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The Internet

Ask About Setting Up a Community ISP 204

Posted by Roblimo from the advice-from-someone-who's-already-done-it dept.
The Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative (RRIC) is one of the best-known member-owned ISPs around. It provides DSL service to the Ruby Ranch neighborhood in Summit County, Colorado. Carl Oppedahl, the RRIC "main man," has agreed to answer Slashdot questions about the possibilities and pitfalls of setting up something similar in other areas. Please read the RRIC FAQs before posting a question so that you don't ask something Carl has already answered a million times. Otherwise, the usual Slashdot interview rules apply: One question per post, we'll email Carl 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and post his answers as soon as he gets them back to us.
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Ask About Setting Up a Community ISP More

Ask About Setting Up a Community ISP

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  • Slashdotting? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:05PM (#4105295) Homepage Journal
    How did you website (which I assume is located on your ISP) handle the slashdotting you just recieved? Didn't expect that, did ya??

  • What is the first step? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EvilBudMan ( 588716 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:06PM (#4105301) Journal
    What is the first step in creating a rural co-op?
    • Sorry for answering your question early, but the first step is getting everyone together and committed to the project.

      Then, to actually make it happen, you shoot all of the lawyers. Next. :-P

      Soko

  • Opposition from the Big Players (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation.gmail@com> on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:07PM (#4105309)
    Dear Mr. Oppedahl:

    Your ISP reminds me much of a credit union, which is essentially a nonprofit, member-owned bank. I recall reading about large, commercial banks lobbying to prevent credit unions from gaining some of the same priviledges enjoyed by regular banks.

    In this age of utility monopoly abuse, do you have any concerns about any of the large, commercial telecom interests (ie Qwest) lobbying the government to make it difficult, if not impossible to set up or maintain ISPs similar to yours? Thank you.
  • It seems that a lot of the problems/issues related specifically to the Colorado Public Utilities Board and their laws.

    What items/issues do you feel are universal to any broadband/ISP startup? [Licensing, incorporation, etc.]

    Where would one go for the state/county specific issues for each particular ISP?

  • FAQ (Score:4, Informative)

    by return 42 ( 459012 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:09PM (#4105335)
    The FAQ will probably be slashdotted real soon, so here's the list of questions, at least:

    Frequently asked questions about the Coop

    Why all this struggle with Qwest?
    Why didn't you simply use a wireless solution instead of renting subloops from Qwest?
    Why didn't you simply bury your own cable instead of renting subloops from Qwest?
    Why don't you simply use a broadband satellite connection?
    Why are the modem speeds provided on Qwest phone lines so slow? And why won't Qwest provide DSL?
    Infrastructure
    What equipment are you using?
    What did it cost?
    System design issues
    Why are you using SDSL? Why are you not using line sharing?
    Exactly what DSL technology are you using? What DSL chip are you using?
    What line speeds do subscribers get? Do they get a dedicated IP address? Can they operate servers?
    Why did you place the DSLAM at the cross-connect box rather than at the SLC (remote terminal)?
    How exactly does your temperature monitor work?
    Implementation issues
    What exactly do you order from Qwest to hook up a new subscriber?
    What quality of lines has Qwest provided?
    How reliable is your point-to-point microwave link?
    How do you monitor your system?
    What do you suggest your subscribers use for lightning protection?
    Financial planning issues
    What were your startup costs?
    What are the non-recurring costs associated with adding a subscriber?
    What are your recurring costs?
    What do you charge your subscribers to sign up?
    What will you charge your subscribers per month?
    How many subscribers did you need to decide to launch service?
    Diagrams and maps
    May we see a system diagram?
    May we see a neighborhood map?
    May we see a map showing the neighborhood and the telco central office?
    Other Internet Coops and local broadband efforts
    Are there other Internet Coops?
    How have others set up local broadband systems?
    From the first concept to launch
    What was the time line?

