Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Technology

Starting a Cable Company? 58

Posted by Cliff from the if-you-want-something-done-right... dept.
prec asks: "One of my goals for my post-university life is to start my own High Speed Internet provider. The plan is to find a decent sized residential area that does not currently have such a service available and start my business there. However, one major problem presents itself - How in the world could I start my own cable company? Would I actually have to lay my own cable lines and everything or do the big companies (such as Comcast) have services set up for people to start their own 'Comcast Franchise' type businesses? All feedback is appreciated."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Starting a Cable Company? More

Starting a Cable Company?

Comments Filter:

  • WiFi (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HughsOnFirst ( 174255 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:02PM (#4736200)
    from rooftop to rooftop.

    Cables?

    ecch!!

    • Re:WiFi (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I agree.

      Cable is going to be a lot of work, and I think wireless networks are going to be the future anyhow. Buy bandwidth from someone, setup wireless access points, sell access. Cut some people price breaks for installing access points on their property.

  • HBCI did it. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by KittyTheCat ( 542416 )
    http://www.hbci.com/

  • Post University? (Score:5, Funny)

    by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:05PM (#4736213) Homepage
    This is the goal for your post-university life?

    I suggest staying in business school until you understand why this probably isn't going to work. :-)

  • You would need a lot of capital (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pengo ( 28814 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:08PM (#4736226) Journal

    It costs the cable companies crazy money to lay the cable, because of construction costs, etc. Your business plan would have to have a 5-10 year return on that cable. But, at that point, why lay cable when you can run fibre?

    I would say that wireless is your best bet, if your not deep pocketed. In an industry where there is intense compitition I would guess it would be hard to pitch yourself to a VC for money. Wifi you can almost throw something together for under 30-40k dollars. Problem is, WIFI service is sub-par to what you get with cable. And where you can get cable modem for 39 dollars a month, will you see a return on your investment?

    Cheers

    • why lay cable when you can run fibre

      Um, maybe because fiber costs LOTS more to work with? It's not just the physical cost of the cable, but you can't split it like copper, it's much harder to terminate, the connectors are several orders of magnitude more expensive, etc. Bottom line is that it would probably cost 10 time more to lay fiber to the house.

      The way it's being done is to run fiber to a neighborhood POP and copper to the house. Performance is just fine if it is done right and the POP's are not oversubscribed. Note that it's still really expensive.

      Seriously. The
  • you carry porn channels. The rest will follow.

  • Starting a Cable Company? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jonny 290 ( 260890 ) <brojames.ductape@net> on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:10PM (#4736237) Homepage
    Dear Slashdot:

    I like to pose bullshit geeky questions to tech websites. Some call me a troll. I'd like to use the change I find in my couch cushions to start up a cable company. Now that I've graduated ITT Tech, I know all there is to know about technology. Fortunately I have absolutely no concept as to how a business is run, let alone a multi-billion-dollar media business, but was hoping that some Slashdot reader has started a cable company (Ted Turner, you're on my Foes list! :) :) :) ) and can tell me how to do everything!
  • Taco> Delete his account
    Sk3ptK1dd3z> H4X0R him
    Trolls> Crapflood this
    Slashbots> Make bad *AA jokes
    Don't you people see? prec has gone over to the darkside! He wants to align with the evil content providers who wish to control the internet. Stop him before its too late!

  • In my best Foghorn Leghorn (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toygeek ( 473120 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:17PM (#4736281) Journal
    "No no no son you're going about it all wrong". Think Orinco wireless equipment. Secure, inexpensive. Now all you need is some space at a repeater site, and a high speed connection to service your customers with. A guy I know persnally is doing this in the Reno, NV area and is doing quite well. The setup fee is around $250, but its only $50/mo. All on 2.4ghz with rooftop antennae and big collinear (sp?) arrays on the towers. He has a T1 in Reno, shoots that over the mountains (two repeater sites with line of sight) via 5.8ghz, and drops into Fernley, which is a small town w/ nothing but 56K. V'oila, high speed ISP.

    His website is fernley.net, but I don't think he uses that site anymore.

