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NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

nycmesh.net

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Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#71

Post by toomuchtodo »

debaserab2 wrote: post #67
fixthenet wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josh from the Community Broadband Project here. Would be happy to answer any questions about our mission and progress in LA. I'm no regular, but we just got a bunch of traffic from Hacker News and I'm here to spread the gospel. NYC Mesh is doing very cool stuff--we wish them the best. We're in touch with a few other community ISPs who are growing organically in competition against big incumbent ISPs. It's inspiring.…

You might be the totally wrong person to ask this and I apologize if this is a naive question. Is there a way a lay person (non network-engineer) can somehow get involved with their community to help get this started? I'd love to see something like this get started where I live (Minneapolis) and would be willing to help in any capacity I could.

Check out https://www.muninetworks.org.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#72

Post by skip_region »

So I have been toying with spooling one of these up for the past 6 months. I live too far uptown to get line of sight for their supernode, but I do have not 1, but three LinkNYC kiosks on my corner that offer gigabit for free. Wanted to test out using their LinkNYC option. Was going to use wireguard as a vpn backend on a router.

The only downside for me is that I need to "re-log in" to google once a month. The wife would not be amused. Plus, we are currently paying for 200/20 for about $45 from spectrum.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#73

Post by fixthenet »

instaheat wrote: post #69
fixthenet wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josh from the Community Broadband Project here. Would be happy to answer any questions about our mission and progress in LA. I'm no regular, but we just got a bunch of traffic from Hacker News and I'm here to spread the gospel. NYC Mesh is doing very cool stuff--we wish them the best. We're in touch with a few other community ISPs who are growing organically in competition against big incumbent ISPs. It's inspiring.…

Hi Josh. Forgive my ignorance, I am honestly just curious. I took a look at your test area on your website, and it is filled with homes/condos that are in the millions of dollars. What practical reason would someone that could afford a home that costs this much need to utilize your service? Is this area essentially exactly that, a test area, and not intended to be the location you deploy in first?

Our intended initial deployment was in Culver City, off a tower that had reach to Culver and city district 10. We met with LA city, Culver City, and did a lot of prep in that direction. Unfortunately, the critical path to fiber was delayed in construction for a year, with another year to go. In addition, we were thrown a curve ball with a tower engineering study prior to that tower's use that would eat up a sizable portion of funding.

Right around this time we were offered funding from WeTransfer as part of their Net Neutrality campaign, but under the obligation serve their area in Venice. We decided to go for it, and use that as a launching point for a proof of concept network. While not ideal for obvious reasons, it goes a long way towards proving our tech and business model. Our hope is that we can grow out the network towards Culver and CD10, acquire some critical infrastructure there, and then push east across the West Adams/Jefferson Park corridor.

It is a true deployment--we don't plan to uproot the Venice service, but it may end up being an arm of the network as opposed to the core in the future. One of the key goals of our project is to free low income neighborhoods from stone age technology by offering broadband speeds far above DSL for a fair price.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#74

Post by fixthenet »

fixthenet wrote: post #73
instaheat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Josh. Forgive my ignorance, I am honestly just curious. I took a look at your test area on your website, and it is filled with homes/condos that are in the millions of dollars. What practical reason would someone that could afford a home that costs this much need to utilize your service? Is this area essentially exactly that, a test area, and not intended to be the location you deploy in first?

Our intended initial deployment was in Culver City, off a tower that had reach to Culver and city district 10. We met with LA city, Culver City, and did a lot of prep in that direction. Unfortunately, the critical path to fiber was delayed in construction for a year, with another year to go. In addition, we were thrown a curve ball with a tower engineering study prior to that tower's use that would eat up a sizable p…

I should add that it'll take us some time to tap into the federal programs and grants to truly make this incredible for low income neighborhoods. Venice has been serving us well as a means to get our sea legs, so to speak. Starting there won't impact our plans for closing the technology gap where it exists.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#75

Post by bogomipz »

Does anyone know who NYCMesh peers with? From their FAQ:

"Are you an Internet Service Provider (ISP)? No, we are not an ISP, we are a community that shares ownership of a network. Collectively we have our own internet connection at our “supernode”. Also some of our members share their own internet connections.

Our network peers with other networks at an internet exchange point and provides access to the internet without traditional ISPs. We are a non-profit project of the New York chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-NY)."

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#76

Post by hyperpallium »

What about a mesh that is not connected to the internet?

These days, people use the internet like TV or radio: many consume, few produce.

What about a "community" mesh, where e.g. a small town has websites, email, webservices, gaming hosts etc for shops, businesses, sporting, clubs, council, local news and social media for that town?

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#77

Post by wetpaws »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #56
benwilber0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would i go through all this effort just to let some stranger torrent iron man on my internet account

Collective action can give all of us, including ourselves, more freedom. This isn’t about torrents, it’s about the freedom to use the internet without surveillance and monitoring of our every move.

Obligatory tragedy of commons reference

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#78

Post by superkuh »

hyperpallium wrote: post #76

What about a mesh that is not connected to the internet? These days, people use the internet like TV or radio: many consume, few produce. What about a " community " mesh, where e.g. a small town has websites, email, webservices, gaming hosts etc for shops, businesses, sporting, clubs, council, local news and social media for that town?

That place still exists on the internet. The 90s are alive on Tor.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#79

Post by m1573rp34130dy »

pitaj wrote: post #63
m1573rp34130dy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortutnately i post too fast, and dont care about karma... I cant say ive ever downvoted someone over meaningfuly criticical review... ...lower frequency means lower bandwith...wifi frequencies have trouble bouncing around in fog penetrating leaves or even a couple thickness of drywall this is why submarines use ELF... where will you run your fibre optic? on the utility poles, or buried in the ground? how do you co…

The best way to do it is probably laser+radio with additional fiber on high-traffic routes. That way you normally have the bandwidth of laser and radio combined, with slower "just radio" as a backup when there's bad weather, and the fiber bandwidth for backbone connections.

sorry about the delay, im still posting too fast... ...we dont exactly have permission to run our own hauls on corporate/municipal utility poles or trench glass across private property or public R.OW.s radio spectrum is regulated and off the shelf limited so as to minimize the common users ability to step on licensed spectrum...so we have to go geurilla on the long haul...LOS links can be pointed to a multitude of Tx/Rx stations not just one...this is advantageous when the current environment is legislatively hostile...

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#80

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

Are the organizers in this thread? I wonder if you folks were aware of cjdns, and if so why the decision not to use it? I've been thinking about setting up a cjdns-based mesh network in Philly but I don't think I have line-of-sight to any geeks.
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