  • Biggest Challenge (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hasie ( 316698 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:10PM (#4105336)
    What is the most difficult part about starting a community ISP? Is it getting people interested, obtaining finances, finding people with the technical knowledge required to set up and maintain the system, licencing requirements, infrastructure, or something else? More importantly, how did you overcome this problem?
  • Ours is a coop, meaning that every cost we incur must necessarily come sooner or later out of the pockets of the subscribers. We are charged by our upstream provider according to our traffic levels. If a subscriber were to generate so much traffic that we had to pay an extra $250 per month to our provider, we would need to charge that $250 to that subscriber. There would be no other choice.
    The reason I got broadband was for P2P. So, doesn't that mean this whole thing is useless for P2P? If I want to check e-mail and ebay I would use 56K modem.

  • Expensive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LaNMaN2000 ( 173615 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:12PM (#4105365) Homepage
    $60/month seems relatively expensive for a 206Kbps SDSL connection when compared to other cable/satellite/DSL offerings. While this may provide users with greater upstream speeds, most users would benefit more from the faster downstream connections from the aforementioned providers than a better upstream rate.

    What advantages does the co-op model offer to subscribers over a traditional ISP that would justify the added expense? How is the subscriber experience different from what would be expected from a large national provider?

    • $60/month seems relatively expensive for a 206Kbps SDSL connection when compared to other cable/satellite/DSL offerings. While this may provide users with greater upstream speeds, most users would benefit more from the faster downstream connections from the aforementioned providers than a better upstream rate.

      You obviously didn't read the FAQ, did you?

    • the history on this is...

      Qwest refused to give a small "hick town" (i don't mean to be offensive by that, hence the "") broadband at all. they said it would cost in excess of a million dollars and for about 20-odd users that wouldn't be cost efficient.

      so they went ahead and did it themselves for like a 5th of the cost.

      the point is, the cost may be relatively expensive to large-town DSL and broadband services, but for them i'm sure that its WORTH IT. and that's the point.

    • do people not realize the difference between a split T1 and a cable modem? Sure the speed seems slower when compared directly to the "faster" speeds of a dsl line.

      The reliability and # of hops from a comp to the net between the two is incredible. Why is this never taken into account?

      It is always the big two numbers compared 206Kbps vs 1.5Mbps which really doesn't mean a thing comparing two types of connections such as this.
    • did you read the FAQ? these users have no other choice, its 206Kbps or a 26Kbps modem.

      Also, they plan on raising the bandwidth throttle after they have a better idea what their usage is/will be.

    • As may be seen from our web page, there are no "traditional ISPs" serving our area. No cable, no DSL. The chief advantage that our model offers is that the subscriber gets to have a fast, always-on Internet connection. Oh, and we offer a connection that lacks the cost and latency of satellite.
  • Ruby Ridge? We all know how well THAT turned out...

    Oh Ruby RANCH.

  • Local Bandwidth Hogs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vengie ( 533896 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:14PM (#4105384)
    Since you pay directly for your traffic, and you've said that you pay from 75-450$ per month (quite a stretch!) have you considered local caching of sites like yahoo, slashdot, etc to save on bandwidth? Also, since you do monitor your network, have you been in a situation where you've had to ask a subscriber to "please use less bandwidth." If not -- if you came to a point where a single household was putting undue strain on the network -- what would the Co-op do?
    • I would think that the number of people using the connection to just check their email or lightly browse the web would be a much greater percentage than the people using theirs to say, run a popular, public ftp warez server. The people barely using theirs' would certainly free up a great deal of bandwidth, probably more than any one or two leachers could hog up.
      • RTFA -- they have 12 (perhaps more now?) subscribers.
        _one_ warez kiddie makes a big deal.
        • I've never been given an opportunity to moderate, so someone please moderate great-grandparent up.

          I'm interested in this one as well. I worked on a home network for a friend. His two kids have Kazaa on their machines (I know, I know.) Point is, even when idle, Kazaa takes up enough bandwidth to put a noticeable strain on the network, and the cable modem to which it is connected. When all you have is a 3MB run (IIRC), one or two Kazaa users can make things miserable for everyone else. I would like to start a similar co-op in my neighborhood (no DSL or cable modems available), but I'm worried about one or two users (starting with my own daughter) dragging the network down.

