ISP-Profile: bedford.net —continued

Future
While bedford.net is a profitable small ISP, Gothie has big plans for the future of her business.

"The market's gotten tighter here. A year ago, we had one competitor. Now, we have five, including a ten-buck-a-month one," Gothie said. Nobody is doing broadband here yet, and we're working on changing that. I have filed to become a CLEC with the PUC."

"Our short-term goal is to maintain our customer base in a tougher market, while coming up with the greasy gobs of money that being a CLEC requires," Gothie said. "Not only will this cut costs for regular PRI lines for normal dial-up but should give us the ability to sell and let others resell DSL before our ILEC cares to do so."

When asked if she knowing what she knows now, would she do it all over and start-up an ISP business today, Gothie said there are a few things she would change.

"If I had to start over again today, in the current market, I would put a cool cloth over my eyes and lie down until the feeling passed," Gothie said. "Knowing what I know now, I would not go into dialup today in this or any other market."

"But asking what I would do if I had been blessed with this knowledge back 1996, when the market was entirely underserved in my area, I would have done some things differently," Gothie enthused. "I would have insisted on better billing and accounting package than what we currently use. I would have not started with a closed-system proprietary box, migrating stuff off that and onto an OS that I'd barely come to grips with. I would have done 56k at about the same time, but I'm not sure I would have chosen the same RAS boxes. I would not have used NT for web hosting," Gothie said.

Conclusion
The Bedford area is fortunate to have its own bedford.net. It's small, dedicated ISPs that will continue to thrive in parts of the world now underserved by broadband access providers.

While maintaining a profitable ISP based on dial-up service won't last forever, bedford.net's aspirations to CLEC status almost guarantee a successful future for the business.

Some small ISPs are investigating entering the application service arena. Other's are selling out to firms in the throws of an ISP roll-up or being swallowed by national ISPs.

With Gothie at the helm, bedford.net will most likely continue on its path to successfully integrate communication services in a part of the world that other broadband carriers ignore.

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