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"The internet" is just a bunch of computers connected across the world. The content of the internet is provided by the computers which are owned by millions of different people and organizations, but the infrastructure which connects them together is owned by businesses that operate and maintain them.

Someone who starts their own ISP isn't "creating internet" like growing corn or something, they are just running the communications lines necessary to connect their customers to a larger communications backbone relatively nearby. The companies which own and operate the big, high volume communications lines don't want to bother trying to deal with individuals so only collections of users under the umbrella of an ISP are worth providing access.

The internet is just a series of comnected networks. Your local ISP is just providing a connection from your home to a higher level regional network. If you had the time and money you could contact the higher level network company and negotiate a connection to them yourself without needing an ISP company.

So thats what this guy did. He negotiated a connection to a regional provider and installed the equipment and lines for the connection. Most people don't do it because it takes a lot of money and regulatory approvals for the lines. Its normally less expensive for each person to pay an ISP because then the costs are shared among all the customers.

The internet is just a bunch of interconnected computers.

You act as a tiny, trivial ISP when you install a WiFi access point. This is sort of like that, but more complicated.

Yeah, in theory most anyone with the know-how, money, legal ability and technical ability can be an ISP. You purchase a bunch of pretty fancy equipment, then you need to find some provider to connect to (the internet is just a bunch of ISPs linking to each other), then provide service to your clients somehow.

That's of course easier said than done. First you need to find an existing place with internet access that will sell to you. Then you need the hardware. Then you need to reach your customers somehow.

The possible roadblocks are that an ISP might not want to cooperate with you, the legal requirements for something like digging streets and laying fiber may be hard to comply with, and equipment is expensive.

The internet is the airport - you can go anywhere from there. He is the taxi driver taking you to the airport.

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