          Maybe a Linux-based bandwidth throttler that gives each house a maximum or quota, and if they want to break that maximum, they're willing to share a larger portion of the load?
          • Throttle Kazaa and other similar items then. Its not hard. You can set up a proxy-arped FreeBSD box with ALTQ installed which sits before your main router for not much at all. If you want a spiffy commercial solution, Packeteer has it.

            http://www.packeteer.com/products/packetshaper/

          • If TClevenger is the Terry Clevenger who worked at Litton Data Systems in the '80s, could you drop me an email at "sconeu@yahoo.com"?

            Thanks.
        • from this page [rric.net]: What line speeds do subscribers get? Do they get a dedicated IP address? Can they operate servers?

          These are all difficult questions. Ours is a coop, meaning that every cost we incur must necessarily come sooner or later out of the pockets of the subscribers. We are charged by our upstream provider according to our traffic levels. If a subscriber were to generate so much traffic that we had to pay an extra $250 per month to our provider, we would need to charge that $250 to that subscriber. There would be no other choice.

          At first, we are going to throttle most of our subscriber connections down to 206K bps. Later, after we accumulate some experience and see what our traffic levels really turn out to be, we will consider raising the connection speeds.

    • The first thing to know is that our subscribers who are likely to have higher traffic levels are using their connections for VPN and Netmeeting uses. Caching is no help with those uses. Second, I don't think caching works except if one user happens to visit the *exact same* web site within a few hours that a previous user did. If the web site has changed during that time (as it would for many news sites such as the New York Times or news.com) the cache doesn't help much if at all. We have a mere dozen users and I don't know that they very often visit the same sites as each other.
      • This is an excellent option for the tele-commuters who don't want to live in Denver, but want to be out in the splendor of Colorado beauty.
      • It can help a lot for images, but you really need a much bigger subscriber base for it have enough effect to warrant the cost of the caches. Also, unfortunately it takes a bit of effort for a website to be cache-friendly (things like sending correct Expires: and/or Cache-Control headers, and supplying images from a different URL which doesn't use cookies), and most sites don't seem to care about this.

        One area using a cache can help a bit, is if you can run one at each end of the pipe, and route any text/html content through a compressed ssh tunnel. Again, a lot of effort for what usually isn't much return.

        Where caches really come into their own is if you've got millions of users and can force everyone to use them.

  • Legal issues (Score:2, Interesting)

    by return 42 ( 459012 )
    The times I've considered starting an ISP, it's always been thorny legal issues that made me decide "not yet". Specifically, issues where the law says one thing, and conscience says something else. Demands for censorship using copyright as a bludgeon, as from the Co$. Law enforcement searches and taps (now warrant-free, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Congress!)

    How problematic have you found such issues?

  • Vendor advice? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by scubacuda ( 411898 ) <scubacuda@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:18PM (#4105407)
    What advice would you give a fledgling ISP regarding dealing with vendors?

  • Getting people intrested..... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MrWinkey ( 454317 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:18PM (#4105412) Homepage
    Dear Sir,
    I have thought many times about this in my area. Only problem is most people are not intrested as it's too much work or too much money. Most of my local community does not even know what DSL is about. They have never had a broadband connect before. How were you able to unite the local community and show them the bennifits of doing this?

  • When I was in Westcliffe, CO on vacation, I loved the environment so much I considered quitting my job and starting my own business, providing internet access for the acres of sparse plots of land connected only by dirt roads. However, it seemed fairly unfeasible -- since there's no power grid to fuel wireless repeaters and no public roads or conduits to piggyback -- so it was back to the grindstone for me.

    How were you able to overcome the conditional sensitivity of high speed data in a rugged area with little or no public utilities? More importantly, how were you able to offset infrastructure costs for such a risky and inherently profitless venture -- did you receive any grants or did you simply float loans?

  • Cutting costs? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by scubacuda ( 411898 ) <scubacuda@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:22PM (#4105444)
    In today's tight economy, what are some of the ways you've cut costs?

  • Competition. (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Irvu ( 248207 )
    This Slashdot article [slashdot.org] on Starbucks and the local coop sort of brings up the point that I wanted to ask about; Competition.

