JohnGalt:
Silly him...after all, all he did was put up the sites on the hills. That must have been free...

There is an old saying: "Money talks, and everything else walks". The point being is that it takes money to do things and if you don't have any, you aren't going to be doing anything. The old-timer didn't get his money by being ignorant, or stupid.

You are lucky that he is still offering you access..so be careful not to provoke him in any manner that will cause him to retract his generous offer.

The site is good...you can see forever. You want to make sure that you can still get up there if you need to.

I spent at least 4 weeks working on my business plan...and it only went that fast because it is what I do for a living...estimating and forecasting and all.

Not to put you off or anything...but don't waste your on USDA. They don't loan to individuals, and you should have a mega-buck in liquidity before they will even consider you. They are much more kindly to providers who are going to give away access, rather than charge for it. You know, reduction of the "digital divide" and all that.

Just trying to save you time and anguish...!

Chele:
We set our WISP on a wing and a prayer while swinging from a shoestring. We were shot down by the first two people we approached for land access for a repeater, the third person gave us a far better spot than the other two combined. The old man backing out might not be your worst problem. To be honest, knowing what I know now, I rather have a great spot for a repeater than a silent investor that might be questioning and second guessing your desicions.

We did a bunch of "no-no's", we didn't do a business plan, we didn't do a comunity/site survey, we started on a SDSL for our pipe, we bought some of the equipment before we knew where we were going to set our repeater, etc. You want to hear about luck? We found no RF interferance, we were in the black within a month of going live. There are two other WISPs in our area, big deal, one has lousy service and the other sucks! We are surrounded by trees, there is only one "window" in the trees and we are able to see our repeater, "we found this out after the fact". One piece of advice, don't "tweak" over the 4 hours you "wasted" on the business plan, this is because you are going to "waste" days at a time once you start your WISP. Take the 4 hours as a warm-up, if you can't handle the warm-up, the real excercise is going to kill you! Take a step back, rethink your options, and if it still looks good, GO FOR IT!

wispman:
 see hills. Hills and hills. Who owns the land all the way around that town. I am guessing different people. Go talk to everyone who owns any of that land, and find one who believes in you and will trade space for service. Next, get a full time job. Save all your pennies, and on nights and weekends build a wisp. Do it on you own. No partners. Get rolling on the whole wisp thing, and maybe 6 mo from now you will know what your doing.

He is SMART NOT to invest, sorry. But reality is, if you took his money, I bet most of it would be wasted. You've got to get out there in the field and be doing this everyday for a while before you can spend money wisely. At least thats the way I was when I started, but then you seem to have a better start than I.

The post where someone said "get a full-time job and work this on the weekends" is probably really good advice. Learning something new takes time and I don't think you want to be learning at the same time you're trying to impress customers.

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