Starting a wireless ISP

The first question, is how large of an area do you need to cover?

If it is beyond the range of wireless networking (500' to 1000') you have a very major project in front of you.

For a large area, you will need to aquire; appropriate radio spectrum in your area,
FCC license(s) for transmitters,
lease antenna sites,
hire a FCC licensed engineer.

Once you need more than 100 or 250 milliwatts of RF power for your customers to get a clear signal to the antenna, their transmitter will need to be licensed too.

And these are just the top of the head items for the wireless signal.
The amount of RF spectrum required will depend on the number of clients, and the guaranteed bandwidth you plan to offer.

Then you have the base cost ofsetting up the broadband internet connection. (T1?)

There are devices that do not require FCC authorization to be able to use but it will need an FCC authorized person to install them. You could used devices like the Cisco aironet or there multi-point to point devices. This can be found on cisco's site at:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/44/jump/wireless.shtml

I would stay away from the license band such as LMDS or MMDS. Stick with the unlicense band of the 2GHz. You may also think about the reliability of your service, that means how much rainfall does your service area has. The heavier the rain is the more your wireless equipment need to add more power to the radio. This can lead to all kinds of problems in your network if not engineer well. Customer Premise Equipment(CPE) can be quite pricey, you should look to cluster your customers to share a CPE such as a Multi dwelling unit. You need to be prudent and engineer your wireless network well and monitor the network constantly for optimization. If you do not have experience, get a profession to do it and let them be responsible for engineering the network so you can reliably deliver your service to your customer. As for the price, I have manufacturers quote me CPE from 2K to 20K and the base station 40K and above

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