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New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

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Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#91

Post by buildbuildbuild »

musicale wrote: post #83

This is interesting - it says that they are connected to an internet exchange point (IXP), which means presumably they are their own AS and don't pay for peering. It makes them basically a peer of Verizon, etc.. It's a bit of a reminder of what the internet actually is - a bunch of networks connected together. If you make your own network, negotiate or purchase a piece of the IPv6 address space, and convince someone…

IX costs vary by region but in NYC you can expect around $700/m for a 10g port as a startup. Transit costs over an IX port are much higher than crossconnecting directly to a provider, but IX ports are convenient and save a lot of bandwidth cost if you’re good at building relationships.

The network engineering world is very different from software. Relationships are everything and the pricing very opaque. Often pricing and lists of “who is in the building” are even behind NDA. If you are an “eyeball network” (more downloads than uploads) your transit costs will be much cheaper if you know how to negotiate, for example.

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#92

Post by a-afterglow »

woah wrote: post #66

Shameless plug: My company Althea ( https://althea.net ) is making router firmware that makes it easy to people to set up incentivized mesh networks in their communities. It allows routers to pay each other for bandwidth which means that everyone hosting a node earns money for the packets they forward. We have 2 networks live, one in rural Oregon and one in Medellin, Colombia. Also, 4 more networks people are current…

woah

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#94

Post by cristyansv »

woah wrote: post #66

Shameless plug: My company Althea ( https://althea.net ) is making router firmware that makes it easy to people to set up incentivized mesh networks in their communities. It allows routers to pay each other for bandwidth which means that everyone hosting a node earns money for the packets they forward. We have 2 networks live, one in rural Oregon and one in Medellin, Colombia. Also, 4 more networks people are current…

Wow, can you provide more info about Medellin network ?

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#95

Post by ForHackernews »

thepete2 wrote: post #90
woah wrote: post #66

Shameless plug: My company Althea ( https://althea.net ) is making router firmware that makes it easy to people to set up incentivized mesh networks in their communities. It allows routers to pay each other for bandwidth which means that everyone hosting a node earns money for the packets they forward. We have 2 networks live, one in rural Oregon and one in Medellin, Colombia. Also, 4 more networks people are current…

That sounds awesome. How do the payments work?

50 real USD says it's some kind of cryptocurrency nonsense.

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#96

Post by corey_moncure »

chadwittman wrote: post #87
woah wrote: post #66

Shameless plug: My company Althea ( https://althea.net ) is making router firmware that makes it easy to people to set up incentivized mesh networks in their communities. It allows routers to pay each other for bandwidth which means that everyone hosting a node earns money for the packets they forward. We have 2 networks live, one in rural Oregon and one in Medellin, Colombia. Also, 4 more networks people are current…

Love the project! Why does my intuition suggest big ISPs are going to try to regulate this out of existence in the US. It's depressing.

It's already illegal twice over.

Anyone "forwarding" packets from a connection to an ISP is almost certainly in breach of contract.

Amateur packet radio service regulations state that you may not use it for applications that are available over commercial services.

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#97

Post by jnathsf »

numbers wrote: post #93

Is there something like this for San Francisco?

There is basic infrastructure for SF Mesh in place (200+ miles of municipal owned fiber + wireless nodes throughout the city). In fact I have one at my house pointed to a local public heath clinic (there are a number of non-profits and others who get free municipal mesh internet). There is def strong interest for this in SF - we held a community event and had over hundred people show up.

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#98

Post by snvzz »

CodexArcanum wrote: post #8

I've been very intrigued by their efforts for some time now. Last time I read about NYC Mesh, it sent me down a rabbit hole of research into mesh networks and what it takes to found an ISP. I'd love to replicate their efforts in NOLA, but the legal and technical hurdles are tricky! When I had looked into it, these resources had been helpful for research: Wireless Networking in the Developing world -- http://wndw.net/…

>over 35,000 active nodes and about 63,000 km of wireless links (as of July 2018)

That's impressive.

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#99

Post by Kuinox »

ForHackernews wrote: post #95
thepete2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds awesome. How do the payments work?

50 real USD says it's some kind of cryptocurrency nonsense.

Well it looks like a rare good application for a cryptocurrency.

Re: New York City Neighbors Build Cheaper Way to Connect to Web

#100

Post by nz21 »

woah wrote: post #55
hanniabu wrote: post #48

This is a great use case for crypto. You can earn by supporting the network and spend it to use the network. It helps the incentive layer. Those supporting the network can pay for support personnel as they grow, or there can be a network tax that goes towards this. You can also decentralize the support personnel by rewarding people that successfully answer tickets and offer a premium for when questions are answered w…

We are doing exactly this with althea.net

I've been reading https://althea.net/how-it-works and I don't quite understand one aspect:

The article says there's a "backhaul" that connects the althea network to the internet. I understand this means the community will then need just one subscription to the internet, as opposed to n, so it's cheaper. But doesn't this mean that every user in the network will experience vastly slower connection than if they had their own internet subscription?

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