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Setting up an ISP involves a range of business, financial, and technical issues. This appendix provides links to online sources for more detailed information.
This appendix contains these sections:
Business Planning
Setting Up Your Servers and Internet Feed
Preparing Your Account Setup Solution
Troubleshooting and Customer Support
Before you begin planning the technical details of your ISP, you need to address a range of basic business issues, including market research, financing, and setting up your basic business infrastructure. At a minimum, this includes obtaining necessary state and local licenses, setting up office services such as phone systems and accounting software, domain registration, and so on.
You should also have identified your potential customers, created a viable marketing and business plan, worked out a detailed budget, identified sources of technical assistance (your own employees or external services), and performed all the other tasks required to set up a successful business. The ISP industry is mature and highly competitive; you will not succeed unless you do your homework.
For background information on planning and setting up an ISP business, see the following:
http://www.isp-planet.com/
- Can I start an ISP with $15000?
http://www.isp-planet.com/business/2001/15k_bol.html
- Newbie's Guide to Starting an ISP
http://www.isp-planet.com/business/start_an_isp-a.html
- ISPPlanet Guide to Building an ISP
http://www.isp-planet.com/resources/isp_guide/index.html
- How We Started Our Own ISP
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/showtell/story/0,23008,2196566,00.html
Setting Up Your Servers and Internet Feed
To provide Internet access, an ISP needs to sign up with a regional or national backbone provider and set up a local loop—that is, a physical connection between your location and the provider. In general, it's preferable to set up a 24 channel T1 or equivalent circuit for your first access switch.
An ISP also needs servers to handle its primary functions, including DNS, mail, Web servers (both HTTP and HTTPS), authentication, and news. Theoretically, you can do all this on just one machine, but at least four separate dedicated PCs is usually considered the minimum requirement.
One of the most basic decisions you must make is whether to own your own server facilities, rent them, or use a hybrid solution that permits users to connect to your service through other service providers as well as your own.
For more information on these decisions and other aspects of setting up your servers and Internet feed, see the following:
- Make Your ISP Facilities-Based or Non? (
http://www.isp-planet.com/business/052099facilities-pt1.html) in ISPPlanet Guide to Building an ISP.
- Newbie's Guide to Starting an ISP
http://www.isp-planet.com/business/start_an_isp-a.html
- What Do I Need for My WebSite?
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/resources/guides/g8/s1.htm
Preparing Your Account Setup Solution
When a customer signs up with your ISP service, you need to provide an Account Setup solution as well as a customized version of Mozilla 1.4.1. An Account Setup solution helps users create ISP accounts and configures both system software and Mozilla 1.4.1 to enable Internet access. Configuration includes:
- System software (such as modem drivers, dialers, network protocol stack)
- Internet access information (such as dialup access numbers, network settings, server settings)
- End-user-specific settings (such as ISP account name, user email address) for Mozilla
An Account Setup solution can take one of two forms:
- Online Account Setup prompts for customer information to create an ISP account (for example, contact information, preferred email account name, and payment plan). Account Setup then connects to an ISP account setup server and uploads the new account request. After processing the request, the server downloads the corresponding configuration to Account Setup, which uses it to automatically configure Internet access and other settings for the end user.
- Manual Account Setup requires the end user to enter the appropriate configuration information manually and initiate the connection process. Therefore, you need to provide step-by-step instructions for each platform that you support. For example, see the instructions outlined in Appendix B "Manual Account Setup."
Troubleshooting and Customer Support
Copyright © 2001 Netscape Communications Corp. All rights reserved.
Last Updated October 05, 2001