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Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

arstechnica.com

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Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#21

Post by bobmcnamara »

mindslight wrote: post #15
boredtofears wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why comcast goes to such great lengths to ensure they own as much of your network stack as they can - in my area at least, their support is capable of fully managing your router and WiFi remotely if you're leasing their equipment. I imagine this is a great boon for their ability to provide tech support (and includes a host of other "features" that don't serve direct customer needs such as a non-optional gues…

> This leads to fun tech support calls if you use your own equipment where you're basically proving to the support underling that you know how to run your equipment for the first 20-30 minutes For analyzing support burden, I think the relevant question here is why have you even had the experience of calling tech support for a non-working connection - and that falls squarely on the non-reliability of Comcast's network…

Comcast killed my Internet during an interview video call.

Called them to ask why, and they said it was a planned outage. When was it planned, I asked? 17 minutes ago.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#22

Post by bell-cot »

teddyh wrote: post #9

I am always baffled by these things. Say there’s a huge company with a monopoly in your area. My first thought is “How did they get that monopoly? What happened to all the other people who must surely have had the idea to compete with them?” But no, these stories are always treating “Hey, let’s start a competing company!” like some revolutionary idea that nobody has thought of before, and that success is assured.

> What happened to all the other...

There's a huge gap between "had the idea" and "had all the technical skills, the $millions in capital, and the managerial ability to actually build it". Then there's the barrier of "and succeed". If you read between the article's lines a bit - these guys had loads of the first 3, yet they're still losing loads of money every month.

But, bigger picture, you have a good point. These articles are obviously cherry-picked stories, with an extremely optimistic "... and the little guy wins!" spin. Ars is writing for an audience of techies who are frustrated with crappy ISP's.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#23

Post by jeroenhd »

kube-system wrote: post #3

I've seen a few articles about folks who started an ISP and they always talk about the physical infrastructure. But in today's world where ISP ads are touting the speeds of their wifi, it really makes me wonder what the support burden ends up being like. What's the breakdown for actual ISP issues vs issues with customer equipment?

My experience from almost a decade ago, mostly in DSL land, is that most customer calls were "my WiFi doesn't reach through the solid steel wall the router is hung against" and "how do I set up my email" and maybe "I lost the password to my WiFi again". WiFi issues were especially bad when 802.11n got finalised but there were tons of "draft n" WiFi devices out there that almost followed the WiFi spec. I still shudder when I see Atheros listed in device manager.

There were things that made the ISP I worked at special, one of them being that we pretty much defaulted to having customers hook up their own DSL, which meant spending a lot of call time helping people who have no idea what an RJ11 jack is install plugs and adapters.

I've also spent a lot of time on "the password I use for my email doesn't work on my Facebook" and "my USB printer doesn't work". People don't know who to call for tech support so they try their ISP. There was also the occasional "the internet is broken" whenever the user's home page had a different theme or design as well, those usually came in waves.

Once the modem and/or router is installed, most internet services Just Work. There are outages and bad modems and the occasional bad software update to deal with, but they're a relatively low call volume compared to what customers call about.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#24

Post by FireBeyond »

boredtofears wrote: post #17
massysett wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guest wifi - Xfinity WiFi - can be disabled. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/disable-xfinity-wif...

Last I checked (years ago) it turned itself back on any time the router was power cycled.

I know for a while (I switched back to consumer a few years ago) Comcast Business let you persistently opt out, but if you opted out, you couldn't use other people's APs (either "share and get access to that network" or "don't share, and don't").

Now I just use my own customer modem.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#25

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

"Everything that we're doing is all underground."

This indicates that their local and state governments aren't (at this time) captured by the incumbent cable provider.

A captured state gov will pass laws to thwart new infra deployment, commonly written by ISP interests. A captured local gov will never approve deployment or slow-walk permitting in an attempt to bankrupt the upstart.

more explainers: New suburban fiber infrastructure means either trenching or pole hanging. The local gov issues permits for both but poles also require the cooperation of the pole owners. This last adds the PSC to the mix.

