some of the ways you've cut costs?
I remember reading somewhere in your agreement with Qwest that you could not provide standard phone over their subloops.
My question is what is your take regarding the limitation above and packet based Voice over IP,
since it is now possible for yourself or an unrelated third party provide VOIP on your DSL lines?
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There has been a lot of talk in setting up similar systems (wired and wireless) in Northern Virginia* one of the topics that always comes up during the discussions is "How do you handle issues like people using the line to hack other systems or spamming or sending threats or (insert bad thing here) ?"
*Despite the fact that I live 10 minutes from WorldCom and AOL headquaters my ONLY choices for broadband are IDSL (which I chose) or a T1 (which I'm willing to pay for on my own)!
Since the Fedral government may now put a 'tap' on internet connectivity without a warrent, ISPs are required to let feds put taps on the ISP's system. As member of a co-op would you be contacted if the feds put a tap on the ISP? Who gets to know when the feds come in?
Your mammas flamebait.
Are there legal or regulatory barriers to setting up an ISP co-op that you feel should be addressed by legislation?
As mentioned in your FAQ, if someone hogs too much bandwidth, you'll charge that user for the bandwidth they use. What do you do in the case of complaints against a user for spam, pornography, or other less than desirable uses? Since it's a co-op and the costs are shared, what about the responsibility? What if the ISP was targeted as a spam host or if one of the people under your ISP was serving illegal MP3s or something more sinister like child pornography? Does the entire Co-op suffer or are you able to target and remove the offending person (and avoid any legal costs that might be brought against the ISP)?
Free cell phone tracking
I'm served by a telecom cooperative in my community (Souris River Telecom in Minot, ND). I couldn't be happier: local and long-distance phone service is very inexpensive, they've set up an all-digital cellular network in their coverage area that's $20/month for basically unlimited talk-time, and I get 1 megabit (bothways) DSL with a static IP and no limits on servers I set up for $40/month. Oh, and here's the kicker: when I call them with a question or for service I get a real, live person on the other end and am routed to someone who can actually help me the first time!
I used to live in an area that was served by an electric co-op. It was the same situation with great service, great value, and they were constantly pushing at the edges of the state-of-the-art. The investor-owned electric utility that serves me now couldn't care less about me as a person, my needs, or future plans for my home or business. They just want to see the check at the end of the month and they will keep operating the way the do (utility wise if not business wise) until they are forced to change by regulatory changes.
So to get to my question: as advantageous to the customer as the cooperative principles are, why aren't more utilities set up this way?
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I work for a small ISP that went through all the same issues as you. We had to become a CLEC, install our own DSLAM in a Qwest central office, and are currently going through IMA. So what I'm saying is your internet setup looks totally independent of whether it's an Internet Coop or a for profit company. Is there a technology advantage to making it a coop, or is it purely financial?
Based on the FAQ, it looks like you considered a lot of different possible options, and really did your homework. Are there any aspects of the project that weren't perhaps as optimal as you'd like, that you would have done differently? (Not counting things not under your control, like having to contend with Qwest.)
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
After reading through most of the FAQ, it would appear that the co-op has a very good relationship with the Oppedahl & Larson LLP law firm. I would posit that of key importance in this venture is not acquiring the routing gear, the microwave tower gear, the DSLAMs or DSL modems, but rather getting one of your volunteers to be an attorney! Getting Qwest to allow the co-op to rent subloops would have cost a considerable amount of money in attorney fees, if a law firm were not a board member of the co-op (and the location of the T1+microwave gear ;)).
I remember what it cost to incorporate my business, to enter into a lease for an office space, to agree to terms for insurance for the office space, etc. Thousands of dollars, easily. And we went with a local law firm, recommended by another small business - so we weren't getting shafted, at least not relatively so.
Cheers.
Did local government help, hinder, or just keep out of the way? Likewise, would positive support from applicable local governments really have benefited your project? I would guess you folks are in an unicorporated area of the County, with few onerous restrictions on this typs of activity, however with no local government to provide support (facilities, funding, political support, etc.)
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