my boss asked me to study the possiblity of becoming a small isp for our small town. there is only one other isp in town.

what steps we need to do to start this business?

you have to ask yourself a few ? do you want to buy your own hardware or do you want to lease

whats services are you going to offer ?

is coverage available in your town ?

you can pm me and i can guide you in the right direction hopefully

More information is really needed to direct or advise you. Specifically, your goals, what services you plan to offer, your experience, etc.

we are based overseas. jordan to be exact.
we got a dedicated server to host our site from rackspace.com
i know how to manage a dedicated linux server but i do not know if we still can be an isp and lease the server from an american company? is there a difference between managing a server for hosting and managing a server for isp

do you mean, an ISP (dial up / dsl service) or do you mean hosting other people's websites?

there's alot more involved hardware-wise with running an ISP vs. running a virtual hosting company.

I am currious to this too

i would love to run an isp for me and a few friends on a dedicated server is taht possible?

i dont know if it would be for dsl/cable style though because what hops would it hit between you and the server so thats whats got me confused

maybe somone help me on this question too?

keep in mind folks that isp stands for internet service provider it really does not matter if your leasing or you own your hardware
if your hosting your a isp

if you provide dialup your a isp

that's what i was getting at. i think there's an confusion over terms here.


i think the poster wants to host websites, not offer dial-up services to customers. i may be mistaken though. it's known to happen quite often. hehe..

Originally posted by ************
I am currious to this too

i would love to run an isp for me and a few friends on a dedicated server is taht possible?

i dont know if it would be for dsl/cable style though because what hops would it hit between you and the server so thats whats got me confused

maybe somone help me on this question too?

yeh u can offer dailup -dsl- thru a dedicated inhouse server and allow incoming calls or connections thru vpn or modem ---

Originally posted by airtime166
if your hosting your a isp

if you provide dialup your a isp True, but it seems to have come to be used most often to refer to providers of internet access rather than providers of web hosting. That's what's confusing, but as I re-read his posts I think that theguy was probably asking about expanding his company's hosting of their own site to offer hosting to others.

If he is talking about offering dialup access, managing the server(s) will be among the simplest things they'll have to do.

i agree with that

If you want to add dial up to your offering or just want to add it so you and some buddies have dial up, the cheapest way is to do it as a reseller for dialupusa -
http://dialupusa.net/basic/dialup.html

Tons of numbers, free use of SMTP, free use of news (which is an absolute nightmare to run on your own), and free set up software.

The biggest issue with dial up is support. You should have phone support, because when they can't connect, they can't e-mail. Also, time spent on the phone increases, because dial up troubleshooting takes time.