From running a dial-up ISP in 1990s New Brunswick to building modern SaaS products — this isn't a startup story. It's a career.
My name is Frank Kahle, and I've been working in IT and telecommunications since around 1981. That's not a typo. When I started, personal computers were just becoming a thing, networks meant thick coaxial cable, and "the internet" was a military research project most people had never heard of.
Over 45 years I've watched — and worked through — every era of this industry. Mainframes to microcomputers. Bulletin boards to the World Wide Web. Dial-up modems to fibre optic. Physical servers to cloud. And now, artificial intelligence. Each transition brought new problems to solve, and I was there solving them.
Telecommunications & Early Computing
I got my start in telecommunications and systems work when most businesses didn't have a single computer on the premises. This was the era of learning to build, configure, and troubleshoot hardware by hand — there was no Stack Overflow, no YouTube tutorials, no AI assistant. You read the manual, or you figured it out yourself.
IGS (Information Gateway Services) — Ottawa & Ontario
In the 1990s, I founded and operated IGS — Information Gateway Services, an Internet Service Provider that started in Ottawa and grew to serve 18 cities across Ontario. We were building internet infrastructure from scratch — configuring modem banks, managing dial-up connections, setting up email servers, and helping people get connected for the first time.
Running an ISP in the 90s meant you were the network engineer, the sysadmin, the helpdesk, and the cable guy — all rolled into one. If a customer couldn't connect at 2 AM, you were the one troubleshooting it. If the T1 line went down, you drove to the NOC. There was no managed hosting to fall back on. You either knew how it worked, or things stayed broken.
That experience — building and operating real internet infrastructure from the ground up — is something you can't get from a bootcamp or a certification. It's the kind of deep operational knowledge that only comes from decades of hands-on work.
Linux Administration & Web Development
As the internet matured, so did the work. I moved deeper into Linux server administration, web hosting, and network management. While the big players commoditized hosting into anonymous data centres with offshore support lines, I kept doing it the way I always had: hands-on, local, and accountable. Managing servers directly. Knowing every client's setup. Picking up the phone when something went wrong.
Custom Management Platforms
Rather than reselling someone else's control panel, I built custom management tools. DNS automation, SSL certificate management, server monitoring — all purpose-built. The same philosophy from the ISP days: if you understand the system completely, you can support it completely.
SOS Technical Services — Hampton, NB
Today, SOS Technical Services is where all that experience comes together. I'm not just hosting websites — I'm building the products that run on them:
I'm also experimenting with edge AI — running Google Gemini on a Raspberry Pi 5 with a Hailo-8 accelerator — because the next wave of computing is already here, and I intend to be ready for it, just like every wave before.
When I'm not building hosting infrastructure or SaaS products, I'm still building:
A hyper-local weather station serving Hampton, NB, syncing real-time data through the Weather Underground API with local historical storage.
Custom 3D printing — industrial and home hardware components, from IKEA replacement parts to server rack accessories and tripod mounts.
Not 45 years of "being in the industry" — 45 years of building, configuring, troubleshooting, and operating. From dial-up modem banks to AI-powered SaaS. The kind of experience that doesn't come from a textbook.
Based in Hampton, New Brunswick. Your data stays in Canada on Canadian servers. No offshore call centres, no corporate runaround — you talk directly to the person who built the system.
Custom management portal, self-hosted email (Mailcow), purpose-built monitoring tools. We're not white-label reselling someone else's control panel. We know how every piece works because we built it.
When you call (506) 910-5547, you reach someone who can actually fix the problem — not read a script. We solve problems, not tickets.
No bait-and-switch renewals. No "introductory pricing" that triples next year. No long-term contracts. Month-to-month on everything. The price you see is the price you pay.
Stuck with GoDaddy, Bluehost, or another big provider that's let you down? We'll migrate your website, email, and domains for free. No hassle, no downtime, no stress.
Ready to switch to a host that actually knows what they're doing?
Have questions? I'd love to hear from you.
Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada — serving clients locally and across Canada