An ISP of their own (was RE: [rescue] Being jobless)

[Brian Dunbar]

Charles Shannon Hendrix [mailto:shannon at widomaker.com] on Tuesday, July 29,
2003 11:26 AM said;

> On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 11:27:52AM -0500, Brian Dunbar wrote:

> > After looking through the literature, it's not as easy (hah) as setting
up a
> > BBS used to be - in order to cover the bandwidth/headache costs I'd need
> > around $800 (WAG) a month.  Assuming I just do dial-up and don't provide
> > tech support.

> $800 a month for what?

> If that's all I had to pay for a block of phone numbers and a WAN
> connection, I'd have set up an ISP by now.

> I think the local small ISPs I've talked to pay as much as $1000/month
> just for the WAN connection.

I said it was a WAG.  I based my WAG on 1) price of a frac T1 and 2) padding
for overhead.  I didn't factor in the price of a block of phone numbers or
anything else.

Keep in mind this grew out of musing on the meme "a man should own the means
of his own production" (shades of socialism!) and it's nothing more (at the
moment) than an idea I'm playing with.

It occurs to me that I know a guy who web hosting and whatnot locally, but
he's in the process of selling off his business and fleeing to Key West.  I
hadn't asked for his input because he just got back into town after spending
two weeks tooling around Florida looking for a new house and I KNEW he
wasn't answering his phone.

~brian