🚀 go-pugleaf

Bob Gray (gray@idirect.com) wrote:

: I dont know much about being an ISP but I do know that a business line in
: Toronto is about $55. We just had a line installed and they charged us
: $172 installation fee. A good modem (like they have at the freenet) is
: probably around $500 bucks. Then there is the price of Bandwidth to the
: Internet and the price of the computer that hooks everything together.

Your costs are somewhat off. We have gotten an excellent (excellent by the
standards of rackmount modems) deal of just under $400/per modem (must be
bought in multiples of 16).

Depending on how many lines you are ordering/what services you want you
can get Bell Telephone Centrex telephone lines for under $25/per month/per
line (being able to dial out is an "extra service", and that $25 price/line
doesn't kick in until you get upto around 100 lines). Still, bare bones
Centrex lines are the ticket for the modem pool of any I.S.P. in Canada, as
even at five lines they are cheaper than regular business lines.

Between the computer(s) and the modems you will want terminal server(s).
The Toronto Free-Net is paying somewhat over $150/port (and one port is
required for each modem). This money gets us a top of the line/heavy duty
terminal server that reduces the load on the computers by taking care of
a number of "grunt" tasks. The terminal server also gets you out of some
cable nightmares (and as I learned (the hard way) can get you into some
other types of cable nightmares...).

Assuming you can't get discount deals from your hardware vendor, about
$70,000 will get you enough new computer hardware to support approx. 100
telephone lines comfortably (this is assuming that you are using terminal
server(s)).

So, the numbers so far are approx. $125,000 in upfront costs to start a
100 line I.S.P., then add in $2,500/month in phone charges. The above does
not include costs for rent/wages/internet feed(s)/etc.. Now, some savings
could be made with older hardware., but the saving would at best be
modest.  Still, these are the sorts of numbers that any I.S.P. must be
fammiliar.

: I bet the phone rates in California are lower then here. I also bet they
: charge in American Dollars. So how much is $250cnd ($162us).

Oddly enough no, U.S. phone rates are higher (for BASIC LOCAL service)
than in Canada. In Canada we still have cross subsidization to a greater
degree than the U.S. (meaning than long distance calls pay for part of the
costs of local service). This also means that long distance service is
cheaper in the U.S., and more expensive than in Canada. But keep in mind
that the biggest chunk of costs for an I.S.P. will be on local service.
Mind you hardware costs, Canada vs. the U.S. well that is also another
story.

: I also started off with the freenet but I moved up to another ISP. I have
: no problem paying 23 bucks a month for service.

To each their own. The Free-Net does not offer all services, and for
those who want more than what we offer, I encourge them to look around.

Colin.