I did WISP work for a while in snowy rural California. My biggest surprise is that my time was 90% construction (drilling through walls, snowshoeing out to climb towers, running cables, etc) & customer support, and about 10% fun networking and hardware configuration. We used mostly Mikrotik equipment for the backbone because it is dirt cheap, with a combination of Ubiquiti and Cambium radios. My favorite tool that I discovered is the open source "Splat! HD"[1], a radio viewshed generator that you can use to optimally place your towers, and find out if an end user should be a able to connect. Ubiquiti also has a similar tool commercially available.

[1] https://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/splat.html

I am sure you have already seen this, but for reference to anyone else who wants to start their own ISP: https://startyourownisp.com/

Note: not sure how correct this information is outside of US

That site was actually the inspiration for this. I saw it on HN a few years ago and it just stayed in the back of my mind. I hadn't really considered it as an option up until that point.

Something else I've found useful is RF Elements' YouTube channel. In particular this playlist [1]. I suspect they overstate some issues slightly in order to promote their own products, but I'm super impressed with how well the video's explain the topics.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwciKjvHFfY&list=PLii-eQuaf5...

That's super cool!

If you aren't already, keep an eye on Starlink—when they start operating in Portugal I bet it'd be a real benefit to your business. Yours is pretty much the ideal use case.

Also, wow, living and coding in rurad Portugal sounds like a pretty idyllic life from here. Aproveite pra mim, né?

Thanks! And I hadn't actually thought of Starlink in that light, I had been assuming they would be competition. Could you explain your thoughts to me a little more? I'd be really interested to hear them.

You connect to starlink at your tower and everyone connects to your towner. I don't believe starlink end user is personal internet.

Excellent, that is certainly the answer I was hoping for!

This is amazing, I've been thinking of doing the same for my area. I've always wondered about the ping tho. Right now I have 4ms with my current provider which uses a wired connection. Whats the usual ping using radio? (from a client perspective)

The radio will generally add 2-3ms latency I believe. Plus any routing latency at the customer's router, and any latency in your own infrastructure. If one is comparing to satellite or LTE, then this is basically amazing. If you're comparing to existing copper/fibre connection then it will have some effect.

I'm saying this having not actually deployed the hardware yet, just based on research.

Depends on radio and network. Right now, I'm on wifi (so it goes wifi -> router -> ISP radio -> ISP fiber) and have 2.5ms ping to one of the bigger DC in my city, so I guess it can be pretty good ;)

This is soo cool Adam! Well-done

Might consider this in the future for my local community

I like it! Good luck!

that's really cool