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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

#111

Post by nycmesh »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #99
nycmesh wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Our recurring costs are only for the lease at supernode1, which is around $1000/month. Divide that by our member node count (158) multiplied by users of each node ~4, 1000/(158*4)gives you under $2/month per user. Members usually pay for their own routers so that isn't included. To set up the supernode was about a $10K one-off charge for install fees, servers and antennas.

DE-CIX, our IXP, donated bandwidth to us, and we have transit also donated from Packet Host and WebAir. We actually pay nothing for bandwidth. Probably one day we will pay but it is not that expensive if you do this at an IXP and use peering.

We have an AirFiber pair that is 24Ghz, but all of our sectors are 5Ghz wifi.

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

#112

Post by nycmesh »

quiet_obrserver wrote: post #106
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…

So what's the Wifi NAME in Manhattan?

The public access point SSIDs are usually "-NYC Mesh-" or "nycmesh" followed by location.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by nycmesh »

Paul-ish wrote: post #61
nycmesh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very cool. Is this a customer coop or a non-profit (or something else)?

It's a non-profit

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

#115

Post by neuromantik8086 »

ixiebosoeb wrote: post #96
walrus01 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Once upon a time there was a chipmaker named Intel. Sun decided to open source its SPARC architecture. Other folks tried to design their own FOSS CPU architectures. Intel still dominates.

FOSS zealots like to point to the success of Linux over Windows (which is restricted to the server market, I might add), but there's little evidence that the FOSS philosophy is effective when it comes to physical infrastructure. Software requires bytes and labor. Bytes are cheap and labor can be donated or paid for by companies. Hardware requires fabs and factories, which are expensive.

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

#116

Post by nycmesh »

walrus01 wrote: post #81
nycmesh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are a hybrid of mesh, p2p and point to multi-point (sector antennas). Whatever is most appropriate to give the best connection for reasonable price.

Considering the 5100 to 5850 MHz band noise floor in metro NYC, it's a minor miracle that outdoor, roof mounted, PtMP 802.11ac based systems work at all. (Or Cambium PMP450i in the same bands, etc).

Yes the noise floor is bad, but we get about a 2 mile range which covers a huge amount of people in Manhattan. The Ubiquiti sector antennas use TDMA so it is not standard 802.11ac.

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

#117

Post by cabaalis »

zug_zug wrote: post #107

I really don't understand the HN reaction here. Why all the presumed negativity? This is tech, the best encyclopedia in the world is built on volunteer work and donations. A genius builds the de-facto version control system on his own in 3 months for fun. 2 guys in a garage build revolutionize search. Certainly there are logistical differences between these things, but I don't understand why one would assert with con…

I love HN but there is a very healthy level of suspicion for developing different ways of attacking already-solved problems. May not be the best example but look at the comments on announcing Dropbox.

Doing > Wanting to do in nearly every instance. So to borrow from popular culture, Just Do It, and Haters Gonna Hate.

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

#119

Post by samstave »

nycmesh wrote: post #112
quiet_obrserver wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the Wifi NAME in Manhattan?

The public access point SSIDs are usually "-NYC Mesh-" or "nycmesh" followed by location.

Are you using Ubiquity HW? If not, why?

They are cheap as hell and awesome.

Actually - what you should do, is have a customer pay a fee of $100 to connect to the system - and take that $100 and buy another mesh was with each customer on boarding.

https://unifi-mesh.ubnt.com/#products

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

#120

Post by dylz »

yazr wrote: post #39
jlgaddis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for an ISP for about six and a half years. In that time, I have received I-don't-know-how-many e-mails about people torrenting and so on. I've had one conversation with a Special Agent from DHS investigating credit card fraud. Over this same period, I have given out a customer's identifying information zero times (if more than 24 hours have passed, there is a very small chance that I am able to identify t…

> if more than 24 hours have passed, there is a very > small chance that I am able to identify the customer Hmm ??? Could u please explain. I always assumed that all ISPs will store all DHCP (PPPoE? PPTP? IANANE) allocations by IP & time.

CG-NAT, NAT, etc?
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