  • Suggestions for your Terms of Service (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orangesquid ( 79734 ) <orangesquid.yahoo@com> on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:21PM (#4736304) Homepage Journal
    If you start a cable company, *please* let home users run web servers, peer to peer, etc., without griping. (You can always get some linux boxes to do Quality-of-Service routing, and put things like peer to peer and customer port 80 connections in the low priority partition or something.) Also, Don't send the Feds after people who uncap their modems (fix your SNMP system, dammit! also cap at the router! etc.) And don't put ridiculously low upload caps on (10k? Man, I could do better with two 57.6k modems!) Don't forget that you're just an ISP, not the network police! Your job is mostly to make sure things get from point A to point B on time without getting lost.

    That's my 2pence, anyway. [Stupid Comcast.]
    • no, actually his job is probably to make money, upstream is expensive, you can do with with two 57.6 modems? go for it
    • well then get two 57.6k modems ( whatever they are I think you mean 56k) and get better speed. No one is forcing you to stick with 'slow' cable.
      • Decent ISP's in my area are about $25 a month (seriously). The cable company is the only alternative at the moment (DSL isn't quite to my house yet), and they're $40-$50 a month.

        You're right, no one is forcing me to do anything. However, that's only because my pocketbook is not a person. (I can hear the trolls now: "Go back to modem!" "Get a higher-paying job!" "Natalie Portman and hot grits!" "Get off the Internet!" Of course, if anyone has any /serious/ suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them...)

        (By 57.6k, I meant 57.6kilobits, which is 57600, which is about 56kibibits. I can't remember the proper" designation for the modems, but I had an internal one that said 57600 and an external one that said 56K. Around here, people call them fifty-seven-six modems, or fifty-six-kay modems, so both designations are correct as far as I care (I just need to communicate, really...). And due to FCC restrictions they only run at 53k anyway... heh.)

  • Ask /. (Score:3, Funny)

    by (startx) ( 37027 ) <slashdot@NOSPaM.unspunproductions.com> on Friday November 22, 2002 @08:27PM (#4736325) Journal
    Hello, now that I've graduated college and moneybaggs^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H daddy says I can do whatever I want this his billions, what's the best way to throw it down the drain? Should I burn it, flush it, give it away, or toss it at the cable companies so I can look important? Thnx, j00 n3rd r00l!

  • wireless is the way (Score:2, Interesting)

    by avoelker ( 553711 )

    If you are serious about this, build a wireless infrastructure, not cable.

    You'll notice new phone service, like in China, are being built-out via cellular network, not wire-line.

    -avoelker

  • This might not be what you are looking for... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @09:09PM (#4736513)

    But have you considered wireless?

    From what I know, you need a deal with the cable company for cable modems. Same with the phone company for DSL. But consider wireless....

    You need a T1, and the wireless hardware. You also need access points, but considering the topography of the area, you might be able to get by if you offer free service to certain businesses/homes if they allow you to keep a WAP there. Seems cheaper and easier then cable or DSL... Of course, you need to keep a small variety of wireless pci/pcmia NICs on hand, but you'll be able to sell those at a fat profit and charge more for setup.

    Sure, there are security concerns. You could *try* to limit it to mac address, and ppp-over-ethernet. Just pay close attention to the logs. :)

    Just think of the benefits : internet access anywhere as long as you are in range. Great selling point.

    However, I'm not a networking or wireless guru. So double check all of this and run the numbers, get permission, etc. Look for 'success stories' with wireless in the non-profit or commercial sectors. Not sure if latency is better/worse or the same compared to cable or DSL. However, for bandwidth, assuming each sector is tied to a T1, that's a max of 1.54 mbps, so I believe that the cheaper (older, slower) wireless standard should be able to take that speed. Else (depending on the size), tie the backbone together with a private high-speed ethernet connection (say encrypted to protect this tempted target) between the region WAP and the main office. Then the WAP can convert from the new fast expensive standard of your choice to the old slow inexpensive standard of your choice.

    Oh, and do you have the knowledge? Maybe you should try to get a job at an ISP first, learn the ropes, then move to littletown, USA, pop 10k, and setup your broadband service.

