John Linton
I suppose it was inevitable that after receiving a string of enquiries from companies that were, allegedly, expressing interest in buying Exetel, or parts of Exetel, we have received three enquiries about whether Exetel would be interested in buying other, very small, ISPs. I've never considered either selling Exetel (it's far too early in Exetel's "life" for that to be feasible or remotely attractive to me personally) and I've certainly never considered paying for some other ISP's customer base or company.
However, it seems to be yet another indication that all isn't well in ISP land and it has prompted me to think about whether there are any ways of 'collaborating' with one or more other companies to leverage some greater buying power to reduce some of the costs of operating a communications company.
I guess the reason for considering such a collaboration was sparked by the analysis of the Southern Cross pricing of an STM16 connection to the USA. I mentioned this in an earlier rambling - that the cost of a 2.4 gbps link between Exetel and, say PAIX, in the US had reached a point where it was becoming 'do-able'. It has immense attractions in terms of reducing the ingress/egress IP bandwidth cost (subject to final quotes it could cut current bcosts by 50%). However it's also contractually demanding and it occurred to me it might be better to 'go halves' with another ISP - preferably one co-located in or close to our current major PoP.
Given the personality characteristics of the few owners of their own largish ISP (not mention my own!) that I have at least some knowledge of such a short list would be very short indeed. The list of sizable/reputable ISPs that could, possibly be considered can be counted on the fingers of one hand (without needing to use the thumb) and of those the likelihood of being able to reach a mutually satifactory agreement would be, at best, (and I struggle for the right word) .....problematic.
Anyway, Steve has contacted one company and I contacted another (we actually only needed half the fingers and no thumb of one hand in the end) and we will see what, if any, real interest there may be in some form of collaboration.
I don't have any real hopes of a positive result with that sort of collaboration but, also sparked by the enquiries we've received concerning buying small ISPs, I'm mulling over the concept of selling IP bandwidth to some smaller ISPs who, I would think, are paying far too much for ingress/egress IP bandwidth than is realistic for them. I would think that Exetel could, if the SX possibility does firm up in to a reality (contractuallyand economically) sell IP bandwidth to small ISPs at 30 - 50% below theiir current cost on a no-term contract basis that would be very appealing to them - and would allow Exetel to use the whole of the 2.4 gbps much earlier than our own dedicated needs would take up.
If I'm totally honest with myself I'd have to admit that the concept of having the cost savings of a direct link to the USA are so alluring I'm trying to find every way possible to justify the risk of a long term contract. I'm also intrigued by the P2P solutions we could come up with if we did have an SX link - offering either direct dedicated bandwidth at one price and P2P cached bandwidth at a much reduced price to smaller ISPs - that would reduce their major costs dramatically if it proved to be seamless.
Then again - maybe this is all megalomania and self delusion.
I'd better get back to the nuts and bolts of running Exetel the way it is today.