Recalcitrant pole owners are known to stall and kill infrastructure deployment - especially where going underground isn't an option. Some PSCs mandate that pole owners cooperate. Some PSCs abdicate that responsibility and are examples of regulatory capture.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#26

Post by gs17 »

nancyminusone wrote: post #19

I'm one of their customers. I often see that one green car parked down the road. It's pretty good - their provided router is locked down to hell and they're on a cgnat, but not having to deal with Comcast's 1.2tb data cap is well worth it. Checking Comcast's site now, it seems that they now offer "unlimited" data. Interesting, that option wasn't there 6 months ago. ~100 customers seems too small for the amount of eff…

> Checking Comcast's site now, it seems that they now offer "unlimited" data. Interesting, that option wasn't there 6 months ago.

It's been there since they announced the data cap. I thought the unlimited bundled with leasing their higher end hardware came first, but the email from 2016 announcing that our plan was getting the cap mentions being able to pay for unlimited.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#27

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

nancyminusone wrote: post #19

I'm one of their customers. I often see that one green car parked down the road. It's pretty good - their provided router is locked down to hell and they're on a cgnat, but not having to deal with Comcast's 1.2tb data cap is well worth it. Checking Comcast's site now, it seems that they now offer "unlimited" data. Interesting, that option wasn't there 6 months ago. ~100 customers seems too small for the amount of eff…

> I'm one of their customers. It's pretty good - their provided router is locked down to hell and they're on a cgnat

This sounds like mine. I'm guessing yours doesn't support IPv6 because most fiber providers don't.

For the router, I already build firewalls so that. I pay $10/mo to escape their cgnat.

I've also alerted them to expect regular haranguing from me about deploying IPv6. Especially since bgp.he.net shows they have a /40 allocated to themselves; it doesn't seem to be used.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#28

Post by teeray »

kube-system wrote: post #3

I've seen a few articles about folks who started an ISP and they always talk about the physical infrastructure. But in today's world where ISP ads are touting the speeds of their wifi, it really makes me wonder what the support burden ends up being like. What's the breakdown for actual ISP issues vs issues with customer equipment?

ISPs are weird: You don’t call the water department if your sink is backed up—you call a plumber. You also don’t call the electric company when you want to wire your finished basement—you hire an electrician. ISPs somehow became responsible for absolutely every aspect of consuming their service though. Why isn’t “home internet plumber” a thing?

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#29

Post by teeray »

boredtofears wrote: post #11
kube-system wrote: post #3

I've seen a few articles about folks who started an ISP and they always talk about the physical infrastructure. But in today's world where ISP ads are touting the speeds of their wifi, it really makes me wonder what the support burden ends up being like. What's the breakdown for actual ISP issues vs issues with customer equipment?

Which is why comcast goes to such great lengths to ensure they own as much of your network stack as they can - in my area at least, their support is capable of fully managing your router and WiFi remotely if you're leasing their equipment. I imagine this is a great boon for their ability to provide tech support (and includes a host of other "features" that don't serve direct customer needs such as a non-optional gues…

> proving to the support underling that you know how to run your equipment for the first 20-30 minutes

I usually speedrun this by telling them something like: I am hardwired to the modem and seeing T4s in the log.

Re: Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

#30

Post by xyst »

This is why national ISPs like Comcast have fought/lobbied tooth and nail to prevent municipal based ISPs from being created in various states (ie, Texas). Next logical step is starting a small ISP like these people have but they have the advantage of learning the skills and process (permitting with municipality) of doing this for other ISPs. There's also the capital aspect of this, which they apparently have.

> Comcast seems to have noticed, Herman said. "They've been calling our clients nonstop to try to come back to their service, offer them discounted rates for a five-year contract and so on," he said.

go figure. their monopoly/duopoly has ended, profits dropping like a rock in area, and now they want to compete.

Only billionaires and people fooled by Peter Thiel think competition is evil.

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