Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband • Hacker News Board

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#111

Post by vvanders » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 6:12 AM UTC

lev99 wrote: post #74

mnzaki wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why we should be scrambling to get it done now . Free and non-centrally-controllable access to connectivity is going to be a powerful aide in all the other battles. Priorities priorities priorities. Andre Staltz gives[1] an approximate deadline of 5-10 years, or we're doomed. [1] https://staltz.com/a-plan-to-rescue-the-web-from-the-interne...

Non-centrally controlled connectivity can be solved by low-altitude communication satellites[1], and other sky based solutions[2]. We should be focusing on tech that makes aerospace less costly. The benefits will extend beyond a free & open network. There is good science and theory on ways to reduce costs in aerospace, it's an engineering/business problem at this point. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/04/spacex-inte…

Unless you plan on conjuring spectrum out of thin air that's still got some serious barriers. Most of the frequency bands are pretty crowded already.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#112

Post by jdeibele » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 6:13 AM UTC

saas_co_de wrote: post #99

jessaustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no monopoly in backhaul, in fact various market shenanigans have reduced long-distance data profits to pennies. The internet is designed entirely with the idea of making it easy to connect the first mile to the rest; that is a solved problem. In USA the remaining problem is local service provided by monopolists. This problem will persist in general until FCC is forced, kicking and screaming, into allowing mor…

Yes, wholesale broadband rates are dirt cheap and falling like a rock forever because of improvements in technology. What you pay for for broadband in the home is: 1) last mile connection (expensive to install) 2) bribes (sorry, "franchise fees") 3) advertising to maintain the illusion of competition 4) customer support to help you deal with your anger and cancel/activate you when you switch between various shitty pr…

What kills me about the advertising are three things:

1) It creates a huge barrier to entry because new ISPs have a hard time getting any name recognition.

2) Newpapers, radio stations, and television stations probably wouldn't want to say anything bad about telephone or cable providers. Imagine the phone call an NBC TV station would get if it attacked Comcast. That advertising is a good chunk of money.

3) Advertising is rolled into the PUC-approved "cost of doing business" and the cable or telephone companies get to add their profits on top of that.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#113

Post by woah » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

jdeibele wrote: post #112

saas_co_de wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, wholesale broadband rates are dirt cheap and falling like a rock forever because of improvements in technology. What you pay for for broadband in the home is: 1) last mile connection (expensive to install) 2) bribes (sorry, "franchise fees") 3) advertising to maintain the illusion of competition 4) customer support to help you deal with your anger and cancel/activate you when you switch between various shitty pr…

What kills me about the advertising are three things: 1) It creates a huge barrier to entry because new ISPs have a hard time getting any name recognition. 2) Newpapers, radio stations, and television stations probably wouldn't want to say anything bad about telephone or cable providers. Imagine the phone call an NBC TV station would get if it attacked Comcast. That advertising is a good chunk of money. 3) Advertisin…

We’re working on www.altheamesh.com to create networks where participants within the network can compete with one another to provide better service without the end consumers having to switch providers.

This is accomplished by adding a price metric to the routing protocol so that packets are routed along the best and cheapest paths.

So if you notice that a certain neighborhood has bad service, you can set up some kind of connection to it and sell into that network to make a profit. No advertising. The end users will only notice their internet access getting cheaper and or better.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#114

Post by eksemplar » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

Several Danish municipalities have begun running their own WANs on loraWAN tech because it’s virtually free once the initial fee of setting it up has been paid. It’s not real internet, but it’s the only way we can connect our IOT and smart city stuff in a way that is economically feasible because we can’t afford to pay fees on connections for thousands of devices.

We could set up our own internet, and I think we should, unfortunately this would be illegal as the large telecoms have lobbied their way into legislation ensuring that people pay, what is essentially a private tax, on their utilities.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#115

Post by woah » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

mnzaki wrote: post #31

We can easily be running our own internet. I recenlty discovered CJDNS[1] (protocol for encrypted p2p address allocation and routing for mesh networks, so essentially OSI layer 3) and project Hyperboria[2] (a community of local WiFi initiatives) while exploring scuttlebutt[3]. Confirmed my suspicions that we could probably be getting waaay better internet connectivity at way lower prices. Decentralized tech is going…

Hey, add http://altheamesh.com to your list. We are creating a system where routers pay each other per byte for bandwidth, and packets are routed along the best and cheapest routes.

