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

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive.

But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply?

Namely:

-- customers who don't behave as well or kindly as before

-- customers who need 24 hour customer service

-- maintenance that can't be done himself, and he has to employ people

-- customers and vendors who sue you for breach of contract, or other simply nuisance lawsuits

-- upgrading the network to the next technology requirement, or when he's unable to get 2nd-hand parts so cheaply, etc.

-- or a natural disaster that unexpectedly forces replacement of (and charging for) equipment that wasn't anticipated in the original subscriber price

Maybe none of this rises to the level of making it fundamentally different or unsustainable? But it seems to me the honeymoon phase doesn't last long, and it's got to hit some unavoidable realities soon. At least, if you think you can replicate this, it requires finding people and neighbors who are willing to do actual work and investment/concern to make something like this possible, and not simply pay a vendor a premium to phone it in. It must be treated like a neighbor-to-neighbor community project, not a faceless commercial transaction with its attendant obligations.

I'm not convinced this is the case. The big thing that makes telco's such profit making machines is that wires in the ground are generally a large capital expense that doesn't really provide a great marketplace for competition. But once you've got that infrastructure, it's hard to duplicate. The rest of the equipment and employees relatively aren't that expensive.

So the power is on the provider here, there isn't really another choice for customers if the article is to be believed, no matter how good or bad the company is. Sure there might be disputes with vendors, but that's just part of any business.

The biggest threat IMO is probably some sort of competition. Maybe a big telco decides to wire up the area, although then they would be the second player in the market trying to steal customers who may not be interested in switching. Or if this really is a rural area, things like wireless last mile (basically LTE), Starlink, OneWeb, etc may start to be more compelling options if they get the capacity, latency, and price point to the right spot to be competitive.

Telcos aren't really that great of profit making machines. It's a capital intensive business that requires a lot of scale before making money.

Look at what this guy is doing. Many millions to get 600 customers paying <$100 a month.