Cyber Cafe? Suggestions?

[Jabberwocky]

ok i agree with everyone that kids will be pretty easy to draw if you have lan games and snack bars.

maybe you can try to draw adults by offereing fax, printing, copying, etc., services like a kinkos. i worked at the copy center at my school for a semester, they bring in a ton by printing and binding large reports, resumes, study manuals and things like that.

[aeallison]

I am sorry I havn't had access to an internet connection for a while...long story I won't bore you with.

Thank you for the suggestions. Let me soak this all in and I'll recap...

instronics

Your description of your friends establishment is just what I have in my mind's eye. Unfortunately, my personal research among the populace here was not very favorable. The kids here from about 15 up to 20 years old would not have a easy way to get here unless they have a family member or friend to drive them. The property I own, that I could put this on is almost 5 miles out of town. Way too far to walk for the kids of today. The local radius to me in a 20 mile radius is only about 7 or 8 thousand, most of whom are either the elderly retired folks, or under age 15. This area is VERY technologically backwards. Most of the group of men that are aged 25 to 60, are farmers, and laborers, who think computers are only used to keep records and graph charts on their crops and livestock, the ladies around her that do use computers, all seem to be fixated on MSN Zone games and chat rooms. And those people have their home PC's. (mostly emachines they get free with a 3 year internet contract) I am still getting people that insist on bringing their antique xts ,286s, 386s, etc. to configure their 28.8 or 33.6 modems to work with the free AOL cd they keep getting in the mail. You know...the frizbee disks that never seem to make it in our homes

I haven't given up the idea entirely on this project though. I am looking for some property or abuilding inside the city limits close to the High School. In the hours after school and before their evening meal most of the students would be there. The ones I have spoken with assure me that if it was located anywhere inside the city limits (where they could walk without feeling like they were working or something) that they would hang out there, so they don't have to go home and help Mom, and/or Dad, with chores around the house, or on their family farm.

This will require a substantial investment. To quote xmaddness:

I actually had an entire business plan set out for a gaming/cyber cafe that I was going to open. It turned out that the overhead cost ended up around $200,000 dollars.

For a lot within walking distance from the schools, available city provided utilities, an OC92 fiber cable providing an almost direct (one hop) connection the main fiber trunk that runs from coast to coast. Supposed to be less than 4 nano seconds latency to either coast.

Costs:
$80,000 Land
$30,000 For a Prefab building I would have to erect myself.
$700 monthly, For each T1 of Bandwidth. (If I use throttling I think I could support 24 users with plenty of B/W for gaming online)
$10,000 For furnishings and misc. fixtures.
$15,000 For computer equipment. (I can be quite resourceful when I build my own servers and workstations)

I need to go run some errands so I will check back on this later. If anyone feels I left anything out just post it here.