mildlyclassic

OP here. Thank you for the questions. Yep, metadata and quick reconnection is the key for birds and such - we are able to do it almost instantaneously. Regarding 4G, our networks are choked and as many towers that can be placed, have. The spectrum is packed and noisy and dense commercial areas get horrible signal and speeds, the situation in rural areas is worse. And to make matters worse, less than 30% of the mobile towers themselves have fiber backhaul - so we hope to make a contribution there too. And finally, the core of the network can't be overhead fiber simply because it's not reliable enough to be the backbone because you're stringing it across trees, poles and over buildings. It's fine for the last mile to the customer's premises, but overhead fiber is not good enough for the core.

Great question. There's a few reasons. First, It's taken ~20yrs, the Indian government, 15 telecom companies and more than $200B to bring ~600M out of 1B Indians 4G. Broadband deployment is more expensive and currently only 20M Indians have 10mbps or greater 'broadband' connections. Even at Wifi Dabba's dramatically lower deployment cost, the price tag to connect 500M Indians is enormous and we're not willing to wait 20 years. Even if we're insanely successful and we raise a ridiculous amount of capital, the sheer magnitude of capital required is crazy high. Second, The reason net neutrality, censorship and other malaise that ails the internet happens is because of the high deployment cost of broadband networks, this automatically makes ownership of these networks only accessible to nation states and mega large corps. Power becomes centralized. This approach we are taking at Wifi Dabba is one small step in exploring more scalable ownership, deployment and maintainence models. The basic logic is this, as the price of broadband distribution tech goes down, the more number of people that can afford to buy and distribute it and therefore everyone gets connected faster. We'd like to accelerate that process. We have raised venture capital from YC and others and will continue to do so, but we also have a really strong focus on the long view.

It's a class 1M laser and a 100% eye safe. We've had it thoroughly tested and certified.

We're a YC company registered in the US with an India subsidiary. We're also a fully licensed telecom holder. The ownership agreement is super clear, if you'd like, please drop us a line on the site and we'd be happy to share them with you.

Could not have said it better myself. One more thing, keeping the units within 2-3km pretty much negate the rain/fog issues.

40W typical usage. Wavelength 1535nm - 1565. Birds haven't been much of an issue in our testing over the last 12 months.

That's a great question. You're right, It's a commercial agreement, not equity. We think it counts as a sale, but I'm totally open to a more appropriate term.

OP here. Thanks for the questions! We are a licensed ISP so we've got the regulatory aspect covered pretty well. The best part of our laser system is that it uses so called 'free space' which doesn't require government approval. We're confident in our superior technology and lower costs when competing with telcos and ISPs.

FSO has taken a leap in the last 3 years. We've got 9 months of data with thousands of live customers being served that says otherwise.

OP here. It's a good point you raise, its something we did our homework on and were advised that since we're offering a commercial franchise agreement and not a share purchase agreement we don't fall afoul of the SEC. It's also the reason why we've been able to offer only a limited amount of information on the website.

OP here. Thanks for remembering who we are! We're very much in the low cost wifi business, we're just taking the leap to fully own the backhaul part too. For the last 3 years we used partner ISP infrastructure to power our network, much like an MVNO. We saw first hand the terrible quality of service our partners provided mostly due to the limitations of their tech stack and their fiber deployments. We're taking the leap to deploy a much more reliable backhaul backbone at a much lower price.

Starlink & Kuiper are a totally different ballgame. Their satellites communicate with each other via FSOC, but the end delivery to the customer is a phased array solution. We're using FSOC as the backbone and overhead fiber to the customer premises.

Although 5G is a few years away in India, spectrum sales haven't started and its unclear whether our telecom companies can even afford it given the level of debt the industry already has. That being said, we're poised to be an enabler of 5G once it does arrive because all those 5G small cells are going to require much more backhaul than they currently have. Less than 30% of the mobile phone towers in India right now have fiber backhaul, that situation is only going to get worse when 5G arrives, so we see it as an opportunity to be a backhaul provider for 5G services.

Starry.com is using millimetre waves in the radio spectrum, whereas we're using lasers. The big difference is in India the 5G spectrum is not for public use as of yet, the big advantage of lasers is that they use unlicensed free space so there's no spectrum charges that apply.

We're offering a minimum of $1500/quarter. We source connectivity from the national fiber grid from multiple providers. Our operating experience from the last 3 years shows us that we can get thousands of customers per PoP.

1. The purchase will be made to our US corp, so therefore dollars. 2. It's 15 lakhs INR, not 1.5cr :) 3. The biggest challenge of rural connectivity is getting fiber to those areas, FSOC does a great job of covering long distances with high bandwidth across forests, rivers and other hinterlands. Right now we're able to do distances about 20km between links.

The tech is extremely new and other telecom companies and ISPs are testing it to plug holes in their network, this gives them only limited ROI on the tech because they've already got fiber networks and their entire organization is geared towards the deployment of fiber.