    Have you faced any stiff, or just plain mean, competition from groups like Quest or do you expect to do so in the future. Are you worried that someone (quest, AOL, etc.) will decide to come in and stomp you in some way or are they simply uninterested in your local area?

    Irvu.

    • Re:Competition. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zelet ( 515452 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:47PM (#4105647) Journal
      this isn't informative it is a repeat of the FAQs. Modders, please read the FAQs before modding posts up to make sure we get original questions.

      This is NOT A FLAIMBAIT!!! I just want to make sure that He gets good questions.
      • I just realized that I wrote "He" rather than "he" (uppercase 'h'). No, we aren't asking God questions... just a person... so he. :)
      • I just want to make sure that He gets good questions.

        Sorry, this is just too easy :)

        Today, in a press release while traveling on Poland, the Pope has said that people should read the documenation before talking to God. "In my discussions with God, He has often complained about getting the same old questions" stated Pope John Paul. "He though he would get rid of this problem by publishing the bible, but it turns out that most people don't read it!"

        The Catholic church will be working to counteract this problem by publishing common questions in the format popularized on the Internet: the FAQ. This will be published on the Church's website, and all people wishing to talk to God are encouraged to read it.

        "I turns out God only has so much bandwidth" said one Cardinal who wished to be unidentified. "It's kinda like that co-op ISP in Colorado."

      • I don't think that it is a repeat. He mentions the relationship that they have had with Qwest somewhat but he does not talk about the future much. That was the real thrust of my question.

  • VOIP? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by isotope23 ( 210590 )
    I remember reading somewhere in your agreement with Qwest that you could not provide standard phone over their subloops.

    My question is what is your take regarding the limitation above and packet based Voice over IP,
    since it is now possible for yourself or an unrelated third party provide VOIP on your DSL lines?

    • Interesting Note: I work in a pre-sales lab and we use coppper mountain DSLAMs and SDSL IADs (intergrated access devices) to deliver VoIP via DSL in conjunction with our media gateway server, softswitch, and signalling gateway server.(Sonus VoIP and OSPA partners [sonusnet.com])

      Most DSL or Braodband IADs that that allow you to connect your existing POTS (Plain old telephone system) phones to a VoIP cost about 300-500$.

      We currently have 2 copper mountain DSL IADs in an ongoing demo which support up to 8 POTS phone lines a piece ie 8 people can be talking at once over one DSL line.

      Of course, if the cap is at 206k/s you could only use 3-4 phones, but copper mountain does make 2-line DSL IADs that are much more affordable.

      Of course VoIP is not really feasable for an ISP of this size unless you expanded your nework to support at least several hundred custumers.
    • the problem here is not the technological limitation of providing the equipment or service on the subscriber side.

      the largest issue with providing VoIP services (or even VoDSL service) is delivering the aggregated voice traffic to some 3rd party (or to Qwest, if you're a sadist) to provide Class 5/SS7 switching in to the PSTN.

      it wouldn't really make sense to do this unless the co-op itself became some kind of voice CLEC, in which case they would need to provide a significantly higher guarantee of service (there's that whole 911 liability thing) and would hence require a seriously higher set of operating costs

  • Understanding the pains of leadership... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter AT tedata DOT net DOT eg> on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:24PM (#4105464) Journal
    Did the co-op ever encounter a point in the planning stage where they wanted to toss everything in the air and just say screw it? If so, what pulled you out of your misery and kept you moving towards your goal?

  • How do you handle the legal issues. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dcocos ( 128532 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:32PM (#4105528)
    There has been a lot of talk in setting up similar systems (wired and wireless) in Northern Virginia* one of the topics that always comes up during the discussions is "How do you handle issues like people using the line to hack other systems or spamming or sending threats or (insert bad thing here) ?"


    *Despite the fact that I live 10 minutes from WorldCom and AOL headquaters my ONLY choices for broadband are IDSL [speakeasy.net] (which I chose) or a T1 (which I'm willing to pay for on my own)!
  • How is you coop incorporated? As a non-profit or as a shareholder coop? Did you investigate the pros and cons of different incorporation models? Any ideas/suggestions for someone else doing this? Did you get any assistance from national co-op organizations? If so, were they helpful? How is your coop governed? Do you hold annual member meetings? Are there other mechanisms for shareholder participation?
    • As a non-profit or as a shareholder coop?

