My new wisp, month 6 and what I have learned.

Hi Community,

I started a wisp out of necessity on 24th Sept 2019, failing was not an option. I looked at what was available in my suburb in South Africa. Everyone was complaining about bad service and I knew that to be successful I had to ensure above average levels of service. We have only 5 star ratings on Google and 80% of new business is through referrals.

I bought a layer 3 solution from a Tier 1 company and they handle all the peering and routing. They also provide a radius service and we use PPPOE, packages at launch are 5Mbs, 10Mbs and 20Mbs up and down. We later launched a 2Mbs but we provision a 5Mbs and rate limit on CPE. My backhaul is 100Mbs microwave licenced spectrum and I am selling 918Mbs at the moment. 98 customers. We use UNMS and it's ok if a little limited.

I launched with 3 Ubiquiti LiteGPS APs and they were great, added a 4th and soon a 5th. They seem to max at 35 clients before CPU is at a constant 100%. They work great and my furthest client is 2kms away. I don't offer service if I cant achieve better than -65db. I use nanostations and litebeams (when needed). I use 20Mhz of spectrum and keep things tight. The original Mikrotik RB2011 soon ran out of breath and now I have a RB4011, running at 4-8% CPU. Then coronavirus struck and my network backhaul is now saturated and I am unable to get an upgrade to capacity due to lockdown. But we try and manage.

Here is what I have learned:

1. Make sure you focus on customer service . At the early stages you cannot afford customers saying bad things about your network. Change your perceptions about customers and make sure you seen as the community hero.
2. If it's not connecting check cabling and connectors, if it still doesnt connect after checking cabling and connectors, go back and check cabling and connectors :-) Do not skimp on cable and do a professional install.
3. I would say start like I did with a Layer3 solution, this may be more expensive but it will allow you to focus on customer service and acquisition. Later you can look at owning more of the backend.

So when I say we in this post, I mean me and the company of me :-) a great team. But I need help please guys;

1. Can anyone guide me what can be done as low hanging fruit to save on bandwidth.
2. I now find that I need to own the radius infrastructure as the L3 provider is inflexible and would like some recommendations, my biggest challenge is shaping and bandwidth management. How do you guys contend and group packages and prioritise. I need something affordable that will allow me to shape and manage my users better.
3. At some point I will look into LTU and Hybrid Fibre offerings, trenching a street and connecting the street with a radio on a street pole.
4. I am also looking into offering higher priority packages to get more revenue. I sell a 20Mbs up and down for about 50USD.

Sorry for the long post but I see alot of guys wanting startup information and just thought this would be of help.

Stay safe friends Shahin