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'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

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Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#71

Post by gonehome »

Rjevski wrote: post #40
gonehome wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't mesh networks higher risk for security? My initial reaction is that while ISPs collect a lot of information about you a mesh network allows an unknown amount of hostile actors to collect information (unless it's set up like Tor, but that has issues too). At least with the standard ISP model there is some accountability and privacy rules could be implemented/enforced. Edit: I think I might have been misundersta…

The radio link is still encrypted so an attacker won’t get much out of it. In fact, it’s a lot easier to tap a cable, DSL or fiber line (which operate without any encryption unless you put IPSec on top manually) than a mesh link which would be using WPA2 Enterprise with perfect forward secrecy.

Is it encrypted?

https://nycmesh.net/faq/#secure

That seems to suggest otherwise? Unless I don’t understand what network traffic within the mesh means.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#72

Post by nycmesh »

walrus01 wrote: post #66
nycmesh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/395853 NYC Mesh What is your problem??

You're wasting your own time and those of your "customers" unless you have at least $750,000 to establish a serious presence, in my opinion. Amateur-hour WISP stuff is fine in a rural area. You're pretending to be a highly reliable capable ISP, and will eventually either overextend yourselves, run out of rubes to fund you as a nonprofit, or once you reach a size much bigger than you are now, get stomped on and oblite…

We are already self funded by individual donations. Every question I answer seems to bring up new objections.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#73

Post by walrus01 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #67
walrus01 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digi Desert LLC, which existed in 2010? Looks like that's the AS of some entity that predates the existence of your project and current public relations effort. You announce a whopping total of two v4 /24. Kudos for having enough clue to know that you needed to establish a presence at a major IX, and actually doing it, because it looks like you're adding peers. But your actual network presence is minuscule. How do yo…

Your original post was interesting because it raised legitimate questions about their operation. They answered those questions. This follow up comes across as though you've drawn a conclusion and are now arguing towards that predetermined conclusion while ignoring the additional information provided. Plus your argument has kind of devolved from talking about specific concerns to throwing criticisms at the wall to see…

I'm sharing some harsh reality with them: The ISP market in NYC is highly competitive. If they want to be serious about it, it's not going to work as a nonprofit. I'm trying to tell them bluntly about what sort of infrastructure their competitors operate so that they can get an idea of the actual capital expenditure requirements involved in architecting/engineering a MAN-scale, five nines ISP composed of point to point wireless links.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#74

Post by koolba »

walrus01 wrote: post #46

Actual ISP network engineer here: I'm sure these people are having fun and all, but it's insignificant in the larger scheme of things. (correction to original post: I did not at first see an ASN for them, or announcements of their own IP space. They have an ASN and announce two /24s, and peer at one physical location in metro NYC). Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment. This part…

> Actual, reliable internet costs real money, both in the salaries of people to engineer and architect it, salaries for 24x7x365 clued-in NOC staff, equipment, salaries and expenses for field technicians to build it.

A phone network that objectively sucked compared to AT&T and Verizon but was boatloads cheaper seems to have worked out just fine for T-Mobile. I can see the same thing working for this. $20/mo for an internet connection that works most of the time would have plenty of customers. I'm not familiar with the wireless tech involved so no clue how well this scales outside of high density cities but within some place like NYC there's plenty of people that would pay for this over $50+/mo (min!) to the local cable companies.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#75

Post by quxbar »

walrus01 wrote: post #58
nycmesh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our ASN is AS395853. Our peering info is here- https://nycmesh.net/peering/ We have v4 and v6 space. Our uptime when connecting to supernode1 is significantly better than Time Warner Cable as many of our members have reported. We are already established. This is something we have already done! It isn't impossible. Our IXP is DE-CIX, the worlds biggest IXP. We are currently in one data-center/IXP and talking to a few…

Digi Desert LLC, which existed in 2010? Looks like that's the AS of some entity that predates the existence of your project and current public relations effort. You announce a whopping total of two v4 /24. Kudos for having enough clue to know that you needed to establish a presence at a major IX, and actually doing it, because it looks like you're adding peers. But your actual network presence is minuscule. How do yo…

I'm pretty sure the real secret is ensuring your customers have no alternatives. Spectrum may or may not have all of that gear and they still have given me outage and throttling issues for years. I don't want somebody to compete with the terrible ISPs out there today - they're fundamentally the wrong kind of organization. I'd rather have honestly crappy service than an opaque monopoly dictating my access.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#76

Post by gowld »

nycmesh wrote: post #25
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #10

This stuff is cool and maybe useful in far-fetched scenarios, but it's not going to replace ISPs anytime soon. Mesh networks don't make economic sense in most circumstances. Also, I'm guessing that users share the same IP address, which can cause problems. Plus, if one user is doing something illegal and causes the supernode to get shutdown then no one on the mesh network will have access to the internet. Addition: q…

We are replacing ISPs in NYC for our members. This is now, not the future. The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs. All networks, including us, add to this expensive infrastructure. The difference with our infrastructure is it is owned and shared by members.

Sure thing. And I offer free WiFi access to all my household members, houseguests, and next-door neighbors. The main thing holding me back is scaling up the number of installs too. I'm hoping a billion dollars of donations can square that away for me and my wider-area neighbor.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#77

Post by JustSomeNobody »

walrus01 wrote: post #66
nycmesh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/395853 NYC Mesh What is your problem??

You're wasting your own time and those of your "customers" unless you have at least $750,000 to establish a serious presence, in my opinion. Amateur-hour WISP stuff is fine in a rural area. You're pretending to be a highly reliable capable ISP, and will eventually either overextend yourselves, run out of rubes to fund you as a nonprofit, or once you reach a size much bigger than you are now, get stomped on and oblite…

This thread has to be one of the most overtly hostile threads I've read on HN in a while. What is your concern here? Why do you seem to feel they shouldn't even be trying?

What ISP are you affiliated with?

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#78

Post by callil »

notyourday wrote: post #7

I'm in NYC. I know a few people who played with it. It barely works. I'm all for this kind of tech solutions, but for crying out loud pretending that this is a replacement for ISPs in NYC really discredits techies.

I manage 3 nodes in brooklyn and the speeds are ~150mbps. It's so reliable that no spot has a backup connection so it is acting just as that - an ISP. I don't see how the ambition is a discredit to techies (lol).

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#79

Post by gowld »

nycmesh wrote: post #29
notyourday wrote: post #7

I'm in NYC. I know a few people who played with it. It barely works. I'm all for this kind of tech solutions, but for crying out loud pretending that this is a replacement for ISPs in NYC really discredits techies.

Our average speeds connecting to our supernodes is around 100Mbps. I'm not sure what you are referring to.

What's the throughput?

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#80

Post by nycmesh »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #64
nycmesh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are upvoting [things that are not true about us]

> you are upvoting nonsense I don't think this is a helpful reply. Since it sounds like you're associated with the project, can you address some of the specific concerns mentioned, like reliability? Do you disagree that hundreds of thousands of dollars are required for five nines connectivity? Do you disagree that that level of reliability is required for your customers etc.

No you don't need hundreds of thousands. You do need tens of thousands. We've had no downtime this year at supernode1. Yes reliability is a big priority, but it is not a big priority for the big ISPs in NYC. Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) has barely two nines. In Manhattan it would go down in the East Village after every large storm. We are already providing faster more reliable connections than this.
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