      Read the fucking page, would you? It's right on the first fucking page.

      Click a link, it's not that fucking tough.
      • Read the fucking page, would you? It's right on the first fucking page. Click a link, it's not that fucking tough.

        Oh, its buried under the "startup costs" link. Sorry I didn't review the FAQ in enough detail to find this information buried here.

        I will try hard in the future not to provoke your Tourette's Symdrome [tsa-usa.org]. I will try to understand how hard it is for you to keep your uncontrollable outbursts of obscenity under control.

        There is treatment for this condition. You should consider seeking it.

        • It's not buried anywhere It's on the Front Page [rric.net].

          And then you have the nerve to insult me by ascribing a nervous disorder to me. If you weren't the 50th person to post a question that was 1.) already answered and 2.) on the first page of the site, I wouldn't lose my shit. Tough to tell whether you're trolling or stupid.

          Boy, you're fucking dense.
  • Is it necessary to have a business-zoned point of presence for your central CO, or can the trunk lines be run to a residential address and the equipment put in the basement?
  • would you say that it is easier dealing with local customers in a personal way that the "big boys" dont? or does this make business harder? do people try to sweet talk you?
  • Obviously you need to monitor your users for bandwidth consumption... What type of information do you store about your user's bandwidth behaviour? Is it more then what the fedral government requires you store about your users? Do the members of the co-op mind being watched, or do they consider it a downside to Co-Op'ed ISPs?
    • We use MRTG on a per-port basis on the DSLAM. This is aggregate data -- nothing about MRTG records will indicate the IP addresses involved. I am not aware of any requirement from the federal government that we should store any data. Can you elaborate on this requirement?

  • Feds wanna take a look (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Launch ( 66938 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @12:56PM (#4105715)
    Since the Fedral government may now put a 'tap' on internet connectivity without a warrent, ISPs are required to let feds put taps on the ISP's system. As member of a co-op would you be contacted if the feds put a tap on the ISP? Who gets to know when the feds come in?
  • A few weeks after my start date as a new Web Admin, I find our neighborhood IS director has installed a WebsenseTM client on our web access portal. After many heated battles with the COO, I lost my fight to maintain a open portal for both the IS and IT Departments. The web has lost all sense of worth to us now. Imagine any security setting available, then jack it up 3 more levels, that is the extent of our denials. No FTP, No search engine , No IM client existant (at least that we have tried) has access. This hinders our work severly all in the guise of "Corporate Efficency". Any request for these type of access surrounded in forms, "Who its for" "Where its going" so on and so forth. A simple file transfer or upload is so difficult. An alternative like this would be a godsend for my comrades and I, even if it is against our internet policy and could get us fired. It would be easier to be unemployeed than the BS we have to take now

  • Co-ops for low income communities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by selan ( 234261 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @01:03PM (#4105778) Journal
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Ruby Ranch is a fairly well-to-do area that can support the costs of running an ISP. Do you think it is possible for community groups in low income areas to run co-op ISPs? Any advice pro or con?
    • For us what made the Coop possible was not so much money as the availability of volunteers with sufficient technical and legal experience. I would say that any community, low-income or not, that had such volunteers available could make a go of it.
  • dear lord people give this poor man a break.

    here's a mirror [pitt.edu] of the faq. i hope it helps.
  • How do you get even a small community to agree to undertake something like this and when problems do arise who is responsible for the technical support?

  • Barriers to co-ops (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @01:10PM (#4105818)
    Are there legal or regulatory barriers to setting up an ISP co-op that you feel should be addressed by legislation?
  • Have you had any problems with people breaking into eachothers machines, and if so, how did you handle it? Is there a policy in place forbidding this kind of thing? And have you had anyone from outside your network break in?
  • Do you have any plans to go national with your ISP? Why or why not?