To address CJDNS, it’s a project that inspired a lot of people, but it’s not actually used for internet access. It’s mostly used by people who are connecting to it over their existing ISPs. This is because it is not good at finding efficient routes. People trying to set up an efficient network will use distance vector protocols like Babel or Batman. We have some patches to Babel that enable our price based routing. To my knowledge CJDNS is not used by any mesh networks actually providing people with internet access.

Why people connect to CJDNS over their ISPs, I’m not sure, but who am I to judge what people do in their spare time. My guess is that it’s easier than actually doing the work of setting up a real network but they can still feel like they are part of a “mesh network”.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#116

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 7:38 AM UTC

pascalxus wrote: post #28

mschuster91 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are community-run broadband providers cheaper because they are subsidized by taxes? No, they are cheaper because the local monopolists/duopolists can charge the customers through the nose, as they don't have any alternative. Any form of competition leads to a reduction in costs for the consumer. In addition, stuff like eight-digit compensations (Comcast: 37.5M $ for the CEO alone, https://www1.salary.com/Stephen-B-…

And let's not forget their grand incompetence as well. At&t and comcast spend huge amounts on wasted advertisement. I get ads for At&T all the time. I hate them so much, I repeat click on their ads just to waste more of their marketing dollars. Obliviously, they keep sending me the same ads.

They don't advertise to get more customers. Why do you think Lockheed Martin et. al. advertise? How many people watching football on Sunday are interested in buying an F-22? They advertise to stop the media company from running negative stories about them. They don't give a shit about advertising to you. It's a pay-off.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#117

Post by amazon_not » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:23 AM UTC

lev99 wrote: post #74

mnzaki wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why we should be scrambling to get it done now . Free and non-centrally-controllable access to connectivity is going to be a powerful aide in all the other battles. Priorities priorities priorities. Andre Staltz gives[1] an approximate deadline of 5-10 years, or we're doomed. [1] https://staltz.com/a-plan-to-rescue-the-web-from-the-interne...

Non-centrally controlled connectivity can be solved by low-altitude communication satellites[1], and other sky based solutions[2]. We should be focusing on tech that makes aerospace less costly. The benefits will extend beyond a free & open network. There is good science and theory on ways to reduce costs in aerospace, it's an engineering/business problem at this point. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/04/spacex-inte…

How are LEO satellites not going to be centrally controlled? It's not like the satellite owners will let you use them for free or be controlled by commercial interests and subject to laws and regulations.

You are also not going to be deploying your own balloon Internet.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#118

Post by amazon_not » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:26 AM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #96

amazon_not wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way there's going to be subloop unbundling after the Supreme Court killer local loop unbundling.

It could happen just for DSL. The big ISP don't really want to service rural areas anyways.

Could happen how? The big ISPs don't want to do it voluntarily and the Supreme Court says they don't have to. Just because the ISPs don't want to serve rural areas doesn't mean they want anybody else to either.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#119

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

amazon_not wrote: post #118

gnopgnip wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could happen just for DSL. The big ISP don't really want to service rural areas anyways.

Could happen how? The big ISPs don't want to do it voluntarily and the Supreme Court says they don't have to. Just because the ISPs don't want to serve rural areas doesn't mean they want anybody else to either.

As an illustration of a related inclination, the FCC, pushed by the big telcos—who also tend to be big ISPs—under Ajit Pai killed the use of resellers (non-facilities-based providers) in the Lifeline program, despite the fact that 70% of Lifeline customers used them, often because the facilities-based providers aren't offering them service directly. This got overlooked by a lot of people, because what attention was on the FCC was all about net neutrality.

Re: Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband

#120

Post by duncan_bayne » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

It'd be nice to use terminology that distinguishes between infrastructure that is provided and maintained voluntarily, and infrastructure that is compulsorily funded by taxpayers.

The difference is relevant from economic, moral and design perspectives.