Creating a Mini ISP

[medarta17]

So the business im working for is looking at purchasing some additional land outside of town and putting in a new building. Biggest problem is that there is no internet connectivity so there is no lines we could lease or vpns we could set up to connect the two places. We are looking at making some single mode fiber run out there so we can have connectivity to it. We've already made contact with the utility company and have tentative permission with a minor leasing of pole space agreement. but here is my question. we also have a couple of other buildings between the two main locations that dont have any connectivity. They have gotten by with out it, but i was thinking it would be great to get them all connected.

 

So here is my question, how do ISP's distribute their connections. running dedicated lines from the main location to each satellite locations seems impractical and expensive. So do they just tap into a pair in the back bone for each satellite location? I would think in an ISP environment that wouldn't work because you would run out of pairs rather quickly. Do they have some kind of fiber switch at every drop location so that the remainder of the fiber line in the cable isnt wasted and is still usable? that sounds like it would be expensive and then you have to find some power source at the pole to power the switch and continue the signal. any suggestions would be great.

 

location 1 in town.

location 2 out of town and 5 miles away

locations 3-5 approx 2.5 3 and 3.5 miles away from location 1 in the direction of location 2

[Marshall_IT]

So the business im working for is looking at purchasing some additional land outside of town and putting in a new building. Biggest problem is that there is no internet connectivity so there is no lines we could lease or vpns we could set up to connect the two places. We are looking at making some single mode fiber run out there so we can have connectivity to it. We've already made contact with the utility company and have tentative permission with a minor leasing of pole space agreement. but here is my question. we also have a couple of other buildings between the two main locations that dont have any connectivity. They have gotten by with out it, but i was thinking it would be great to get them all connected.

 

So here is my question, how do ISP's distribute their connections. running dedicated lines from the main location to each satellite locations seems impractical and expensive. So do they just tap into a pair in the back bone for each satellite location? I would think in an ISP environment that wouldn't work because you would run out of pairs rather quickly. Do they have some kind of fiber switch at every drop location so that the remainder of the fiber line in the cable isnt wasted and is still usable? that sounds like it would be expensive and then you have to find some power source at the pole to power the switch and continue the signal. any suggestions would be great.

 

location 1 in town.

location 2 out of town and 5 miles away

locations 3-5 approx 2.5 3 and 3.5 miles away from location 1 in the direction of location 2

 

It really depends on what model you are buying. The information below is as I understand it, some might be wrong.

 

If you buy a leased line you get a dedicated line from the exchange to your premises.

FTTC is the same apart from you get copper from the cab to your premises. (You might actually share the fibre from exchange to cab, I'm not sure.)

[medarta17]

It really depends on what model you are buying. The information below is as I understand it, some might be wrong.

 

If you buy a leased line you get a dedicated line from the exchange to your premises.

FTTC is the same apart from you get copper from the cab to your premises. (You might actually share the fibre from exchange to cab, I'm not sure.)

 

We'll we were planning on buying just some simple outdoor rated 6 pair single mode fiber to run from location 1 to location 2. as there are NO existing lines in the area, phone lines are like 45 years old and full of static, and no broadband service in the area, so we would be the first to run lines, so leasing lines isnt an option. I know we could run our fiber to say the closest building and just patch panel it trough and then continue on to each location, using a pair along the way, but its my understanding that each time you splice or patch with out the signal being rebroad cast it degrades. with it being 5 miles between the two locations, im not sure thats a viable option. connection between location 1 and location 2 is the most important, the other buildings inbetween are just an after thought. trying to figure out the best and cheapest way to connect them.

 

 

I know that Verison Fios uses passive splitters to "split" their fiber to distribute to the home. not 100% sure how that works. as 1 end is plugged into a switch and the opposite end is plugged into like 10 homes. would think that would cause some major problems. would be like trying to split an ethernet cable 16 times manually without any switching. or am i way off base? Trying to figure out how they serve so many homes with out having to run thousands of lines, or having a new networking hut for every 48 house holds. there is bound to be some tech that they use that im not aware of.

[dhicks]

we also have a couple of other buildings between the two main locations that dont have any connectivity.

 

I think in your situation it sounds like you need some kind of fiber-based ring network. Each of your locations becomes a node on the ring. For an ISP, I think you pretty much have switch cabinets at regular intervals which allow you to start new copper or fiber lines off to location, but you're right in that you'd need to power each cabinet.

[Wave9_Matt]

Hi,

 

There are quite a few ways that you could achieve your goal though you can narrow the options down based upon budget, geography and terrain. A simple approach would be as shown in the diagram, when the civil works are done put in chambers and splice in and run out to the remote locations.

 

 

This would create a hub and spoke network centered on one of your end locations using a L3 switch. You could run the whole network routed by putting L3 equipment at the end locations or L2 and terminate the VLAN's on the 'core' later 3 switch. You could also run the whole lot as one flat network but you'd have broadcast traffic everywhere.

 

You could also create a logical ring using the same physical setup but this would only protect against equipment failure at one site - it would require more kit and you'd be best off with two core switches. As dhicks says, you could also run a physically separated ring between the locations but your dig costs could be quite significant.

 

If the terrain is flat and your sites have decent elevation then you may get a lower cost solution from point to point microwave - that will happily scale up to Gigabit speeds should you need it.

 

Hope this helps

[medarta17]

Based on the diagram you provided i think that looks like our best bet. Unfortunately in Arkansas, there is no such thing as line of sight, unless you are in south west Arkansas, and that doesn't really count. We could put up a microwave relay to get a connection, but we don't own the property between the two locations we just rent it, so that still isn't really an option. In most places around here there is only about 3-4 inches of decent top soil before running into rock, after half a meter, you need serious equipment to dig. There are a tonne of utilities that we'd be crossing over so I'm thinking hanging the line from utility pols is still going to be our best option. Thank you guys for all your help!