Starting a small ISP with the help of BSNL

I stay in Mumbai and I am customer of BSNL. I have subscribed to their broadband plan which I am very well satisfied with. At present I am thinking of starting a small business by providing Internet in the area which I live. I live in Malwani in Mumbai which has many houses and families. If I start a business of ISP, it would be great as many people here need it but big ISP do not provide there service. So I have thought that I’ll take help of BSNL with whose connection I’ll provide other people internet. So can anybody guide me on this subject?

Let me give you a advice that starting a business of an ISP is not easy if you are thinking. You don’t expect that your business will start as soon as you apply for connection with BSNL. There will lot of formalities which will include legal formalities too. You must have proper place to organize the servers and other equipments, you must have knowledge about the hardware, softwares and the laws of I.T. Also just starting an ISP is not where you’ll establish your business. You must have customers who’ll buy your services. Again getting customers means you’ll have to explain the benefits of buying the internet from you, which you’ll have to target people who really need internet but cannot afford plans of big ISPs. So you can provide cheaper internet connection in their budget. You will need to have the hardware that you will provide them for connecting to internet, for example modem, wires, connectors, hubs and other such things.

Even if BSNL agrees to lease you their connection to start your own business, you’ll need to have an ISP license. There are many terms and conditions that you need to fulfill before you get an ISP license and set up an ISP business. The ISP licenses are of three types, one for setting up service all over the country, one only for setting up internet service for a specific district and the third one which you will need is for a specific region. You will need to deposit Rs. 3 lakhs in bank as guarantee money. You will get all the needed details on the website of Indian government. If you are planning to get the internet to further supply it to other people, then I suggest that you avoid it getting from BSNL. It would be better if you get the lease line through a private ISP like Reliance or Airtel.

BSNL being an organization of Indian government, the working process is very slow. It will take years to get proper lease line. But in private ISP services, the working process will be much faster. Also the price set by BSNL is very steep and as compared to the price, the services provided are not much of high quality. If you take lease line from a private ISP, then the price here too will be high, but at least you’ll guaranteed about proper services. Now just think about profit and earning. Nobody does any business just for fun or to spend leisure time, one does business to earn money for himself. Now as I mentioned prices will be high and also you will need to invest money, how will you recover them? You will need to plan out price of your services. So according to it, you’ll need to plan out various schemes that you’ll provide to your customer. My best advice is to wait and research about all the possibilities before taking a leap in business of ISP.