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

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

#311

Post by thfuran »

reaperducer wrote: post #103
Bloating wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds more like how crony politics for personal gain works. Alternatively, you could finance the hospital, fire depart, or whatever without an middle man siphoning off "their fair share"

Alternatively, you could finance the hospital, fire depart, or whatever without an middle man siphoning off "their fair share" This has already been tried. People used to subscribe to fire service, or ambulance service. It doesn't work, and is also bad for society. If you want people to only use the things they directly pay for, and not pay for shared things through taxes, then only drive on your own driveway. Don't…

What does account age have to do with any of this?

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

#312

Post by Thetawaves »

themoonisachees wrote: post #99
_wolfie_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US aren't at war with Russia. Sure, they're helping an ally in a De facto war against Russia, but currently the us spends more on "defense" than both Russia and China combined, when it is technically at peace. In case of a war with China, are you expecting the military budget to not increase at all?

How do you stay at peace? A strong deterrence.

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

#313

Post by DavidAdams »

mmastrac wrote: post #80
Bloating wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta pay your fair share, so it can be granted out for someone elses gain

This is literally how societies function - you contribute a small amount to the general pool, you use small amounts from the general pool. In some cases bigger chunks go for bigger works like ISPs or bridges. I certainly hope you don't want a world where every road, bridge and traffic light is independently owned.

Yeah, wait until you find out that some of your tax dollars go to pay for bridges you never use or to bomb people who never personally insulted you.

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

#314

Post by renewiltord »

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?

It's an NFT representing early participation on the Internet.

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

#315

Post by Thetawaves »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #213
vaidhy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Say it this way. Tomorrow if the american security /defence budget was cut to 0, do you think the rest of the world will storm/attack Americans because they have an eternal blood thirst for them? Don't they have their own problems to deal with? This is the problem with mitary and security infra of any country. They keep the bogeyman alive because their paychecks depend on it.

This is literally exactly what would happen. It need not be blood thirst motivation; simple profit dynamics are enough to ensure this outcome.

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

#316

Post by treis »

kevin_nisbet wrote: post #308
supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

I'm not convinced this is the case. The big thing that makes telco's such profit making machines is that wires in the ground are generally a large capital expense that doesn't really provide a great marketplace for competition. But once you've got that infrastructure, it's hard to duplicate. The rest of the equipment and employees relatively aren't that expensive. So the power is on the provider here, there isn't rea…

Telcos aren't really that great of profit making machines. It's a capital intensive business that requires a lot of scale before making money.

Look at what this guy is doing. Many millions to get 600 customers paying <$100 a month.

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

#317

Post by qball »

voidmain0001 wrote: post #230
capableweb wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs for internet in the US still surprises me, how on earth can it be so expensive?! I understand some countries, but in the US, it seems high costs are because "because we can", not because it has to be like that. In comparison, you get 1 Gbps symmetric fiber connection in most countries in Europe for under ~$30/month. In some, you even get it for under $10/month (like Romania, which has surprisingly awesome i…

As much as I hate the high price where I live (Canada) I assume that Internet and wireless phone service is expensive because the country is so large that the build out cost is expensive. The USA is running 3/4 in the list of largest countries by land area and Canada is 2nd[1]. Maybe I'm naive in my thinking but I have family in a teeny tiny European country and they all have 1Gb fibre optic service for cheap-cheap.…

>because the country is so large that the build out cost is expensive

Nah, that's just their excuse; most of the country's population lives in urban areas and they don't even bother running fiber or setting up cell towers in more rural areas aside from maybe along the main highways.

Remember, SaskTel (and MTS, before the government sold it to Bell) doesn't have a problem with charging reasonable rates or building out fiber (and turning a profit at the same time) and those are the lowest-density parts of the country. So no, the telcos aren't telling the truth.

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

#318

Post by CliffStoll »

jquery wrote: post #202

Meanwhile I live in San Francisco and I still can’t get affordable symmetric gigabit fiber internet to my home.

2 years ago, Sonic pulled fiber in my neighborhood in the East Bay. Gigabit is $65/month (including taxes/fees + 1 unused phone line). Very happy with Sonic!

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

#319

Post by pessimizer »

supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

I'm going to skate past the fact that difficult customers and maintenance aren't why monopolies are expensive, in fact they're the things that are most amenable to economies of scale, so bigger gets cheaper.

The real question is: why does he have to get larger than the 600 homes in his nearby rural area, ever? Why does his goal have to be to defeat and replace Comcast rather than to supply internet service to his neighbors?

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

#320

Post by supernova87a »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #266
supernova87a wrote: post #241

I greatly respect the initiative and scrappy-ness of someone doing this. And the legacy providers are clearly sitting on their monopoly position in a way that makes their pathetic alternative so starkly unattractive. But isn't it also true that once his network grows above a certain customer base (and gets into the maintenance phase), he will start to see all the effects that eat into being able to do this cheaply? N…

> -- customers who don't behave as well or kindly as before Easy. Refuse service. You aren't legally obligated to offer your service to assholes. Any business has the right to do or not do business with whoever they want, provided they’re not refusing service for a reason that violates local, state, or federal law. > -- customers who need 24 hour customer service Also easy. You are under no obligation to meet peoples…

> Easy. Refuse service. You aren't legally obligated to offer your service to assholes. Any business has the right to do or not do business with whoever they want, provided they’re not refusing service for a reason that violates local, state, or federal law.

Then isn't this a point against the scalability / feasibility of this idea working broadly for others or becoming a model for replacing dumb telcos?

If part of the reason telcos are the way they are is because they have to serve everyone, and at some point if you run a service like this you will run into that requirement, then you will too become like a telco because of those obligations. And this is just one example of a factor that starts to matter.

I try to help out in my HOA of 25 people to manage the utilities, infrastructure, landscaping, and even with this small a group people are uncooperative and 1-2 people are constantly questioning and threatening to sue if we don't do what they say. Hundreds/thousands of people is even more a nightmare.

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