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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

#61

Post by zeep »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #47

The real snag in net neutrality, and "saving the internet" in general is not in getting a bunch of pop-up isps. The real crux of the problem has always been in peering relationships. It's not that hard to start a wISP. It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP. Right up until your local customer wants to access Google, or Netflix, or something in Japan or Europe, or anything tha…

> It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP.

Can't they throttle your connection like they would do to any other peasant customers?

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

#63

Post by EGreg »

Those of you who have seen me post over the years know that I am passionate about this topic. I wind up linking to my own project to provide more info but let me know if that's bad form on HN.

In 2011 I started a company to decentralize facebook. I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a host of other things. I wanted to build a platform like Wordpress that communities could host and then install social apps the same way they install wordpress plugins.

The developer model would be pretty cool, too: no gatekeepers to kick you out of the app store or revoke your API keys while they compete with you. Instead, you sell your apps to entire communities. Over time we built apps like:

  Group rides (uber for friends)
  Group activities
  Group chat
  Collaborative docs
  Marketplace
  Pitching in for a gift
As time went on, I realized that eventually communities will have their own mesh networks and we would have built the social software they would need to run on them! Right now, they don't really have software uilt to run on the local networks, they still need to connect to centralized services on the global internet.

We asked some guys to build router firmware for us, so that we can have local software run on the wifi networks of cruise ships, classrooms etc. It is great for taking attendance for example, as phones automatically connect to the wifi and the cookie does the attendance bit.

You can literally have a superfast social network for a university or company or whatever, and signals go over the internet only when they have to.

If you want more in depth info I give a talk about it here: https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY

And we blogged about the details here: https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/08/centralization-and-o...

Now we went one step further and made a spinoff company, Intercoin Inc to allow communities to issue and democratically manage their own local currency! (https://intercoin.org)

IPFS and SAFE a great fit for an even further future where no elites control anything. But that's a little further on.

Here is what I would like to see eventually replace the Web: https://github.com/Qbix/architecture/wiki/Internet-2.0

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

#64

Post by [deleted] »

pmoriarty wrote: post #6

An Internet that is completely decentralized and independent of gatekeepers is the only long-term hope that I can see, and it's a very remote hope at that. There are too many powerful, vested interests in controlling people and their communication to let that happen. The only reason the Internet was ever as free as it was that it slipped under the radar of those very interests and wasn't taken seriously enough at fir…

[deleted]

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

#65

Post by rayiner »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50
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?

> 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? Public transit is terrible for a specific reason. The majority of people don't use it which means the majority of people don't care…

The level of public support is not the problem. The NYC MTA and DC Metro get about 40-50% of their funding from the public (taxes and grants). Boston MBTA gets over 60%. Transport for London gets just over 25%. JR East, in Japan, is fully private and not subsidized at all.

One difference you can see with London is that fares can range from a little higher than the NYC MTA to almost double. That combined with operating costs more than 50% higher explain the challenge: https://www.google.com/amp/s/ny.curbed.com/platform/amp/2017....

These same problems would absolutely affect any public internet system you built in a place like NYC or DC. On the one hand, wireline telecom is both highly labor intensive, and a heavily unionized field to begin with. So costs would be high. On the other hand, while everyone uses the internet, few people really use the kind of bandwidth people on HN do. There would be huge pressure to limit capital investment to keep prices low. If we’d built out fiber in DC in 2005 under the municipal, we’d still have 50/50 BPON for $50/month instead of gigabit GPON for $70-80/month. At least fiber cables can’t catch fire.

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

#66

Post by Y7ZCQtNo39 »

EGreg wrote: post #63

Those of you who have seen me post over the years know that I am passionate about this topic. I wind up linking to my own project to provide more info but let me know if that's bad form on HN. In 2011 I started a company to decentralize facebook. I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a h…

I'll provide my two cents, in the case of group activities. It seems awfully convenient to have a single site (e.g., meetup) for, say, if I'm traveling to a new city and looking for something to do.

It'd seem like an unnecessary barrier to entry to have to find the locally hosted instance of every particular problem, every location I go.

Knowing I can use Yelp or Groupon etc to find local restaurants or deals anywhere is actually pretty helpful.

To get to the core of your premise:

> I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a host of other things.

You might think there is no reason for this; but users of these services aren't concerned with this problem. If your selling point is "Hey, don't you hate how this one big corporation has a monopoly on etc?", you're going to hear crickets. This isn't a customer problem.

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

#67

Post by Spooky23 »

amorphid wrote: post #58
iamnotlarry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited a location this week where there were 2-4 houses per mile along country roads. The residents had a choice of ISPs. The house I visited had dialtone from a VOIP service. Yes, it costs money to build out last-mile infrastructure. But even in very low density areas, it can pay off. Recurring revenues of $50-100/month per customer can in fact pay for the initial investment. Especially if the investment was a wi…

A relative of mine lives in a rural area of Washington State, USA. He has fiber internet through ToledoTel... http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/ ...it's expensive, but he has it. Every time I hear someone say we can't have blazing fast Internet in San Francisco, it's never phrased as a question like "would you be willing to pay $MONTHLY_PRICE for 1gps fiber?" So far, I've only heard "Building fiber in Sa…

That stuff was all part of the Obama era stimulus bills. Many folks with the ability to lay fiber did so with substantial capitalization from the Feds. Many municipal governments and counties built fiber rings as well.

The result was mostly institutional connectivity. Rural prisons, hospitals, government, factories, and schools got connected. But local franchise agreements make the last mile pretty much impossible.

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

#68

Post by EGreg »

Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #66
EGreg wrote: post #63

Those of you who have seen me post over the years know that I am passionate about this topic. I wind up linking to my own project to provide more info but let me know if that's bad form on HN. In 2011 I started a company to decentralize facebook. I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a h…

I'll provide my two cents, in the case of group activities. It seems awfully convenient to have a single site (e.g., meetup) for, say, if I'm traveling to a new city and looking for something to do. It'd seem like an unnecessary barrier to entry to have to find the locally hosted instance of every particular problem, every location I go. Knowing I can use Yelp or Groupon etc to find local restaurants or deals anywher…

Our customers are the directors of organizations and on average communities pay us tens of thousands of $ each to put an app for their members in the store.

For example a university realizes that if they give an app to their students while they are still actively studying there, as alumni they will be part of a social network across the country where they can get job and business opportunities, date or just meet someone for an activity. They are more likely to donate and participate when the university posts their own events.

As for the users - you're right. A user doesn't necessarily want to have one app for each community. That's why the process should be seamless.

Ideally, an app should be usable across many communities. So think for example of Meetup.com as an app on our platform. It would be on the app store and you'd automatically see meetups across all the communities where you are a member.

We go way further btw, with authentication and friend discovery: https://github.com/Qbix/auth

It has to be absolutely seamless, private and integrate with existing websites.

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

#69

Post by mirimir »

nmjohn wrote: post #15
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

> SpaceX expects its own latencies to be between 25 and 35ms [0] There is a huge difference in latency between existing satellite internet services and what spacex is looking to launch. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/space...

Yes, SpaceX etc will be low Earth orbit, and the satellites will be a mesh network.

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

#70

Post by notliketherest »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #47

The real snag in net neutrality, and "saving the internet" in general is not in getting a bunch of pop-up isps. The real crux of the problem has always been in peering relationships. It's not that hard to start a wISP. It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP. Right up until your local customer wants to access Google, or Netflix, or something in Japan or Europe, or anything tha…

"get the masses to understand the issue and penalize cheaters"

Oh God forbid we had to do this...

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