But enough plugging the blog, let's move into today's topic of interest: "If I was free to do anything I wanted in the future as my primary income source, what would it be?" And, and many would suspect, the answer is "Run my own ISP". But I don't think I could do it, not without some venture capital, so I'm going to do the next best thing, write up the business analysis and plan here on my blog. ;)
OK... Let's consider what an ISP is: An ISP is a company that provides access to the internet to some group of users. Technically I kinda run my own little free ISP at home, but we're looking for a way to turn it into a business. The question then becomes, what kind of service do I want to provide? Raw network access? Traditional business class service (Web site, E-Mail, Internet Access, custom domains)? Open home access (E-Mail, Internet Access), Firewalled Home/Business access (Users behind a NAT firewall(s), E-Mail, maybe website and domain)? Collocation services? Server cluster services?
Well... I think I would probably target 4 markets Ultra Cheap Access (NAT only), basic home user access (e-mail, NAT), gamer access (Single Static IP, e-mail, broadband only), and general access (Dynamic IP, e-mail). This means that I need at least 1 master router, 1 high bandwidth switch (Gigabit), 1 dialup/nat router (Preferably 2 for redundant dialup), at least 2 servers (For e-mail) preferably 3, at least 1 office, preferably 2 (A small one for the secondary server on a completely different provider to make e-mail fault tolerant,) at least 1 net link (Preferably more, and to different sections of the internet), office furniture, and staff.
For the bare essentials we're looking at about $6000 in network hardware $5000 in network setup fees and $20,000 in non-network expenses (Furniture etc) up front. Then I need a staff of at least 3 people (3 * 8 hour shifts = 24 hour monitoring) besides me who all have expertise in maintaining the system at $15-$25 an hour, and at least 3 people for costumer relations at $6 to $15 an hour. These numbers will need to grow with our client base. Then I need advertising. I could easily blow $100,000 on that, but we'll keep it small and say I need about $20,000. Then we have office rent running at about $1000 a month if I'm REALLY lucky and can find an office with 2 rooms; an ISP doesn't need that much space (A funny point about them is that you really only need 1 room, but people get worried when your networking hardware and your secretary are in the same room. Plus, it's bad security.) Then I need $1000 a month in bandwidth and $300 in telephone service.
What does this boil down too? Well, assuming the business doesn't fail before it becomes profitable, you need (for 0 revenue for the first year and profitability after that): $88,000 in wages, $51,000 in physical stuff and setup, and $30,000 in month expenses money. This comes to an initial investment of $169,000. A very possible business proposal. Remember though, the owner of the company was assumed to make no salary and be able to do both network maintence and secretarial when their normal employees call in.
Considering that $1000 monthly accounted for a T3 link and IP junction with Level 3, that means 672 64K channels. Allocate 10 of them to the PBX for your secretary, set aside 24 for your server, and place the rest on the network backbone. 2 channels = 1 dialup user (One for the phone line and one effective channel for network), 10 channels = 1 640K DSL user, and 24 = 1 T1 user. If you then oversell your channels by about 100-200%, depending on the distribution of your connections (you can oversell dialup more, DSL and T1 less) then for most of the situations, you'll have more bandwidth that will be requested for 90% of the time. If you charge for bandwidth by channel count (Don't tell your users this, tell them your selling by the Kilobit) and tada. 672-24-10= sellable channels = 638 channels. If you charge $5 a channel subtracting $1 for every 5th channel, then you can turn a monthly revenue of about $8000 . $2300 in fixed costs + $18,000 in salaries....
Wait...
Ok... Well that doesn't work. If you're paying $18,000 in salaries just for babysitters... You'll never be able to survive... Hmm
I guess the ISP thing doesn't work...
*Sigh*
Mood: Depressed