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Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

arstechnica.com

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Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#151

...And they say 10x engineers are a myth.

It's a coping mechanism like lying on the couch watching the Olympics and getting angry that some people are able to push themselves to incredible feats instead of being happy for them.

Never understood that mindset, when I see 100x engineering feats like TempleOS or αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblεs it inspires me to learn more and think outside the box.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#152

Isn't this just called starting a business? Don't get me wrong it's very cool but this just seems like the thing people should do when there isn't enough competition in the market

He did start an LLC but it's not a business in the sense that he's hiring a corporate structure around it or kicking up VC funding, or even trying to make a profit. It's admirable because how many other ISPs can you point to with this model? I can't think of any.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#153
post #48
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a private person and you choose to live deep in the country-side / on a desert / on an island / remote location / deep in the forest. Who should pay for your road, your electricity, your water, your internet connection when you are the one mostly benefiting from it ? Taxes have to be used primarily with the goal to maximize public interest, not the interests of single private persons. Perhaps a Starlink conne…

> Perhaps a Starlink connection would have been enough for them and perfectly fine if it's a single family. Oh the irony... Starlink is also tapping (federal) government subsidies to provide internet service to rural areas. Tapping government subsidies is a very important part of Starlink's plan to become profitable. Ref: "SpaceX's Starlink wins nearly $900 million in FCC subsidies to bring internet to rural areas" h…

The difference is that those investments will be usable by anyone who wants the service and can setup the antenna. Where-as a half mile fiber run to your house in the boonies can only ever be useful to you.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#154

...And they say 10x engineers are a myth.

10x engineers are a myth when it comes to productivity working within a team. There are absolutely 10x engineers when they're working on a project more or less completely solo.

There are 10x engineers on teams. They just empower everyone

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#155

Isn't this just called starting a business? Don't get me wrong it's very cool but this just seems like the thing people should do when there isn't enough competition in the market

Sure, at face value you're right about that, but I think the main difference is a lot of people don't get annoyed at , for example, Ford's customer service and turn around and start an auto manufacturer, and for most non-technical people I think they'd consider the two nearly equal in terms of feasibility and effort.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#156
post #20
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this sentiment. Taxes are levied to then pay for things such as infrastructure which this qualifies as. How else should this work?

You are a private person and you choose to live deep in the country-side / on a desert / on an island / remote location / deep in the forest. Who should pay for your road, your electricity, your water, your internet connection when you are the one mostly benefiting from it ? Taxes have to be used primarily with the goal to maximize public interest, not the interests of single private persons. Perhaps a Starlink conne…

You should look up the area that Jared is building his fiber network. These homes are probably 10 minutes from the University of Michigan. It's not a remote country-side, it's just far enough out of reach of Comcast that they won't build out. I understand your point if someone decides to build their house on 20 acres of forest, but this is not that. That's why we need these programs.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#157
post #66

This seems like a fun project to work on but what is the financial game here? Does he invest in building the network, operate at a loss and then sell to someone like Comcast? I assume building a remote fiber network that can reach 600 houses has to incur huge CapEx (way more than $2.6M right?) and at $50/mo a very long payback period. However it works, pretty awesome project, kudos.

Its a misleading title. Govt 'built ISP', this guy led the effort.

No you are incorrect. If you read the article and the original article they did in Jan 2021, the original effort was completely funded by him and his neighbors (as in they'd pay $X that will cover future monthly bills later.) This article is about how he has obtained additional government funding to supplement the efforts he was already doing on his own.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#158
post #2

> over $30,000 for each of those homes to get served This doesn't seem very efficient to me.

It isn't, but that's the norm for all internet infrastructure, both last-mile and backbone.

Since time immemorial, the gap between the amortized cost of building it, and anyone's willingness to pay for transport or transit, has been a) huge (that is, commercially insurmountable), and b) traditionally covered by one of two means:

1. Government subsidy, or

2. Attempting to offer services at the high prices necessary to recoup the investment, consequently going bust due to low volumes, selling the infrastructure for a pittance in a fire sale, and the next owner gets to offer services for prices the market is willing to tolerate. With this approach, it merely remains to find some VCs to sucker for the build phase.

It was also possible, back in the day, to run tunnels across your peers since they would announce the IXP networks at each end into their IGP, but folks got wise to that scam.

There is a variation on (2) involving anti-trust laws during M&A but it amounts to the same thing.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there three tiers of ISPs, each one buying service from the one above them. It's ISPs all the way down, and the higher up you go the more expensive the hardware to run it gets.

I feel like this could be made into an ISP Tycoon game.

Dang, as someone that enjoys Tycoons, Tactics, and Management Simulators, this really sounds fun.

Re: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

#160
post #104
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can shoot light over SM at distances up to 200km (several important caveats at this distance) and it’s very usual to see spans of between 50-80km.

Looking further you can get a UFiber OLT Terminal for $1,799 that can run 20km and support 1024 clients or 128 ONU CPEs per port. How much would a 200km switch run?

At this distance you would want a good repeater at about half point instead. Don't forget that data has to travel back and other side might not have such a strong signal
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