  • Disciplining "Customers" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mr.buddylee ( 541034 ) <brad@pob s . cc> on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @01:26PM (#4105924)
    As mentioned in your FAQ, if someone hogs too much bandwidth, you'll charge that user for the bandwidth they use. What do you do in the case of complaints against a user for spam, pornography, or other less than desirable uses? Since it's a co-op and the costs are shared, what about the responsibility? What if the ISP was targeted as a spam host or if one of the people under your ISP was serving illegal MP3s or something more sinister like child pornography? Does the entire Co-op suffer or are you able to target and remove the offending person (and avoid any legal costs that might be brought against the ISP)?

  • Equipment Location (Score:3, Funny)

    by dr_dank ( 472072 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @01:27PM (#4105929) Homepage Journal
    IIRC, the DSLAM and other relevant gear was stored in a barn. How do you keep the animals from messing with it?

  • Local Phone service (Score:3, Interesting)

    by asmithmd1 ( 239950 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @01:45PM (#4106042) Homepage Journal
    Since the SDSL equipment you are using does not use the voice bandwidth, have you thought of getting a PBX and supplying telephone service? You could at least have intercom service between subscribers

  • One area where open-source is doing great is in monitoring projects, such as Big Brother [bb4.com], NetSaint [netsaint.org] , Nagios [nagios.org], and others. I'm curious as to why you went with a commercial product [ipswitch.com] instead of a free (as in beer and speech) one.
  • OK, you've got technology, you've got customers, you've got exposure on slashdot.

    What difference has your service made in the local community? Can you cite specific instances where your service impacted the lives of others, for good or for, uh, not so good?

  • Cooperatives inherently better utilities? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by foo fighter ( 151863 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @02:07PM (#4106195) Homepage
    I'm served by a telecom cooperative in my community (Souris River Telecom [srt.com] in Minot, ND). I couldn't be happier: local and long-distance phone service is very inexpensive, they've set up an all-digital cellular network in their coverage area that's $20/month for basically unlimited talk-time, and I get 1 megabit (bothways) DSL with a static IP and no limits on servers I set up for $40/month. Oh, and here's the kicker: when I call them with a question or for service I get a real, live person on the other end and am routed to someone who can actually help me the first time!

    I used to live in an area that was served by an electric co-op. It was the same situation with great service, great value, and they were constantly pushing at the edges of the state-of-the-art. The investor-owned electric utility that serves me now couldn't care less about me as a person, my needs, or future plans for my home or business. They just want to see the check at the end of the month and they will keep operating the way the do (utility wise if not business wise) until they are forced to change by regulatory changes.

    So to get to my question: as advantageous to the customer as the cooperative principles [coop.org] are, why aren't more utilities set up this way?

    • Greetings,

      I'm currently about to buy a house in a Rural part of Oregon... It seems that local co-ops differ wildly depending on where you are.

      In the area that I've been looking at there are at least three small phone companies. Two of which are co-ops (this is over about 4 or five exchanges, one small utility company has two exchanges, one co-op has one exchange and the other co-op has one or two...)

      Out of these three providers, the small investor owned company has fibre to all the homes in one exchange and provides DSL in that exchange. It doesn't have DSL in the other exchange yet, but they are planning it. They also have a strict NO SERVERS policy.

      Out of the two Co-ops, one of them provides Cable TV and Cable Modem as well as Phone service. They seem to have a reasonable "no unauthorised servers" policy but when I enquired it is basically a strict NO SERVERS policy. The remaining one has fibre almost everywhere, offers DSL and basically says "Hey, you're paying for it, you can run servers if you want..."

      So, it seems that it just depends. The one that I'll probably end up with is the one with Cable TV... :-( Having read their information they seem to be very much into the push culture. They promote Cable Modem as a great way of bringing the wonders of the internet to your home.

      Has anyone else come across this same dichotomy of sevice providers? "Here's a way you can consume more"... compared to "Here's a way you can help build a global community."

      Looking further afield in Oregon it seems that at least the samller providers are split fairly evenly 50-50 between the 'Consume what we give you' and 'Here's a great enabler' factions.

      Z.

      • Well, if you join a co-op you are basically an investor and have a loud voice in deciding company policy.

