10 Common Mistakes of WISP Beginners

    We've learned a lot from our time in the industry. Whether we learned tricks or tips through first hand experience, feedback from customers, potential customers and industry insiders, our knowledge and experience is not something you learn overnight. To help newcomers, we've put together a list of common mistakes that we'd like to share with beginners that we have seen others make (and ourselves) that have prevented Wireless ISPs from planning, building and operating a smooth and successful operation on the first try.

1.  No site survey. Don't buy a base station and the parts to build a system and install it in the most convenient spot available. Site selection is very important. It determines your addressable market. Spend a lot of time and effort developing strategic sites for transmission antennas and your data center operations. Never consider building a Wireless ISP of any kind without first conducting a full survery of the planned service area with a spectrum analyzer and a trained professional that knows how to use it.  An on-site visit from a qualified radio frequency field engineer can save you countless hours of grief and hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and equipment costs..

2.  Wrong people. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it's often times a difficult decision to make. Select the people that are right for the job. Make sure they are qualified. If not, solicit help from industry consultants and make sure you train yourself and your staff with the proper skills, knowledge and expertise that you will need to launch a success wireless ISP.

3. Build your system on the ground first.  This may not seem so obvious. Always build the beginning portion, including your headend equipment, antennas and customer premises on the ground first. Make sure you use the exact cable lengths necessary for the real tower. Cable lengths can affect signal loss a great deal. Also waterproof your gear on the ground, not later. Most importantly, make sure ALL of your equipment works before installing in on a tower. It takes a ton of time, money and work just to get the equipment up there.  Don't find yourself at the top of a 200 foot tower cursing at yourself because it doesn't work after you get it up there. (Trust us on this one).

4. No Network Operations Center. Once the network is built and running, always have at least one person, who is familiar with all the Internet protocols, troubleshooting and a basic understanding of wireless, monitoring your network. The technology has advanced, but it's not going to manage itself. You'll need at least one PC that keeps a status of all the access points, Internet connections, your servers and related equipment all on one screen. When there is an issue, you need to know exactly where it exists. You may not need instant Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to drill-down five levels deep, but you do need to be able to at least check the status of your critical devices. 

5. Good Network Management Tools. Good network management tools also should provide a way to limit bandwidth to individual customers. If you don't invest in this tool, it could be a very costly mistake. In any level of service, you need to establish maximum data transfer rates for both upstream and downstream traffic. To service the maximum amount of customers, available bandwidth should be limited to a comfortable maximum. Don't let the network be impacted by one or two customers.

6.  Too much infrastructure. Believe it or not, you can drag a company down with excessive costs on infrastructure. Cell-site trunking between cell sites and the Internet is a costly endeavor. There are cost-effective methods to deliver bandwidth to your sites. Don't overbuild and expect to fill your $9,000 a month circuit with customers in the first 45 days.

7. Signing up high-profile customers first. Sure, it's exciting new technology. It's supposed to work right out of the box. Everyone has had training, everyone knows what to do, or so you think. You really don't have sufficient knowledge to operate your network until you've actually been operating it a while. The first customers to sign up should be "friendlies." These would be friends of the staff and the staff themselves. Don't install to the largest computer reseller in town on the first day. Odds are you'll need to change something, something will go wrong, or your service might go down. Having a rough-start with a high-profile organization can damage your public reputation in the beginning stages, which can be devastating if you live in a small town. Your trial can be very short, but at least make sure you have all procedures in place for trouble tickets, service outages, and/or general customer inquiries. 

Also, take excellent care of your customers.  Provide them with the right resources to get their PC online, answer their questions, maybe offer a free "Internet 101" at your office. 

9. No Security Plan. This mistake has bitten many providers. Not only do you need good security to protect your servers and customers from malicious attacks, but also plan for attacks from within the customer network. Potential threats exist in many areas. Having a well thought out security plan is a must.

10. Poor Provisioning Processes and Useless Software. Provisioning a customer should not be an all-day task. Your software should instantly provision a customer once the order has been placed. If equipment is benched prior to field deployment, the ability to perform this task should be simple. An installer changing out equipment should not have to wait thirty minutes to get an update. Plan your software to fit your needs. Many operators spend far too much for features that will never be used. Often times these platforms are proprietary as well. Don't waste money on dead-end software.

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