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User: SidneyEvans

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  1. Something for you americans to think about on On Starting a Successful ISP? · · Score: 2

    Hi, I'm a unix admin from australia, and i used to be a perl coder for one of au's top 5 isp's, and I've been sitting back watching the ISP industry go up and down like a rabbit on heat. Me and many of my friends have looked at many ways to start an ISP that would be PROFITABLE.

    So heres some things you'll need to think about.

    1. Australia DOESNT have unlimited bandwidth plans for ANYONE who isnt a home user. A software company i was working for was paying 19cents a MEG for bandwidth

    2. Australia only has ONE main telco. Telstra. We dont have competitors to keep prices down.

    3. PHONELINES in australia are only garuntee'd a 2400 bps connection, thats quiet a bit under your standard 56k modem, although, this was a great excuse for shitty download speeds, just blame telstra.

    4. DSL would be difficult because you'de need to get a line directly from the modem to the exchange and use the phone exchange as an access server, although this isnt COMPLEX you'll have a good 3-6 months wait in getting a phone line connected, and when it does you'll be paying telstra for the bandwidth from the exchange -> your office and pay AGAIN from your office -> WWW.

    So if your REALLY set heres what you need to do

    get a 19 inch rack, pack it with linux/bsd systems, Dual p3-ghz with 256 meg ram and SCSI HDD's. And 2 different types of access server's. One Cisco one someone else, most people in australia are looking for CHEAP parts so you'll find masses of people buy shitty internal 56k software driven modems, thats why you need another type of access server.....Theres AU$200k ?

    Talk to some of australia's alternate phone / bandwidth providers. NOT TELSTRA. Powertel does bandwidth in Australia's CBD although they arent the cheapest. you's looking at about AU$100k
    setup and ongoing costs of AU$10k PLUS for your bandwidth. One thing you can be assured of is Upstream providers ARENT going to be going out of business.

    My ISP used to work with Primus, Telstra and Optus for phone lines, someons bargin hunting.

    Looking at Australia's ISP history, I'de recommend the idea of a previous /. reader of putting a nice fat wireless device on top of a building and selling wireless bandwidth. As for upstream bandwidth? get a business proposal, happeneing, talk to a few clients about your "proposal" and get them to express interest. Once you have about 20 or so perm clients, goto some big ISP, and tell them you have created a client base for whatever services, show them the buisness plan and try and convince them into installing a wireless device on the top of their building, and take 10% of what your clients are paying to subscribe.....

    Anyway theres my AU 4 cents (US 2 cents)

    Nitr0