←back to thread

Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

(arstechnica.com)
1135 points carride | 1 comments | 10 Aug 22 13:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.235s | source
Show context
boplicity ◴[10 Aug 22 16:59 UTC] No.32415153[source]▶
He's getting $2.6 million to set up access to 417 homes. That works out to $6,235 per home. At $55 per month, it would take 113 months, or over 9 years just to get $2.6 million in revenue.

Horrible economics! What a crazy business to be in. No wonder grants like this are necessary.

replies(6): >>32415254 #>>32415274 #>>32415325 #>>32415334 #>>32415347 #>>32415553 #
1. judge2020 ◴[10 Aug 22 17:04 UTC] No.32415254[source]▶
This is how the ISPs work as well, typically 10 years is common ROI for any neighborhood and 5-10 years for multi-family housing (apartment) runs. This is also the reason AT&T/Comcast won't run new installations to small (less than 40 residents in my experience) or rural neighborhoods since the ROI time gets longer the fewer potential customers they have.