Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 439 posts

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

#161

Post by vaidhy »

andrewallbright wrote: post #84

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

There are extremely competent programmers (10x) like there are outstanding players in sports and music. They do have an outsized impact on the projects they work on. However, they are also extremely rare. The problem, IMHO, comes from cult-startups where they think they can (a) identify these people in an interview (b) build a team of only 10x programmers.

This results in (c) calling a whole lot of average programmers they hired as 10x programmers because of (a). After all, they are smart and their interview process is infallible.

So, if you meet one of those rare folks, enjoy the intellectual banter :).

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

#162

Post by hammock »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #9

A couple of fun facts about this guy: His little ISP is AS267, which is a SHOCKINGLY low number. That's like.. the ISP equiv of a 4 digit slashdot id, or owning something like sodapop.com. He's also one of the authors of RFC 5575, which is a pretty big deal in the DDoS world.

What is an ASN and what advantage is there to have a low number?

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

#163

Post by cptcobalt »

tryptophan wrote: post #136

Crazy idea, but why can't we just buy some armored cable and let it lie on the ground? People can bury it themselves if it really bothers them. A lot of these people dont seem rich enough to justify caring about it being pretty...

I think it's acceptable to expect better. If we didn't, we'd probably have surface level sewer, water, fiber, cable, etc; all laying about, probably causing trip hazards. And these industries would probably lobby and set archaic and asinine rules for how the burial happens, and make you pay 10x the cost of what it really takes to use one of their approved contractors, because you're indulging in the luxury of having hidden basic-needs infrastructure.

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

#164

Post by changoplatanero »

hammock wrote: post #162
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #9

A couple of fun facts about this guy: His little ISP is AS267, which is a SHOCKINGLY low number. That's like.. the ISP equiv of a 4 digit slashdot id, or owning something like sodapop.com. He's also one of the authors of RFC 5575, which is a pretty big deal in the DDoS world.

What is an ASN and what advantage is there to have a low number?

vanity

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

#165

Post by jonhohle »

shakezula wrote: post #155
guywithahat wrote: post #145

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.

Not only that, but he’s providing a much higher level of service for a significantly smaller cost than ISPs that have been given billions over several decades and have yet to reach the customers he’s reaching.

My biggest fear for him is that comcast will lobby to be able to sell subscriptions on his infrastructure (because competition!), put him out of business and then screw his existing subscribers.

edit: s/provoking/providing (autocorrect)

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

#166

Post by vaidhy »

_wolfie_ wrote: post #54
LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation isn't at 10% but it seems like investing in infrastructure is a good idea. If we needed to pinch pennies we could start at the bloated military budget

Right, in the middle of war with Russia and with war with China on the horizon. Great idea.

When is the time US has not been at war? Maybe, we are inverting cause and effect here.. US is always at war because the budget allows for it?

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

#167

Post by welterde »

jeremyjh wrote: post #153
gvb wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The subsidy is for the company though and not this specific fiber run, which was a sort of worst-case. The company is quite limited in geographical scope, so they got a fairly small subsidy, while Starlink is much larger in scope and thus got a larger one.

Also that fiber run will remain useful for far longer than the Starlink satellites. It's pretty much a one-time cost with negligible operating cost, whereas Starlink will have to continuously keep launching satellites to keep it running.

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

#168

Post by ericd »

bombcar wrote: post #81
alistairSH wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend did this at his farm in central VA, but for power line instead of fiber. It was previously above ground, unsightly, and occasionally damaged by trees. He dug the trench from the road and had the power company lay the wire in it and make connections at each end. I don't remember the total numbers, but he saved thousands by doing the dig himself (with rented equipment) vs paying the power company to manage it.…

Yep, depending on the lay of the land doing the grunt work can save thousands or tens of thousands - if you have the company do it they'll almost certainly bring in a crew of 4 or 5 with a underground "hog" machine that's supposed to work perfectly but doesn't actually so the backhoe appears and then they cut into a buried utility line that was marked but backhoes can't read and then you wait for the power company to…

lol sounds like this might not just be a hypothetical scenario for you.

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

#169

Post by gowld »

treesknees wrote: post #152
guywithahat wrote: post #145

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.

> When the federal government money became available, the county issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking contractors to wire up addresses "that were known to be unserved or underserved based on the existing survey," he said.

The world is full of small businesses doing good work in exchange for pay. theVC bubble isn't everything.

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

#170

Post by gowld »

westpfelia wrote: post #139
Bloating wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is a lot of legal graft in society

Dont drive on roads I guess? Would hate to be apart of graft.

That's a good idea. Personal cars are a graft paid by the rest of society.
Post reply on HN