This ISP Controls Its Own Destiny

ServInt is a privately-held ISP that has its own Internet backbone, provides value-added services, maintains a commitment to philanthropy, and is a content creator and streaming media provider. Its founder will soon be twenty-five.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [April 21, 2000]

ServInt, based in McLean, Virginia, is a backbone provider and ISP that grew out of local service run from a college dorm. Still privately held, and run by Reed Caldwell (now 24 years old), the company claims to run on common sense and service, not hype and underfunded overexpansion.

When it moved out of a college dorm in 1995, the company had one employee, a $10,000 family loan, some student credit cards, and a single Pentium-90 Web server running Linux 1.2.9. Since then, it has built an internet backbone, started a webhosting business, opened a free ISP for non-profit corporations, and built an own-brand multimedia content provision service.

Caldwell's first good idea was to move "his equipment into a new office in a building that also happens to house a regional telco, meaning ServInt won't have to pay high leased-line costs." Since then, it has grown fast by moving early to provide new value-added services.

Services
In 1997 and 1998, the company developed relationships with Cisco, MCI/WorldCom, Network Products, and Level 3 Communications as it built an Internet backbone.

According to Andrea Wojtaszek, PR Manager, "It started in 1997 with dual OC3 (155 Mbps) connections to MAE-East as the company began to build a network across the country, leasing fiber from telco providers. By 1998, ServInt had built up a network linking MAE-East, MAE-West, the Pac Bell NAP, the Ameritech Chicago AADS NAP, the Sprint NAP and POPs in other cities, and ServInt had accumulated the peering relationships with other backbones to become a tier-one provider itself."

ServInt now uses Cisco switches and routers exclusively, and its backbone has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) containing several benchmark guarantees, including 99.5% availability, with specific penalties for failure to meet any benchmark.

In 1999, it added customized servers for as low as $100 per month, at www.servintservers.com. (I tried customizing a reasonably high-end one: Pentium III 550 MHz dual XEON 1MB chip, 1GB RAM, SCSI RAID controller with three 9GB drives (7.1ms, 7200 RPM), a 1024K dedicated pipe, and WebTrends software. The price came to $3289.00 setup, $2007.00 per month. More software, such as a relational database, would add to the price.) Other options are also available.

Philanthropy
We have argued before that you can Do Well By Doing Good, and ServInt understands this maxim. ServInt FreeNet provides free webhosting for federally-recognized non-profit corporations, also known as 501(c)3 corporations. The service is run by ServInt technical staff (Andrea Wojtaszek is ServInt FreeNet's administrator) and is supported by volunteers. It also provides free Internet training and manuals. Director of Marketing Jeffrey Carl originated the ServInt FreeNet program in December 1997 (an appropriate month for philanthropy). "Many of us at ServInt have backgrounds working with nonprofits and community groups," he explained. "Working in the Internet industry, we've got a lot of the resources and knowledge that nonprofits need."

Content
ServInt's next step is to become a content provider, and it's already there. ServInt's Media Services group offers content caching and acceleration services for streaming media content.

Andrea Wojtaszek explains, "ServInt uses its own tier-one national backbone and proprietary technology, coupled with switching equipment from Arrowpoint Communications and customized caching equipment from InfoLibria, to deliver DVD-quality, high-resolution streaming media over the Internet."

She adds, "The product we are deploying is called SCAN (ServInt Content Access Network), and actually marks the first time a backbone Internet network has been specifically designed and optimized for streaming video and audio at DVD-quality. SCAN actually allows this DVD quality to be delivered to users with broadband Internet access (144 kbps or higher, including DSL, cable modems and leased lines)."

Different
ServInt calls itself "a different kind of ISP" combining philanthropy and a commitment to service. As a privately-held company that relies on word-of-mouth rather than national ad campaigns, ServInt claims that its success proves the quality of its service because "it means that we grew to prominence on the strength of referrals from satisfied customers." As a business, it is unique, realizing synergies from several related, but distinct, businesses.