The one thing private equity firms typically overlook when funding startup WISPs…professional network engineers.
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Funding a new WISP
There are a number of ways to fund a startup Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP), but the two we most commonly see as network engineering consultants at IP ArchiTechs are self funded by individuals/partners or by leveraging private equity (PE) money.
Private equity has become increasingly popular in the last few years if we are to use our consulting clients as a basis for comparison.
It’s not hard to see why, while you can (and many do) start a WISP on a shoestring budget, getting a significant chunk of initial funding to cover the costs of tower construction/leasing, network equipment, sales/marketing, etc is very attractive as it allows a WISP to build a network that might otherwise take several years of organic growth to achieve.
Network Engineering – the missing ingredient
Many startup WISPs are often borne out of necessity – fast, reliable or economical Internet access – one or more of these is missing in the areas we see WISPs develop.
Typically the stakeholders come from a variety of backgrounds some of which are technical and some aren’t – all of them, however, share a vision of building out Internet access and solving problems Continue reading
The one thing private equity firms typically overlook when funding startup WISPs…professional network engineers.
.
Funding a new WISP
There are a number of ways to fund a startup Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP), but the two we most commonly see as network engineering consultants at IP ArchiTechs are self funded by individuals/partners or by leveraging private equity (PE) money.
Private equity has become increasingly popular in the last few years if we are to use our consulting clients as a basis for comparison.
It’s not hard to see why, while you can (and many do) start a WISP on a shoestring budget, getting a significant chunk of initial funding to cover the costs of tower construction/leasing, network equipment, sales/marketing, etc is very attractive as it allows a WISP to build a network that might otherwise take several years of organic growth to achieve.
Network Engineering – the missing ingredient
Many startup WISPs are often borne out of necessity – fast, reliable or economical Internet access – one or more of these is missing in the areas we see WISPs develop.
Typically the stakeholders come from a variety of backgrounds some of which are technical and some aren’t – all of them, however, share a vision of building out Internet access and solving problems Continue reading
Response: How the Hippies Destroyed the Internet | July 2018 | Communications of the ACM
Does it simplify to Freedom vs Cost of Access
Short Take – SDN Is Not Devops
In this short take, Russ White talks about the differences between SDN and Devops. Some may consider this obvious, but the differentiation is a bit more nuanced when looking at the goals of both.
Russ White
The post Short Take – SDN Is Not Devops appeared first on Network Collective.
Cisco and the Two-Factor Two-Step
In case you missed the news, Cisco announced yesterday that they are buying Duo Security. This is a great move on Cisco’s part. They need to beef up their security portfolio to compete against not only Palo Alto Networks but also against all the up-and-coming startups that are trying to solve problems that are largely being ignored by large enterprise security vendors. But how does an authentication vendor help Cisco?
Who Are You?
The world relies on passwords to run. Banks, email, and even your mobile device has some kind of passcode. We memorize them, write them down, or sometimes just use a password manager (like 1Password) to keep them safe. But passwords can be guessed. Trivial passwords are especially vulnerable. And when you factor in things like rainbow tables, it gets even scarier.
The most secure systems require you to have some additional form of authentication. You may have heard this termed as Two Factor Authentication (2FA). 2FA makes sure that no one is just going to be able to guess your password. The most commonly accepted forms of multi-factor authentication are:
- Something You Know – Password, PIN, etc
- Something You Have – Credit Card, Auth token, Continue reading
Network Security Analysis: A New Approach
A collaborative, peer-to-peer strategy provides several advantages over the traditional siloed approach to detecting and mitigating cyberthreats.
ISOC advocating IoT Trust at APAN 46
APAN 46 is being held on 5-9 August 2018 in Auckland, New Zealand, with the Internet Society being one of the sponsors. I’ll also be talking about IoT Security and the OTA IoT Trust Framework, as well as using the opportunity to continue to raise awareness of the MANRS Routing Security Initiative amongst network operators in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) supports the research and education networks in the region to help them to connect to each other and to other R&E networks around the world, provides opportunities to exchange knowledge, and coordinates common activities, services and applications for its membership. It was established back in 1997, and this is the second of its two annual meetings for 2018.