Also, it's worth noting that most ISPs/telcos are manpower and regulations based resource extraction organisations. Their moat is being able to handle local bureaucracy and pump in the heavy capital required to deploy the network. They like to buy and use proven tech that comes with SLAs and support from large tech vendors. They will wait for FSOC to be mature before they do anything meaningful.

We get the largest ROI from FSOC tech simply because we're building the network from scratch and are targeting the low cost market that is currently underserved. Most other ISPs are aiming for the premium market.

We have raised money from YC and other institutional investors and will continue to do so in the future. Our reason to enable public participation now is to bake it into a core part of our model while learning all the benefits and pitfalls of such a model as early as possible.

In the long run our hope is to lower the cost of the tech enough so that anyone can participate in the ownership and distribution of broadband at a reasonable price. This is the first small step in that direction.

We've got a live network with thousands of users across the city and have got 3 years of experience in this market, so we've got good sense of the expected performance per PoP. Furthermore, we also offer minimum guaranteed revenue to PoP owners in case a region takes a little while to grow.

Regarding the use of the word franchisee, we've actually had a really counter-intuitive lesson while selling the PoPs. Initially we always referred to it in financial terms but what we found was that buyers were using the word franchisee themselves and preferred the term. It makes sense if you look at it from an absentee landlord share-cropping view, except in our case, we provide a fully managed service where you don't have to actually do any work.

We've set aside 5 PoPs for people that want to be part of a pool in case the $20k price tag is too high for them. We've just started to see some traction on that, so it'll be interesting to see where it goes.

90% of the cost of being an ISP comes from laying the core underground fiber network that serves as the backbone of the system. This usually costs anywhere from $30k - $50k per kilometre to lay because it involves digging trenches, getting permits, etc. It takes about $50M to deploy a basic network in a city like Bangalore for example - we know from our existing ISP partners that this is a reasonable figure.

The fact that we are using FSOC to replace the underground fiber is what creates the 10x in savings. It only takes a few hundred FSOC units to do the job of the fiber as the core network and is much, much cheaper.

I've added a reply further down the page that addresses why we'd like the public to be involved, I'd be happy to elaborate more if you've got more questions.

OP here. Thank you for your interest and questions.

There are a few reasons why we would like to get the public involved:

1. It's taken 20 years, 13 telecom companies and about $200B to bring mobile internet access to 600 million Indians. Broadband deployment is more expensive than mobile deployment so even napkin math gives you an idea of the magnitude of money and time it will require to truly make a dent in the connectivity of the country. If we can lower the cost of the deployment tech then we will able to lower the cost of ownership and distribution of the tech. This would be a win-win for consumers and investors.

2. A whole lot of the issues that plague the internet today, from the splintering of it into a chinese network, censorship, net neutrality and other issues comes from the fact that it's so expensive to deploy these networks that they fall into the domain of mega-corps or nation states. As a result, control of the internet falls into a few hands and we have an internet that is getting increasingly centralized. If Wifi Dabba can spread ownership of the network then we hope that it will lead to more open internet that is harder to control or shutdown.

3. You're right, we're aiming to raise only $2M from the public - 100 PoPs x $20k each. Not sure where the $13M comes from, if you could point out where you see that number, I'd be happy to rectify it.

4. We've also built a lot of safety elements into the purchase process. We're following Kickstarter-ish rules where you only have to make a $1000 deposit - the remainder to be paid only when we sell all 100 PoPs. Furthermore we offer a 100% refund in the first 12 months should you choose to change your mind at any point.

OP here. Its the exact opposite of an exit scheme. We're massively expanding our network to cover the whole city. We already serve thousands of paying customers and we're working to bring prices down dramatically.

With regard to people having access via mobile data, you're right, India's made massive strides in 4g for sure. But our on ground experience over the last 3 years has shown us there's a massive appetite for more data so long as it can be provided at a reasonable price. Also, if you're in a dense market or housing area, current mobile signals don't provide good enough coverage and as the mobile networks are already running at 100% capacity there isn't much room for them to improve.

As mentioned elsewhere on the thread, less than 7% of India has broadband access, there's still a large market open for a provider that can offer high speeds at a reasonable price.

OP here. It's in-house tech. Our goal is to move the state of the art forward as much as we possibly can.

OP here. You make some great points that I'd love to address.

- We know from first hand experience that the hype of Jio fiber doesn't reflect on ground reality. We know this because every ISP in Bangalore is a partner of ours. For the last 3 years we have been serving 100s of apartment buildings and tens of thousands of customers using ACT, Hathway, Airtel and Jio's network. We have dozens of instances where none of them can provide connectivity at the edges of the city or dense market areas.

- Our plan doesn't require competing with any of the existing players. Less than 7% of India has broadband access, only 20 million households have broadband access. There's a large open market with room enough for multiple players.

- Our offering to the consumer is also deeply competitive. We're offering gigabit connections with no data caps at one tenth the price of existing providers.

