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How to Start a WISP in 2026: A Step-by-Step Guide

· by Maddie Beaton

A rural area seen from the air, the kind of place a WISP serves

We first wrote a series on starting a WISP back in 2013, and it’s been one of the most read things on this site ever since. Most of the advice in it has aged badly though. Starlink didn’t exist, fibre to the home was something only cities had, the cell companies weren’t selling home internet, and the gear we were recommending topped out at speeds nobody would accept today. So we’re rewriting the whole series for 2026, one step at a time, and this page is the index. Each step gets linked here as it’s published.

What’s changed since 2013

  • Starlink is everywhere. It’s the default option for anyone rural with money to spend, and a new WISP has to be built around the customers it doesn’t serve well rather than head to head with it.
  • Fibre keeps spreading, with government money behind it. BEAD in the US and the Universal Broadband Fund in Canada are paying for fibre in a lot of places that would never have got it otherwise, which changes where a WISP makes sense.
  • The cell companies sell home internet now. Fixed wireless from the carriers is the fastest growing kind of home internet in the US, and it reaches into the edges of the areas WISPs used to have to themselves.
  • The gear is a lot better. 60 GHz and 24 GHz links, 6 GHz multipoint with AFC, and affordable licensed backhauls mean a small WISP can sell plans that would have been unthinkable on the 802.11n sectors we were recommending in 2013.
  • The rules have changed too. ISPs in both countries have to file their coverage on a national map, and in Canada the CRTC now requires the big incumbents to sell wholesale access to their fibre.

The steps

  1. Step 1: Market Research covers whether there’s a market for you to reach at all, where Starlink, fibre and the cell companies win, what a good low-density WISP market looks like, how to size up an existing WISP, and the broadband maps and coverage tools that show you all of it.
  2. Step 2: Finding Wholesale Internet in 2026 is next to be written. Until it’s up, the 2014 version still covers the basics of what to ask for and where to look.

More steps will be added here as they’re written.

Where Swift Fox fits

Swift Fox is WISP management software (network monitoring, billing, QoE shaping and a call centre in one system), built by people who have started WISPs themselves. The RF coverage tool that step 1 uses to find tower sites is part of it, and the free trial doesn’t need any equipment, so it’s a reasonable way to do the market research before you’ve bought anything. If you’re starting a WISP and want to talk through your market, reach out, we’d love to hear about it!