Hey guys, this seems like a dumb question, but, ok....so I ask, what exactly am I paying for when I buy interent service. And why Do I have to pay someone else? Who does my cable company pay? Why can't I just bypass the middleman and become my own ISP? The Internet isn't located on just one server, so who exactly is all my money going for?
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What it takes to be an ISP?
- Thread starter pcjunkey
- Start date
mrdenny
Programmer
- May 27, 2002
- 11,595
Your cable company is paying there ISP (probably one of the major backbone providers).
There is technically nothing stopping you from contacting a major backbone provider and having them run a line to you and getting your internet access directly from them. However you would have to pay to have the line run from their nearest POP to your house ( or office, I'm assuming house for this). You also will pay a premium rate since you will be ordering a small amount of bandwidth. The bandwidth game is one of those when you buy more, you pay less. Because your cable company is buying a huge amount of fiber and bandwidth from the top level providers they can pass that savings on to you, so that you only have to pay $20-$50 per month for a 1-2MB connection.
If you were to run a line to your house, and have a company service it there would be a host of charges to deal with. Line Install fees, Line Maintaince fees, repair fees if the line is cut, having to pay a network engineer to install and configure the router, DSU/CSU, switches, etc. Having to have battery backups to keep all that gear up and running if the power goes out (fiber lines don't like loosing power). Plus the bandwidth charges. For a 1-2 Meg connection you would probably be paying a couple hundred per meg.
Not to say you couldn't do it, but it would cost a fortune.
Denny
--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)
![[noevil]](/data/assets/smilies/noevil.gif "[noevil] [noevil]")
(My very old site)
There is technically nothing stopping you from contacting a major backbone provider and having them run a line to you and getting your internet access directly from them. However you would have to pay to have the line run from their nearest POP to your house ( or office, I'm assuming house for this). You also will pay a premium rate since you will be ordering a small amount of bandwidth. The bandwidth game is one of those when you buy more, you pay less. Because your cable company is buying a huge amount of fiber and bandwidth from the top level providers they can pass that savings on to you, so that you only have to pay $20-$50 per month for a 1-2MB connection.
If you were to run a line to your house, and have a company service it there would be a host of charges to deal with. Line Install fees, Line Maintaince fees, repair fees if the line is cut, having to pay a network engineer to install and configure the router, DSU/CSU, switches, etc. Having to have battery backups to keep all that gear up and running if the power goes out (fiber lines don't like loosing power). Plus the bandwidth charges. For a 1-2 Meg connection you would probably be paying a couple hundred per meg.
Not to say you couldn't do it, but it would cost a fortune.
Denny
--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)
(My very old site)
Stevehewitt
IS-IT--Management
In addition, BT Wholesale will need to be paid for the infrastructure if you wanted it done in the form of a xDSL system. (If your in the UK).
Otherwise you would be looking at a leased line. I've just put one into a new office I am setting up @ £6k setup and £12k rental pa. That's only for a P2P Connection to a head office.
As much as you may hate it, going with a standard ISP is your cheapest option.
There are some really cheap ones that offer a pure wires only service with no email, no domain name, no webhosting etc. Get yourself a static IP and host your own stuff.
Probably the cheapest you can get.
Otherwise you would be looking at a leased line. I've just put one into a new office I am setting up @ £6k setup and £12k rental pa. That's only for a P2P Connection to a head office.
As much as you may hate it, going with a standard ISP is your cheapest option.
There are some really cheap ones that offer a pure wires only service with no email, no domain name, no webhosting etc. Get yourself a static IP and host your own stuff.
Probably the cheapest you can get.
Don't forget that an ISP makes there money by sharing service. The smallest ISP might have only a T1 to an internet backbone provider. The ISP in turn might have a 6 T1 customers plus a few dozen dialup lines. The ISP would charge less for his/her T1's than s/he pays for his/her T1.
The idea is that it all averages out - not everyone will need the maximum burst capacity of their connection at the same time. Of course duringh the busy hour everyone's data throuput would drop.
This is a fundamental difference between packet and circuit switching. With packet things slow down when it gets busy, but everyone still has some sort of access.
With circuit switching you get all trunks busy and until you get through you get nothing. Of course once you do get through you have a conneciton that is not shared with anyone. For example a circuit switched data connection between two ISDN B channels is either connected (e.g. full 64 kbps or not. But when it is connected the 64 kbps is guaranteed.
The idea is that it all averages out - not everyone will need the maximum burst capacity of their connection at the same time. Of course duringh the busy hour everyone's data throuput would drop.
This is a fundamental difference between packet and circuit switching. With packet things slow down when it gets busy, but everyone still has some sort of access.
With circuit switching you get all trunks busy and until you get through you get nothing. Of course once you do get through you have a conneciton that is not shared with anyone. For example a circuit switched data connection between two ISDN B channels is either connected (e.g. full 64 kbps or not. But when it is connected the 64 kbps is guaranteed.
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