- We're really excited about starlink, but for them to ramp up coverage and then get permission from the Indian government to allow their signals in India and then scale up to being able to provide access to 100s of millions of people is a long way off. Starlink is a great solution, but there are so many people in India that need access that they will be one of many players required in the market.

OP here. Thanks so much for the questions.

- The PoPs are meant to be purchased by retail investors, we've sold 35 of them so far. We're offering it as a franchisee agreement for a period of 6 years with a 70-30 revenue share split with minimum guaranteed revenue.

- Regarding the FSOs, we've been serving thousands of live customers for the last 9 months off the FSOs and have greater than 99% uptime through rain, hail and heavy winds. FSO has come a long way in terms of reliability and throughput since the early days. We're using the 1535nm - 1565nm wavelength.

- We've wired thousands of public wifi hotspots as well as large buildings and campuses over the last 3 years and a have a really clear deployment strategy and team in place.

- Yes, the $20k covers the cost of the lasers, deployment, sales and management of the service and customers. We've put in a huge amount of effort over the last 3 years to bring costs down by using a lot commodity components for routers, switches, etc.

- The $20k price point hasn't been much of an issue so far, but happy to hear more feedback on that. We're thinking about setting aside a few PoPs where a group of people can pool money to purchase one. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Hi HN, We launched on HN 3 years ago and were part of YCW17. We'd love for you to be a part of our moonshot.

Our master plan is simple: Develop low cost broadband distribution technology. Prove it works by connecting one million people in one city. Once it works, deploy worldwide.

Step 1 done - We have built a low cost network stack and have lowered the cost of deploying a citywide broadband network from $50m to $5m. We use lasers and commodity components thereby avoiding the core expense at the heart of current ISPs - expensive underground fibre and its associated manpower, heavy capex and regulatory pains.

Ready for scale - We've run a beta network with thousands of live customers over the last 9 months and we know the tech works. We're now ready to scale across our hometown of Bengaluru with its population of 11m people and less than 10% broadband penetration.

A killer proposition - We have a killer offering for the customer - 1gbps speed with no data caps at $10/month and a free Wifi Dabba router. This is 10x better and cheaper than anything else on the market. This playbook has been executed successfully in the mobile 4G market in India by Jio, we're applying the same playbook in broadband

Go where no ISP has gone before - We're taking an AWS-like platform approach to our tech stack, our goal is to deliver deep APIs, network integration points, edge-caching and much more. We believe this approach will result in a whole new class of applications and services for users. We want to be the ISP that developers will love.

The ask - This is where you come in HN, buy a piece of our network and help shape the future of the internet. We're offering minimum guaranteed revenue, naming rights to your region and a host of other benefits. There are only 66 of 100 regions available. Each region is $20,000.

Hey HN,

We launched on HN 3 years ago and were part of YCW17. We'd love for you to be a part of our moonshot.

Our master plan is simple: Develop low cost broadband distribution technology. Prove it works by connecting one million people in one city. Once it works, deploy worldwide.

Step 1 done - We have built a low cost network stack and have lowered the cost of deploying a citywide broadband network from $50m to $5m. We use lasers and commodity components thereby avoiding the core expense at the heart of current ISPs - expensive underground fibre and its associated manpower, heavy capex and regulatory pains.

Ready for scale - We've run a beta network with thousands of live customers over the last 9 months and we know the tech works. We're now ready to scale across our hometown of Bengaluru with its population of 11m people and less than 10% broadband penetration.

A killer proposition - We have a killer offering for the customer - 1gbps speed with no data caps at $10/month and a free Wifi Dabba router. This is 10x better and cheaper than anything else on the market. This playbook has been executed successfully in the mobile 4G market in India by Jio, we're applying the same playbook in broadband

Go where no ISP has gone before - We're taking an AWS-like platform approach to our tech stack, our goal is to deliver deep APIs, network integration points, edge-caching and much more. We believe this approach will result in a whole new class of applications and services for users. We want to be the ISP that developers will love.

The ask - This is where you come in HN, buy a piece of our network and help shape the future of the internet. We're offering minimum guaranteed revenue, naming rights to your region and a host of other benefits. There are only 70 of 100 regions available. Each region is $20,000.

*edited for clarity

Wifi Dabba (YC W17) | Bangalore, India | Onsite | Software/Network Engineers

Come and help us build the cheapest and fastest wifi network in India. We've just started hiring our team and you'll be one of the first engineers.

See detailed job descriptions at www.wifidabba.com

Hahaha :) You're right, the traffic has now hit levels of insanity.

We're definitely going to expand to multiple cities as soon as we can. We've partnered with a whole range of providers to lower the cost of physically connecting each location.

Outstanding. We'll be in touch very soon. Hopcoms ftw!

We've gotten a really strong level of interest in the NCR, we're looking into it for sure.

Thanks so much for the link, will look into it fo sho.