        That means if you don't like the way they are running the business you can use the democratic process to your advantage: get support from other customers/investors, take control of how things are being run, and change them to the way you like them.

        I've seen it done before, and because each customer/investor has one vote it's much more possible (ie takes much less cash and people) to be a catlyst for change in a co-op than in a corporation.

        Also, as a customer of a coop you get part of the profit back at the end of the fiscal year. That's very cool.

  • What advantages to being user owned? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Monkeyman334 ( 205694 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @02:35PM (#4106351)
    I work for a small ISP that went through all the same issues as you. We had to become a CLEC, install our own DSLAM in a Qwest central office, and are currently going through IMA. So what I'm saying is your internet setup looks totally independent of whether it's an Internet Coop or a for profit company. Is there a technology advantage to making it a coop, or is it purely financial?
    • A chief advantage for us is that we needed to put our DSLAM in a barn that was owned by the neighborhood. Being a nonprofit coop was important to the neighborhood in giving us permission to use the barn.
      • That sounds helpful, but still, I see no technological difference between the for-profit ISP I work for and your coop. We did all our work using none of the documents found on your website and had the same result. Is there anything you had to do differently, anything you had find out on your own? Or is it basically a for-profit setup that's owned by the community?
  • Have you had to deal with the RIAA or blocking songs or ports or anything, basicly DMCA violations?

  • Different approaches? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pokeyburro ( 472024 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2002 @02:44PM (#4106402) Homepage
    Based on the FAQ, it looks like you considered a lot of different possible options, and really did your homework. Are there any aspects of the project that weren't perhaps as optimal as you'd like, that you would have done differently? (Not counting things not under your control, like having to contend with Qwest.)


  • After reading your FAQ about how you are currently limiting your connection speeds to 206 kbps to avoid passing costs to your customers. Since you are hosting your own web site, how do you plan to deal with the spike of bandwidth to your site without passing great costs to the others in RR?

    • Our patent law firm (www.patents.com) buys the connectivity from the upstream provider. Our patent law firm also hosts the rric.net web site. We then provide connectivity to the Coop for the DSLAM and we bill through to the Coop its share of the traffic cost. So the two previous slashdottings were paid for by our patent law firm, and today's slashdotting is being paid for by our patent law firm. The Coop won't have to pay for it. As you will have picked up from the FAQs, our patent law firm is providing lots of things to the Coop free of charge. Access to the T1, the microwave system, tech support, legal support, and other things.
  • Were you able to tap into any grant money for rural community Internet providers, are or are these funding sources a thing of the past? I was under the impression there is money available for rural Internet infrastructure - is it real, or is it vaporcash?

  • After reading through most of the FAQ, it would appear that the co-op has a very good relationship with the Oppedahl & Larson LLP law firm. I would posit that of key importance in this venture is not acquiring the routing gear, the microwave tower gear, the DSLAMs or DSL modems, but rather getting one of your volunteers to be an attorney! Getting Qwest to allow the co-op to rent subloops would have cost a considerable amount of money in attorney fees, if a law firm were not a board member of the co-op (and the location of the T1+microwave gear ;)).

    I remember what it cost to incorporate my business, to enter into a lease for an office space, to agree to terms for insurance for the office space, etc. Thousands of dollars, easily. And we went with a local law firm, recommended by another small business - so we weren't getting shafted, at least not relatively so.

    Cheers.
  • Did local government help, hinder, or just keep out of the way? Likewise, would positive support from applicable local governments really have benefited your project? I would guess you folks are in an unicorporated area of the County, with few onerous restrictions on this typs of activity, however with no local government to provide support (facilities, funding, political support, etc.)
  • With the big players, its often easier to purchase the more expensive equipment necessary to provide a thoroughly enjoyable experience towards its users. ie, corporate entities that can make mega-deals and grab huge discounts on gear.

    Where would you recommend looking for the necessary equipment to create a smaller ISP. At some other organizations I've worked for, we have had jointly purchased equipment with other smaller ISP's for a price break. These smaller shops drying up or selling out in the wake of the dot com bust, I would like to hear your recommendations and approaches on this subject.

    Ideally, if someone could list some affordable vendors of goods I would be overjoyed.

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