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

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

#91

Post by walrus01 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #89

walrus01 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did not fail at starting an ISP. They decided that the ROI for doing individual residential home FTTH was not worth it, considering the cost per house passed. Then they went and bought Webpass, which has a totally different condo/apartment based business model, which has been wildly successful. Starting a small ISP based out of extreme dissatisfaction with huge, evil incumbents is something that I encourage an…

> Google did not fail at starting an ISP. They decided that the ROI for doing individual residential home FTTH was not worth it, considering the cost per house passed. ~Kind of sounds like it failed.~ Apparently Google Fiber is starting to expand again. I still think it serves as a good case against why the current climate makes it near-impossible for a "plucky upstart [with vc funding]" to start a large, traditional…

> The issue is that people are fed up with the large ISPs and that the large ISPs have made it all-but-impossible to start an ISP.

that's the thing, they haven't. Not in the service territory this new nonprofit is operating in. There's something like 14 different ISPs which overlap service area with them in their part of New York City, none of which are big nationwide Comcast or Centurylink sized entities.

What they're trying to do on a shoestring is on super hard mode, they've picked the single most competitive market in the entire USA to try to compete with independent, non-LEC, non-major-telco companies that do have a few million dollars to throw at their own facilities-based network infrastructure.

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

#92

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #82

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 ISP network engineer her So then you must intimately understand the depth of the lies and anti-consumer business practices that spur such networks. > Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment. 5-9s is 5 minutes of downtime a year. I've never had a commercial, let alone residential ISP hit that mark. > Actual, reliable internet costs real money, both in the salaries of people…

It’s pretty hilarious to hear a cable network engineer get on a soapbox about reliability.

As an enterprise customer, I only get 99% commitment, and frequently get credits. They’ve improved it in the last 5 years, but our whole region had an outage when the single fiber connecting to their core routers was cut by a house fire.

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

#93

Post by jimktrains2 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #90

walrus01 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did not fail at starting an ISP. They decided that the ROI for doing individual residential home FTTH was not worth it, considering the cost per house passed. Then they went and bought Webpass, which has a totally different condo/apartment based business model, which has been wildly successful. Starting a small ISP based out of extreme dissatisfaction with huge, evil incumbents is something that I encourage an…

Google fiber had over 450,000 customers and was thus several times Webpass size when they acquired them. They have continually grown over time and by any reasonable measure very successful.

> Google Fiber to cut jobs and halt expansion of US internet service

> Ambitious – and expensive – high-speed internet program will stop plans to expand to new cities as business reportedly under pressure to cut costs

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/26/google-fi...

Although it looks like they've started expanding again as per https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-rise-and-fall-and-r.... So perhaps I counted them out too early. However, even with the backing of Google their success isn't guaranteed and they've had many non-technical, not-purely-financial problems along the way.

I still think it's a good example of why a "plucky upstart [with VC funding]" isn't able to waltz in and build a large, traditional ISP in the current environment.

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

#94

Post by vermontdevil » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

nycmesh wrote: post #65

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…

I don't think you get what we are doing at all! Anyway we are in 375 Pearl with a lease and it has most of your long list, diesel generators etc. We compete on price (donation only)

Keep up the good work. Love these kind of projects!

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

#95

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:30 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #84

peterwwillis wrote: post #15

Mesh networks are too complicated to be reliable over a long term. They are useful in disaster situations or places with no infrastructure. Project Byzantium ( http://project-byzantium.org/faqs/ ) is a great way to quickly stand up a mesh network as a temporary thing.

> Mesh networks are too complicated to be reliable over a long term I mean, this isn't true. I'm not even sure to begin. Perhaps specific points instead of nebulous nonsense would help us better understand you.

Sure. The protocols, the routing, the interference, backend and gear maintenance, regulatory requirements, expense and complexity of multiple WAN links, and ad hoc setup of said links in an uneven physical environment. To say nothing of managing uneven customer load.

Running fiber is expensive but less complicated and less error prone. And unless I missed something, there aren't any initiatives by big companies (that obviously don't want extra expense and headache) to go mesh. Big ISPs use their customer nodes as wifi hotspots but that is obviously not mesh.

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

#96

Post by ixiebosoeb » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #73

Someone1234 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poi…

Once upon a time there was a company called Microsoft. They hated free software! It costs millions to write an OS! Why is it free?? They hated the free guys so much. Then the free software got better. It got so much better than what you would have to pay for from Microsoft! Eventually Microsoft said oh well, and built the free software into their product. They even contributed back to that free software and everyone learned that you can have free and paid and as long as we all contribute the world is a better place. Thank you.

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

#97

Post by Rjevski » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #71

Rjevski wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like anyone with access to the mesh has the keys to decrypt anyone's traffic, but it's still encrypted from an outsider's point of view.

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

#98

Post by master-litty » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #73

Someone1234 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poi…

The reality is harsh but the discussion doesn't have to be.

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

#99

Post by mediocrejoker » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

nycmesh wrote: post #80

mediocrejoker wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thanks. This seems like a cool project.

Do you know what the cost per user is currently?

What frequency do the point-to-point links run at? Have you considered using some sort of lower frequency packet radio for longer distance links, perhaps to other nearby nodes?

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

#100

Post by cimmanom » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #87

cimmanom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building owners? Before you get anywhere near the buildings, you have to dig up the streets to run cabling around the city. Any idea how much that costs?

Don't you have ducts? How about sewers?

The city's network of utilities long predates any sort of central authority managing them. Each utility maintains its own network of infrastructure, independent of any other; most of them are not mapped, and where mapping has been done it's not shared with the municipalities or other utilities, let alone publicly available. There are no ducts set up for general usage.

And the sewers a) aren't human-travelable like the old ones in Paris or parts of London; and b) overflow in heavy rains. You probably don't want to run electrical wiring through them.