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.
> 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.
But isn't the centralization happening here too? Since the investment capital has term-limited returns, eventually the equity and equipment belong to wifi-dabba.
> 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.
I think I understand, and it's similar to how railways in the US were built. Savvy investors won't cover the tsunami of small region losses you'll need to scale quickly. They'll only want to fund dense, urban markets with the lowest risk.
I do understand your capital requirements in X years down the line.
I also respect your goal of decentralisation and community ownership. (As an aside, what does ownership mean? If illegal things were to happen on my PoP are you saying I am liable?)
Yet, my question stands: Why do you want USD 2M in cash from retail investors today? Why not self-fund the first X PoPs, show it works, then scale?
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.
A laser cutter is not at all the same as a laser transmitter. The beam focus, wavelength, emission pulse, etc. are all different to the point where comparing power outputs is not a good idea.
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.
Ponzi Scheme? Half joking because this looks like an interesting concept. But reading your spreadsheet you have a "minimum guarantee" of 10% annualized return. Which is not possible.
TBH, I had the same thought. Theoretically if the return was that good, they would not need to break up the capital investment and manage lots of individual relationships. They could simply raise the capital they need at a very low price and have 1 relationship which would be much more efficient.
It is either a scam or an incredible investment opportunity. We will know in 3 months. If it is a scam, they will keep selling them individually. If it is an incredible investment opportunity, they will stop selling them and be funded by someone who is reading the article today. In the US, their investment proposal likely violates the law by guaranteeing a return.
I hope its an incredible investment opportunity and I hope they deliver what they say they will.
There is no better bargaining chip when it comes to negotiating with investors than paying customers. I'm saying maybe this is a baby step into the continuum you describe.
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.
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.
