> Of course, that's obvious. The point here is that if your business is so
> fragile that you can only deliver each broadband customer a dialup modem's
> worth of bandwidth, something's wrong with your business.Granted 12G is a small allocation. But getting back to the original
question which was "Is there some kind of added cost running a non US
ISP?"Why yes, yes there is. Transit out of the country (or in a US context,
out of a state) is around 25 times more expensive.
Than local peering costs? That seems fine. The real question is what
transit bandwidth costs. We've got small ISP's around here paying $45-
$60/Mbit.
Combine that with a
demand on offshore content of around 70-90% of your total network load
and you can see that those kind of changes to the cost structure make
you play the game differently. Add to that an expectation to be as well
connected as those in the continental US, and you can see that it's
about managing expectations.Comparative to Milwaukee, I'd be guessing delivering high performance
internet and making enough money to fund expansion and eat is harder at
a non US ISP. It's harder, but there's nothing wrong with it. It compels
you to get inventive.
The costs to provide DSL up here in Milwaukee are kind of insane, as
you tend to get it on both ends. However, I'm not aware of any ISP's
setting up quotas.
... JG