This book is one of a kind at present and has been written mainly for the smaller US ISP. The US ISP model is very different from the UK model in that many US ISPs are value added resellers with rather high direct costs whereas the UK ISP leans to a call-sharing model. That said the book has some relevance for the UK ISP market and goes some way in highlighting the importance of areas such as business marketing, acquisition strategy, personnel planning and customer service execution.
Chris Knight starts off with questions that should challenge the reasons why a company might want to enter this market. It goes on to highlight some basic strategies to keep in mind and pitfalls to avoid for setting up a generic ISP. The "Unique Selling Proposition" gets a fair amount dedicated to it and rightly so, as the global ISP population is growing and ISPs with a unique feature(s) will stand out and survive.
My main concern with the book is that it is written in a style that is a little too obvious and optimistic, for instance "If you like beating the pants off your competitors" etc is a little weak. Call me old fashioned but I like my survival guides to be a little more grounded if not more hard core, I am a big boy and I can handle matrix modelling and the like but I object to pom pom chanting.
I would give the book a 3/4 star rating but the book is overshadowed somewhat by its WILEY stable mate "The ISP Survival Guide, Strategies for Running a competitive ISP" which is a thumping tome and good one at that.
This book is good for newbies, but if you are a newbie you shouldnt assume that the ISP market anywhere is as simple as this book might imply. If you really want to get into the ISP arena I would suggest getting both books, as they will give you a decent education.