  • Are you serious (Score:4, Informative)

    by nelsonal ( 549144 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @09:16PM (#4736557) Journal
    First, realize that you will need to find a town or berg with no cable franchise. A franchise is the right to be the only cable company in an area. Start lookin for very small towns, or large when wide spots in the road. Everywhere that was worth developing was developed when AT&Tstarted buying cable companies for 5k per sub. Note that you will probably have better luck buying part of Adelphia, than rolling your own. Should you happen to decide to purchase assets on the secondary market, try to pay about $2000 per subscriber, you might not be able to find anything at that price, but don't pay more than $3000 per sub.
    If you go the build your own route, make sure that you have some estimates on the density of housing in the areas you have to serve. (Most of the time the town will require you to roll cable out to areas that would not be profitable on their own in exchange for being the exclusive cable provider to the area, also for the easments.) You will need a lawyer to at a minimum look over the contract before you start, I suggest that you go to work for a cable company to learn somehting about how the business works. This is to learn how much it costs to lay a mile of cable, and how much the channels charge for their access. (You didn't think all your money would come from broadband access did you? That will probably be a small part of your earnings.) You will also want to go to work for your schools network services division, if you really want to have a chance at success with broadband. This way you will get hands on experience at running a broadband company, especially with very network happy users.
    Once you have secured the town you plan to serve, you will need financing. This will probably be the hardest part of your job, as geeks are generally pretty poor at selling things. (For starters go buy a good suit. Try Penny's if your cheap, they sell a good suit for probably the least amount new. Try to find a classic black or navy, nothing too fancy or wierd and it will last quite some time.) Now you get to go begging for funds. You can try a bank, but they are generally not interested in loaning money to a recent grad who is looking to start a business. You can try to find a grant or jobs program in your state. Most states provide subsidized loans to businesses that will agree to create a number of jobs. The SBA might help in this part, as well, with loans, advice, or co-signing. Failing this you will have to pony up your own money, find investors, or seek family money. Not that I condone looting your grandparents' retirement but they might be willing to invest some in your business. If no financing is readily available, get a job and buy a house, save all you can, and when you are ready, use the equity in your house, your savings, and your experience to secure a loan.
    Finally, if this isn't a troll, and you might be interested in providing cable to a small town in Montana, send your resume and business plan to me. If it looks like you are serious I might be able to put you in contact with a potential funding source.

  • Another Wireless solution: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zapper ( 68283 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @09:34PM (#4736646) Homepage Journal
    Depending on how far you want to go there's always RONJA [jikos.cz].

  • There was a company (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Karrots ( 14012 )
    There was a company here in Utah that was doing somthing just like what you are asking about. They were running cable of their own design to the houses etc... Now I think they are doing regular ethernet and using some sort of Fiber to the home thing. I havn't looked into them in a while because they weren't in my city. They became a utility so they could use the easments and other things like that to get to the neighborhoods. Last I looked they were offering 10mbit connections for like $40 a month but that was 3 years ago.

    Here is their website if you want to see what they are doing now. http://www.airswitch.com

  • my question (Score:1, Redundant)

    by farnsworth ( 558449 )
    Dear Slashdot,

    As a part time job, I'd like to run some sort of huge media company. My problem is, how do I get millions of magazines/tv stations/newspapers? Do I have to write them all myself? Or are there 'some sort of huge media corporation' franchises?

  • Fiber, definitely. (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @10:16PM (#4736818) Homepage
    If you're going to be physically wiring up the neighborhood, I'd strongly recommend using fiber. If you want to be a CABLE COMPANY, supplying TV service as well as internet, you should look into set-top boxes with fiber inputs; you might wind up laying coax, but do yourself a favor and LAY FIBER TOO.

    For wireless, 802.11 (not B) will supply a fairly decent amount of bandwidth to a pretty wide area -- so long as the weather is good. I live in a desert area, so it's decent here, but if you get a significant amount of rain, I'd recommend against it, both for you and your customers.

    For permission to lay cable, contact your local government to see what permits and requirements there are for underground or above-ground cable runs. Some cities and counties are pretty lax about it; some can get quite anal. Knowing someone in government may help you.

    There may be other local conditions you need to know about before you start work. High ground water may make long-term cable emplacement problematic. A low water table may make equipment grounding a serious expense. You might want to snoop around in the cities near you to figure out if you need anything special.
  • People who will uncap you [slashdot.org]

    Develop a cozy relationship with the FBI.
  • It's quite possible that the high speed internet needs of the world will soon be handled by a world-wide mesh network [slashdot.org].

    So if you want to make money, start selling mesh hardware nodes and maybe support contracts for your customers' nodes.

    And maybe in the short term, you can charge for connecting their nodes to your T1. But perhaps soon the mesh will be so pervasive that connections to the internet will be ubiquitous and free, or perhaps the internet will just consist of mesh nodes.

