Setting up an ISP

[airhead]

My friend and I have been talking about setting up an ISP at school and I have also thought about it for a while. But what hardware, and how many phone lines would be required (Maybe some ratio as a rule?) Also, how big would a fat pipe to the net need to be for a small to medium ISP? (Maybe 100-500 customers?) I'm just chucking ideas around for the moment but I may seriously think about doing it if it looks alright.

[Killer_Penguin]

My friend and I have been talking about setting up an ISP at school and I have also thought about it for a while. But what hardware, and how many phone lines would be required (Maybe some ratio as a rule?) Also, how big would a fat pipe to the net need to be for a small to medium ISP? (Maybe 100-500 customers?) I'm just chucking ideas around for the moment but I may seriously think about doing it if it looks alright.

T3 or so I would say for a SMALL isp... figure on each of those little modem boys pullin 56kb/s down, times 700, plus 10% (VERY generous) overhead, gives you somewhere around 35mb/s maximum used bandwidth. Phone lines, you are going to need a shitload... you don't want people to get busy signals, so I would say 85% of customers, given that 25% won't be on when the rest will.....

anyway, I'm mostly pulling numbers out of my ass, take them as you will.

[Ashcrow]

While 56k is what you'd be doing your calculations against don't forget that modems cannot go at 56k ( 52-54k is what they go at, at least in the US) by both us phone limitations and law.

[jcrowe]

For 100-500 customers you can get by on one T1. If you start getting maxed out on bandwidth setup a machine with squid and filter all your trafic through the squid proxy. It'll save you quite a bit of bandwidth. As for phone lines, i'd start out small (24 lines maybe) and watch it like a hawk. You can set up MRTG to watch the modems and track the usage, so you'll know when you comming close to filling up.

By the time you get up to 500 customers you'll know what bandwidth you'll need.

jcrowe

[thayne]

Yeah anything ove a t-1 is over kill, *I wouldn't go any more than 12/1 on the phonelines. *

I highly recommend this for your mail server! It kicks A$$!
http://www.slackwarelinux.net/documents/qmail-HOWTO

[Killer_Penguin]

Qmail is good, but for a complete solution, I find Courier-mta to be MUCH better.

http://www.courier-mta.org

[thayne]

The one I set up uses qmail, vpopmail, and courior-imap
I also added sqwebmai qmailadmin. autoresponder and something else for mailing lists. its fast as hell and does everything! :0)

[Compunuts]

Yeah I agree with KP. IF you need the whole package mail system, Courier-mta is nicer and better choice than having to put together all the different pieces of software to play nicer together.......

If your need is only one or two thing, then you may want to go separate packages .....

Just my $ 0.02 ....

[gmoreno]

I have been thinking of doing the same for like our family and friends. Where can I find a guide on seting up a dial-in server?

[jcrowe]

Here you go. It's based on Redhat, but it sould give you the idea to get going.

http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux/HOWTO/...Hat-HOWTO.html

jcrowe