The Subscriber Side #4:
Requiem for an ISP

Hard work and good intentions aren't necessarily enough to guarantee success.

by Nelson King [October 7, 1999]

Responding to a call from a community organizer, six of us with various skills in fund-raising, PR, and politics gathered to help a local ISP that was on the rocks. It was not supposed to be a wake. From what I'd been told, this was an inner city ISP trying to service a community with very low average income. I expected it would turn out to be one of those situations where you want to yell, "It's the business plan, stupid!"

The meeting convened in the basement of a community center and looked like a board of inquiry: six people sitting at tables arranged in a semicircle, with two people at a table in the middle. The two in the middle were the ISP owners. The others were the pro bono guns and the organizer.

Hard-to-grasp reality
The opening descriptions and introductions were on par with expectations. On one hand the ISP was a standard (profit seeking) company, on the other they desired to receive grants and low-cost loans on the basis of community service. The local foundations didn't quite know what to make of it. Was the ISP borderline professional? Was it messing with a commercial market that would take care of itself? Was it truly providing an essential service for the poor of the inner city who desperately need to learn how to use the Internet? Or was it cheap Internet access for professionals (yuppies) who live in the inner city? Who knew? Consequently, most of the foundations had declined to help. So had the banks.

The two founders were a team. One was clearly a business type, complete with tie and leather briefcase; the other a lean, open-collared technician. To their credit, they had not started with naïve, idealistic assumptions. They understood well enough the cost of communication and that paying subscribers are a requirement. But they also had the notion that operating an ISP in a poverty-ridden section of town required more than the usual commitment to the community. They were prepared to have lower rates and offer more options for the poor than most commercial ISPs. They understood this was tantamount to a business profile for a nonprofit organization.

It took nearly an hour of questioning before the implications and details sank in-this was life on the economic edge. Sixteen hours a day, most days of the week. Yes, they had done business plans, too many of them, and proposals by the pound. These were intelligent people who had looked carefully at the uncharted territory of the new Internet access industry. They had made some assumptions and guesses about the business potential, and plunged in. Because of their location, they expected hardship and sacrifice, but they also expected sooner or later to find reward and recognition. It just wasn't happening.

Too little—too late
We plunged in with suggestions and volunteered support. One person a member of the state House of Representatives, promised to talk to local politicians. Others talked about seeing specific foundations. The motivations were quite clear. We all knew about the "Internet gap" between rich and poor. This is another uncharted territory and it makes us nervous. Is it symptomatic of a dangerous new facet of social inequality? We also had sympathy for these guys. It's not very often that subscribers feel your pain; nor should they. An ISP is a business and business relations are not, generally, built on intimate knowledge of the people involved. However, we are aware that ISPs are staffed by human beings—especially if something goes wrong. A line of Shakespeare's comes to mind: "If you prick me, do I not bleed?" A modern equivalent is, "If you weigh me down and prevent me from sleeping, do I not look tired and depressed?"

I noticed the business guy had put away his papers and closed the briefcase. He'd heard it all before, or thought he had. What struck me most was his physical condition. Eyes ringed with heavy dark folds and a slumped posture. Long days, short nights, and never ending worry: Been there; suffered that. I think they were too far-gone. After slogging endlessly around the edge of the bankruptcy swamp, these guys were ready to fall in and sink slowly from sight. It didn't matter that they might be able to come up with a new business plan, or that numerous people were willing to volunteer their time and expertise. Plain and simple, they were burned out.

This all seems a galaxy away from $115 billion telco megamergers, and Earthlink+MindSpring marriages. Or is it just a place in the same galaxy where the sun don't shine? Americans have a long history of wrestling with the edge between profits and social consciousness. As we left that disconsolate meeting, I remember thinking what it would mean if this ISP was symbolic of that struggle.

—End

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