Live data from Hacker News

We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

motherboard.vice.com

21–30 of 108 posts

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#21

I like their fire to get this done. however , the ISP market is a market hated by its cutomer base for decades. So you got to ask why hasnt this been done before at a reasonable scale or more often? Didnt even google fiber run into epic hurdles due to monopolistic regulations setup by the telcom oligarch? if Google fiber struggled how is a small startup going to be able to play? I'm skeptical in the success of this ,…

It's not just monopolistic regulations. Outside of dense urban areas there is not much room for competition among ISPs. At some point it is never going to be profitable to compete; and in some places it will never be profitable to even build the infrastructure in the first place. The only reason DSL is widely available is that phone companies were forced to build the copper network even in unprofitable places, so adding DSL service was not too hard for them.

If we really want a market-based approach we need infrastructure sharing rules. Prior to 2003 we had lots of competition in the DSL market; after the sharing rules were eliminated competition vanished almost overnight and we wound up with the monopoly situation we face today. Infrastructure sharing requirements have worked very well in France, where fiber optic service is more widely available and costs consumers less.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#22

MuniFiber.com. Towns are slowly rolling their own fiber to the home. This is one answer to breaking cable monopolies. edit: Apologies, muninetworks.org is the true website. I've been reading way too much about FTTH obviously and partially substituted the website name :)

I'm also working on startyourownisp.com. I've got a ways to go in it but maybe someone will find it useful!

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#24
post #3

In 2019 SpaceX should start deploying their satellite constellation... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_satellite_constellation

Round trip to a satellite will never rival fiber. Especially the way modern web apps are built inefficiently

It's not just web apps; TCP itself behaves badly under high-latency conditions. If you have no other choice but to use high-latency links, you are better off with a protocol like QUIC that includes forward error correction. If you need to send a lot of data over a high-latency link you need to start looking at less common approaches; for example, this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_code

When the link is unreliable -- as it is in most wireless systems -- TCP also tends to behave suboptimally as it assumes lost packets are due to congestion. Again, if you need to deal with unreliable links, forward error correction is your friend.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. Whether someone is honest or good doesn't have any bearing on any individual statement's veracity. A statement is true or false regardless of who says it. Additionally the article was written by an author who is not responsible for the advertisements, or really any actions of this establishment which are entirely outside of their control. All being said, yeah that sounds horrible…

> This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. This is rather a problem with the author who is benefiting from the ad-driven Internet while preaching for something else. It's like a weapons reseller advocating for peace.

Is there some non-ad-driven web ecosystem that I somehow missed? Just because the web currently depends on ads to pay for things does not mean that it is an OK situation or that we should tolerate every intrusion by advertisers.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#26
post #5

I just loaded this article on my mobile device. An ad on the website triggered with auto playing audio that stopped background media playback of my device. I class these type of ads as a type of vermin, and generally avoid any website that contains them. Why should I trust an organisation that chooses to run user hostile ads on their site line this to make a better internet?

This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. Whether someone is honest or good doesn't have any bearing on any individual statement's veracity. A statement is true or false regardless of who says it. Additionally the article was written by an author who is not responsible for the advertisements, or really any actions of this establishment which are entirely outside of their control. All being said, yeah that sounds horrible…

To be clear I am not saying they’re wrong. It’s like being told to recycle everything in a magazine that is full of adverts funded by the toxic waste industry. Yes, I agree with recycling (and do so myself) but it’s hard to trust the source. I guess this is more of an idea than an organisation though, so I hope they will do some good and wish them luck.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#27
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. Whether someone is honest or good doesn't have any bearing on any individual statement's veracity. A statement is true or false regardless of who says it. Additionally the article was written by an author who is not responsible for the advertisements, or really any actions of this establishment which are entirely outside of their control. All being said, yeah that sounds horrible…

To be clear I am not saying they’re wrong. It’s like being told to recycle everything in a magazine that is full of adverts funded by the toxic waste industry. Yes, I agree with recycling (and do so myself) but it’s hard to trust the source. I guess this is more of an idea than an organisation though, so I hope they will do some good and wish them luck.

It would be, if it were ads for ISP peering, or bundled network access, or promoting anti-network neutrality stance.

As it is now, you're just trying to derail a conversation into irrelevant nitpicking. If anything, your motives should be suspect.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#28
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. Whether someone is honest or good doesn't have any bearing on any individual statement's veracity. A statement is true or false regardless of who says it. Additionally the article was written by an author who is not responsible for the advertisements, or really any actions of this establishment which are entirely outside of their control. All being said, yeah that sounds horrible…

> This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. This is rather a problem with the author who is benefiting from the ad-driven Internet while preaching for something else. It's like a weapons reseller advocating for peace.

Not really.

This author is paid by advertisers. That's their business model but there are plenty of other publishers out there available to you that would probably carry a version of this story under another business model.

ISPs are paid by end users directly. And now also competing content companies who don't want their content throttled. And a top-up from the end users again to access those services. And whatever scummy deal they can get from selling every last detail about you and your browsing habits.

And unlike this publisher, if you don't like it, you can't just shop around for a well behaving one. Most ISPs in the US appear to operate as local monopolies. There's no separation between hardware and service and that causes issues.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on this? Do you think latency is the limiting factor for a LEO network?

A geosynchronous orbit is ~36000km 36000 km / speed of light = .12 seconds So thats a ping of 240, minimum. That's assuming everything else in the system happened instantaneously. If you can however manage to solve the whole aiming at a moving target 360 kilometers away then maybe you could do a LEO network, and yeah the ping would be closer to 1.2 assuming again literally everything was instantaneous.

As you note, LEO is very different from geostationary. Moving target doesn't strike me as impossible. A LEO satellite has a very predictable path, a stationary dish has a predictable movement relative to that path and a mobile phone knows where it is at all times.

Re: We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

#30
post #3

In 2019 SpaceX should start deploying their satellite constellation... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_satellite_constellation

Really interested to see how this plays out. Given the number of satellites needed to make this happen, and the number of companies launching similar initiatives, it seems low earth orbit real-estate is about to get pretty competitive. Anyone know if there is a limit on the number of satellites that can occupy LEO? SpaceX alone wants to launch around 5,000.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN