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Be your own ISP

Posted on 24 Sep 2002 at 12:53

For the majority of ISPs, it's a combination of domain name management, web space hosting and email account provision that is by far the most common service offered, and also the most potentially lucrative. So just what do you need to get up and running and how can you make it happen?
To begin with, you don't have to be directly connected to the Internet backbone - only a few ISPs are. For part one of this series, you also don't need any special hardware or software, as you won't be 'serving' web pages from your own location. The Internet is a virtual world, and right up until you graduate to tier-two service provision (see Tier pressure) you'll be pretty much a 'virtual ISP'.
So let's start with a plan that would suit the self-employed freelance web designer, someone who wants to provide web space to their clients as part of an all-inclusive service. Without spending more than a few pounds a month, you'll be offering domain registration and hosting, web hosting and email forwarding, which isn't bad for starters.
For this, you'll need a basic web hosting account yourself that offers web space and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) access for uploading web pages. If you don't already have such a service, just about any cheap and cheerful host will offer these facilities for anywhere from £5 to £15 per month depending on features.
As usual with cheap and cheerful situations, though, you might have to get a bit technical to turn the limitations of a single hosting account into the beginnings of an ISP empire. But there's nothing too daunting here and the experience will hold you in good stead for understanding more sophisticated offerings later.
You'll also need to use a domain registration and parking service offering free 'cloaked forwarding' of domain name and email requests. Companies like UKReg or 123-reg.co.uk specialise in this area and domains are available at virtually cost price - a real boon for the budding ISP. In fact, until you sell enough domains to make it worthwhile opening your own account with Nominet (see Playing tag), these services offer an efficient and cost-effective way of managing client domains whatever your level of ISP involvement.
We won't go into the hands-on technical setup required, but the basic principle is simple. You create a subfolder for each client under your own domain in your main hosting account, which you can manage easily using standard FTP software. You can then upload your client's pages to this folder - as you would your own web pages. The next job is to register a domain on behalf of your client and set up that free 'cloaked' web and mail forwarding.
You're now able to point any browser access to your client's domain back to the website in your new subfolder, plus any mail to the domain can be forwarded to your client's existing mail account. The result is seamless domain, web and mail forwarding, and to your client it looks like everything to do with their new domain and website is dealt with under the same roof.
Before you get too excited, this is obviously only a starter system and there are limitations. For instance, space will be limited with this option and bandwidth will be in high demand on your ISP's server. You must be sensible about the space used and bandwidth taken up by your client's folders. Cloaked forwarding can also mean search engines get confused when they try to 'crawl' the client site and see it's only a page that sends a browser elsewhere.
It's also unlikely you'll be able to give your client FTP access to their website without opening your entire domain account for access as well - after all, you're the account holder and your customers don't actually exist as entities in their own right. Finally, your client might want dial-up access to their domain email account rather than email forwarding to another provider.