I’ll be speaking during the Internet-of-Things session next Wednesday (8 August 2018 @ 09.00-10.30 UTC+12), and will discuss how IoT is responsible for huge growth in the number of unmanaged or minimally-managed devices connected to the Internet, but do we really know who or what is communicating with them, and the information they are collecting and sending? I’ll also present ISOC’s Online Trust Alliance’s initiative to develop the IoT Trust Framework which is backed Continue reading
Fortinet CEO Cites 7-Figure SD-WAN Win on Q2 2018 Earnings Call
The security company’s impressive growth results boosted its stock and put it on track to beat its previous closing high.
Multifactor Acquisition: Cisco Plans to Buy Duo for $2.35B
Cisco intends to use Duo's authentication technology to ramp up security across hybrid and multicloud environments.
Kernel of Truth episode 5 — HCI, agility and the physical network
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If you’ve been waiting for a tech-heavy deep dive, then you’re in luck. In this episode we’re getting REAL nerdy — so we decided to bring out the big guns and invite two of the industry’s biggest networking geeks to discuss hyper-converged infrastructure. Naturally, we got our fearless co-founder and CTO JR Rivers into the recording booth so he could share his wisdom (and crack a few jokes, as usual).
And who did we invite to go toe-to-toe with JR on networking knowledge? None other than the one and only Greg Ferro, co-founder of Packet Pushers! We couldn’t be more excited that Greg agreed to join us in the recording booth and share his industry insights.
So, what data center networking topic did we decide was meaty enough for these guys to chew on? Because Greg and JR are all about looking toward the future and analyzing what they see coming up on the horizon, this episode is dedicated to hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). How is HCI changing the way we look at network architecture? We’ll discuss these topics Continue reading
PQ 152: An IETF Update On RIFT, BIER, SD-WAN And More
Today, an update on some compelling projects at IETF 102. Ours guest are Jeff Tantsura and Russ White.
We review the following projects to see what’s new and understand what problems they’re solving:
- RIFT (Routing In Fat Trees)
- BIER (Bit Indexed Explicit Replication)
- PPR (Preferred Path Routing)
- YANG data modeling
We also look at the state of SD-WAN, which is a bit of the Wild West, to look at standards and interoperability efforts underway.
Jeff is the Head of Technology Strategy at Nuage Networks. He’s also deeply involved with the IETF as the Chair of Routing Area Working Group, the Chair of Routing In Fat Trees, a Member of Internet Architecture Board, and a Member of IP Stack Evolution.
Jeff has recorded with us several times before, most recently on Priority Queue 126, where Greg chatted with Jeff about the future of data center fabrics. Jeff, welcome back to Packet Pushers.
Russ White is a network architect, author, and blogger. Rush also chairs the Interface to Routing System and the Babel routing protocol efforts at the IETF, and is a reviewer in the IETF’s Routing Area Directorate.
Show Links:
Jeff Tantsura IETF work – IETF
Cisco-Google Hybrid Cloud Love Fest: Real Deal or Hype?
When the hybrid cloud product, based on Kubernetes, launches this month it will face stiff competition from other similar services, including Google’s own GKE On-Prem.
T-Mobile, Sprint Race to 5G as Merger Looms
Both carriers remain committed to spending billions on their respective 5G deployments.
Amazon Plots Its Departure From Oracle by 2020
Adding insult to injury, Amazon’s foray into data center technology poses a competitive threat to Oracle.
Zenlayer SD-WAN Connects the Middle Mile of Networks
The SD-WAN newcomer believes that high quality connections in the middle mile — between data centers and clouds — will be a key component of future networks.
Growing the Cloudflare Apps Ecosystem
Starting today we are announcing the availability of two key pilot programs:
Why now? Over the course of past few months we've seen accelerating interest in Workers, and we frequently field the question on what we are doing to combine our growing ecosystem around Workers, and our unique deliverability capability, Cloudflare Apps. To meet this need, we have introduced two programs, Apps with Workers and Workers Service Providers. Let’s dig into the details:
First, we are announcing the upcoming availability of Cloudflare Apps, powered by embeddable Workers. This will allow any developer to build, deploy and in the near future package Workers to distribute to third parties, all using the Cloudflare Apps platform. It will be, in effect, the world's first serverless Apps platform.
Today, it's easy develop Workers using with our UI or API. The ability to App-ify Workers opens up a whole new promise to those who prefer to deal in clicks and not code. For our Apps developers, Apps with Workers allows for more complex Apps offerings running on Cloudflare, and for our customers the next generation in Apps. So, while we are actively putting the finishing touches on Continue reading