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We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom

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

#31

Post by da_n »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #27
da_n wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am pro net neutrality, and would like to see a completely decentralised internet. It is not nitpicking to question the integrity and veracity of the messenger.

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

#33

Post by ekianjo »

betterunix2 wrote: post #25
ekianjo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> non-ad-driven web ecosystem that I somehow missed?

Yes there is. Patreon and similar systems.

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

#34

Post by stephen_g »

joeyspn wrote: post #3

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

Capacity would be a huge problem though, even with 5000 satellites, if you wanted to rival fixed-line or cellular wireless networks for a significant part of the world's population...

To put that in perspective, in Australia we have 13,400 cellular towers [1], with an extra 9,000 proposed to be built, to cover just 26.3 million subscribers [2]. This is to deliver 2.8% of the data downloaded over the last year (97.2% having been delivered over fixed line) [2].

So, with an LEO constallation, you might have a few dozen satellites over the populated parts of Australia at any one time, each of which has a finite amount of capacity (both uplink/downlink spectrum and capacity back to the ground station) shared between all the users.

I think this network could see a massive benefit for rural areas, developing countries, maritime markets, etc. but to think that the network would have the capacity to deliver anything rivalling cellular networks in metro/suburban areas to most subscribers is very far fetched.

1. https://oztowers.com.au/Statistics 2. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0

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

#35

Post by stephen_g »

betterunix2 wrote: post #24
nautilus12 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unre…

Have a look at Google's BBR congestion control algorithm [1]. This is perhaps a solved problem now (although it's still not supported on all platforms, but only the side sending the bulk of the data needs to have it).

1. http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3022184

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

#36

Post by rayiner »

> internet infrastructure that is locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people who connect to it

In theory our public transit is “locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people” rather than shareholders. Yet public transit is almost uniformly awful in the US. If you live in San Francisco, do you really want your internet run by the same people who run the Muni?

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

#37

Post by Can_Not »

One thing I've wondered, if the big regional monopoly ISPs actually violate our net neutrality on a large enough scale, can enough new ISPs pop-up who have net neutrality in their company charter (or otherwise are non-profits) to keep the old internet alive? Can municipalities drop existing exclusive contacts citing "loss of net neutrality" as a material change? How will regressive districts take it when other states are keeping NN and prospering? If net neutrality can be restored from the bottom up, has anyone explored strategies and methods to protect ourselves from regional monopoly ISPs and how it will actually roll out over time and regionally? How will the top resist a bottom up change?

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

#38

Post by zzzcpan »

betterunix2 wrote: post #21
bitsnbytes wrote: post #2

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 add…

> 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.

If there are no regulations here's how it goes: first ISPs compete in urban areas, this is very profitable with traditional active fiber to the building and ethernet to each apartment. It takes like $50 CAPEX per customer. But at some point as competition increases margins get lower and certain ISPs start looking into rural areas where they can have no real competition, i.e. DSL or radio is not a competition to fiber. New ISPs emerge too as people see an opportunity to profit from temporary geographical monopoly. So they start building in rural areas, enjoying huge margins. Today they'd use something like GPON, which is very cheap compared to the old days. It goes on until at some point the hard part becomes finding areas from where they can profit the most and where there is no real competition. This is when some start competing with other ISPs in rural areas. But as margins start to shrink in some areas due to competition they prioritize investment into areas competition unlikely to reach. There will be far away neglected areas still, but here's a twist, since there is a lot of competition people who are willing to pay will be able to find a whole bunch of ISPs willing to build fiber or at least radio links with them. In other words - it's always profitable, regulations really is the only problem.

Forcing to share infrastructure is also not necessary. It helps only if monopolies share it with everyone, not small players. With no regulations market solves this pretty well.

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

#39

Post by nerdponx »

rayiner wrote: post #36

> internet infrastructure that is locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people who connect to it In theory our public transit is “locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people” rather than shareholders. Yet public transit is almost uniformly awful in the US. If you live in San Francisco, do you really want your internet run by the same people who run the Muni?

Either your utilities are run by big businesses who don't care about you, or they're run by local governments, which in turn are beholden to special interest groups who don't care about you, some of which are big businesses.

Seems like you can't win.

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

#40

Post by Can_Not »

rayiner wrote: post #36

> internet infrastructure that is locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people who connect to it In theory our public transit is “locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people” rather than shareholders. Yet public transit is almost uniformly awful in the US. If you live in San Francisco, do you really want your internet run by the same people who run the Muni?

You can show them Chattanooga as a case study where the results were optimal.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezpk77/chattanoog...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/17...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadb...

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