    • Yeah, the insane success of P2P networks, their high efficiency, low latency, and high reliability underscore the inevitable future of unregulated mesh Internet connectivity.

      "Why can't I play Quake, I'm only 600 hops from the server across town?!?"
  • That's right:

    1. Mimic L. Ron Hubard and declare your 'church' a non-profit orginization.
    2. ???
    3. Profit!!!

  • And buy off some local zoning boards and officials. Also prepare to pay property tax on your wires.

    Cable companies get local monopolies because towns grant them, you'll need to grease some wheels to do the same.
  • cause here is how to roll your own dsl. [pbs.org] The article is by Robert X. Cringely.
  • it won't be that long until having coaxial cables laying all over the place becomes less of an asset and more of a liability.

    Ultra Wide Band wireless technology ( or something suitable) would let you provide access without having to get right of way to run wires and put up poles everywhere. do you want to be an ISP or an MSO (Cable tv, ISP, and Telephony on coax cables). If you're going to be a MSO, buy and upgrade an existing cable plant somewhere. then you got telephony regulations and distribution deals to make with all the networks, sell adds, all kinds of stuff.
    If you're going to be JUST an ISP, things will be MUCH more simple. and if it's Just Internet service, use some kind of wireless eqipment.

    anyhow, if you need someone to head up your tech support department, don't call me I'm sick of this shit. I want to be a lumberjack.
  • Jeeze, that is about the hardest endevour you could pick. Good luck dude.

    I'm not talking about technical issues, but business , law, politics: it's a fscking mess.
  • I am thinking/hoping/praying/sacrificing live chickens in the hopes that I heard you wrong. More likely, you said one thing and meant another. You don't typically start a cable company. Maybe you meant you wanted to be a high speed ISP. In which case, yeah, go wireless. If not wireless, consider this. It is very hard to make money being an ISP in general. The telcos squeeze out the small guys. A guy I worked with started his own. Lots of capital required to start up. A lot of overhead, you have to consider... office space, AC, and of course the biggy for an ISP, circuits. It can be done, but don't expect to get rich doing it. If you are looking to make money, RUN, don't walk, away from the ISP business.
  • I think you'll probably end up doing something besides cable, like these other posters are suggesting. Cable is too expensive to do all at once up front.

    Why don't you start off with wireless, and then incrementally put down high-speed lines where demand dictates? If you hook any big deals that require 10gbps or something, then lay down a nice fat line especially for them... but make it 20gbps, and then branch it off to the 1000 or so people in that area. 10gbps for 1000 people would be a nice isp! Of course I have no understanding of the costs involved, but that article about the University of Twente mentioned they have a 10gbps point-of-presence so the technology must be out there.

    Once your infrastructure is set up, your long term costs will probably be dictated by the price of external bandwidth. If you give your customers 24/7 unlimited access, you may find yourself wanting to cut off customers who upload 200 gigs per month because they cost you far more than their subscription price.

    Well, I've been wondering for a while why isp's aren't doing something like this: provide uncapped bandwidth on your internal network. If you can send/receive at 20mbps to other subscribers, and 1.5mbps to nonsubscribers, you can bet that pretty quickly, specialized networks will pop up for file sharing and all that. Suddenly your heaviest bandwidth users will be sharing more files locally and you won't be losing money on them.

    Of course you couldn't endorse such a network, but I think it would happen on its own, given the skew in bandwidth.
  • The goal is to have my own High Speed Internet company. Some of the posters here seem to have misinterpreted my original question (possibly the fault of myself). However, those who posted reguarding wireless service providing options were very helpful. Starting up a wireless High Speed ISP definately sounds much more feasible than an entire cable company (which is definately way out of my league for the time being). I will most likely attempt to implement a similar system. Thanks again, - prec
  • ...by telling you to just forget about Philadelphia right now. Comcast has their HQ here, and they will not tolerate any competition on their home turf, period.

    RCN [rcn.com] tried a couple years back to get a foothold in the city, and Comcast threw up every kind of barrier (legal, financial, political) you could think of until RCN gave up and retreated back to Princeton with their tail between their legs.

    ~Philly

Slashdot Top Deals

"There is such a fine line between genius and stupidity." - David St. Hubbins, "Spinal Tap"

Close