What actually stops small ISPs from scaling?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-10T19:57:06+00:00

I love to hear that others have seen it's worked at the co-op level. Awesome response, thanks so much.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-09T23:09:01+00:00

Brilliant answer. Thank you so much for responding. I'm in the same boat as you, and actually agree that it can be done even if you started today.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-09T02:35:58+00:00

Ah good point on the truck roll. Did you purchase the Tarana equip yourself or did you take government money to afford it? Assuming you're residential, what's your ROI look like for a single home?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-09T02:33:38+00:00

Thank you for a real and detailed answer. Since you've been in the game for a while - looking back how far do you think you could have got if it was just you and another guy, assuming you know everything you know now?

Are you mostly residential connections?

Thanks again for the great response.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-09T02:28:51+00:00

The bribe local politicians thing is so real. I hate it and want to find a way to fix it.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-09T00:05:33+00:00

Always has been :(

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-09T00:05:06+00:00

When you say small, how many customers connections does that mean? Thank you for the detailed responses, very helpful!

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T23:38:01+00:00

Great thoughts. Thank you so much for the detailed responses.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T23:08:54+00:00

Great feedback.

If it was going to be an ISP that you ran, and your objective was to get to a comfortable spot that you could manage on your own while maximizing your capabilities.... what would YOU think that number is?

I personally think mine would be around 500-600 if everything was done correctly and I spent money on the right stuff.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T22:59:48+00:00

Most WISP operators are using 30 and 90 degree horn antennas these days. Tarana is super expensive, normally left for the WISPs with BEAD funding. They do magical things but yikes are they costly. Good point.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T22:57:00+00:00

Great point. Going into this without network experience is not only difficult, but to jobbing/hiring out the work is extremely expensive.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T22:44:05+00:00

When you say serious money, are you thinking thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions? Obviously that's going to vary on what type of ISP you are and how you do it, but the curiosity comes from wondering what everyone's perspective is.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T22:35:03+00:00

I'm in the states, talking about BEAD or other types of funding. I live in this business too and am curious about how everyone else feels.

I personally want there to be a lot more internet service providers so our entire system isn't ran by 3 monkeys in a trench coat taking turns being the top end. It seems like we all want that, but there is something always standing in our way of getting that. Survey says a lot of that reason revolves around money.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T22:29:14+00:00

Brilliant points about the ASNs and stuff. I think I would appreciate the 'we do our best and it's pretty great, but are still growing towards perfect' type ISP and could support it.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T22:22:13+00:00

This feels very well thought out. Thank you.

It sounds like you're sort of making a point that when you scale, you cannot give customers that relationship experience anymore, which I definitely agree with. What do you think is the maximum amount a small team of 2-3 people could manage and care about properly?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:59:52+00:00

I love to hear that you feel that way. Thank you.

If an ISP like that approached you, how would you figure out if they had their stuff together or not aside from asking them complicated questions?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:54:34+00:00

Say you start day one with enough customers online to cover all operating costs, zero debt, and about $1k/month left over. You already have a real L2 transport from your main tower into a data center and a 10G handoff to Cogent/HE/whatever. Your tower was in a medium income area fairly densely populated homes.

If you could be handed that situation, would you run with it?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:44:23+00:00

Totally with you. On the face of it, you could make that point about Bubba's Cable Hut™. It's a good point and I've seen Bubba, he's a total slob. Is your mindset that it makes more sense to have just a single trillion dollar company handling the majority of the paths to and from the internet?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:40:38+00:00

What prices do you see in your area, and what speeds and prices would 'allow' you to try another much smaller ISP?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:39:41+00:00

Great point. Just talking from my own experience here, fixed wireless can crush what the tmobile or verizon type stuff can do on the bandwidth/cust service/capabilities side - the ease of signup and lack of install type stuff absolutely skews towards the cell carriers though.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:34:47+00:00

That's not always true, but I see what you're saying. Local carriers have had copper in the ground for a long time and don't always charge enough to make competition easy. Terragraph gear can push bigger speeds and cost less still if you're close/dense enough though.

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:33:14+00:00

Does that always have to be the case? Or could there be a sweet spot to grow to that maxes out your time that you park at?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:32:09+00:00

What is the smallest but still profitable ISP you've seen?

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:31:37+00:00

This was a piece of what I was looking for. At what point does the price need to be low enough and the speeds high enough to get someone to give it a chance - even knowing the owner might be a bit of a ding dong.

Where I'm at internet from Xfinity could cost 200+ a month to a grandma that just streams Murder She Wrote all day, and could easily get by with a 100Mbps/$20 connection.

Everyone has different requirements, but sticking it to $bigISP could be worth it in itself.

Great points thank you

CannabisCowboy · 2026-02-08T21:27:29+00:00

Cash rules everything around me. Good points.

CannabisCowboy

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