[Ron Paul voice]
It's happeniiiiinnnnng
'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
121–130 of 237 posts
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#122This stuff is cool and maybe useful in far-fetched scenarios, but it's not going to replace ISPs anytime soon. Mesh networks don't make economic sense in most circumstances. Also, I'm guessing that users share the same IP address, which can cause problems. Plus, if one user is doing something illegal and causes the supernode to get shutdown then no one on the mesh network will have access to the internet. Addition: q…
We are replacing ISPs in NYC for our members. This is now, not the future. The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs. All networks, including us, add to this expensive infrastructure. The difference with our infrastructure is it is owned and shared by members.
> The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs.
So the main thing holding you back is time, money, resources, access, customers, and logistics?
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google did not fail at starting an ISP. They decided that the ROI for doing individual residential home FTTH was not worth it, considering the cost per house passed. Then they went and bought Webpass, which has a totally different condo/apartment based business model, which has been wildly successful. Starting a small ISP based out of extreme dissatisfaction with huge, evil incumbents is something that I encourage an…
> At NYC salaries? In a greenfield scenario, I could easily spend $900,000 a year in just payroll and benefits I kind of don't understand what you're getting at here. They're a nonprofit. The majority of their work is coming from volunteers. They aren't paying New York salaries. This is like going to Linus and saying "You can't possibly expect Linux to be sustainable - do you have any idea how much money Microsoft pa…
> The majority of their work is coming from volunteers.
> the difference is that people and companies donate their time/money because they want the project to succeed.
And that volunteering time and energy are probably valuable then, especially if they can do the work of a real ISP.
I think one real question to ask though is what is actually more efficient—donating volunteer time and energy to a nonprofit, or donating money and having that nonprofit hire professionals instead?
GP doesn't sound like he is saying a volunteer mesh network literally cannot work, just pointing out that a network is inherently expensive to run, whether it is 'fully accounted for' on a payroll, or merely hidden in the cost of 'free' volunteering effort. It's an open question of whether asking for people's time or their money is better in the long run. Capitalism tends to suppose the latter.
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#124I really don't understand the HN reaction here. Why all the presumed negativity? This is tech, the best encyclopedia in the world is built on volunteer work and donations. A genius builds the de-facto version control system on his own in 3 months for fun. 2 guys in a garage build revolutionize search. Certainly there are logistical differences between these things, but I don't understand why one would assert with con…
I love HN but there is a very healthy level of suspicion for developing different ways of attacking already-solved problems. May not be the best example but look at the comments on announcing Dropbox. Doing > Wanting to do in nearly every instance. So to borrow from popular culture, Just Do It, and Haters Gonna Hate.
Yeah, I just figured that a pro-anonymity, pro-startup, pro-charity, anti-monopoly, anti-comcast community would see this as a win on all fronts.
At least that was my read on this community.
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're wasting your own time and those of your "customers" unless you have at least $750,000 to establish a serious presence, in my opinion. Amateur-hour WISP stuff is fine in a rural area. You're pretending to be a highly reliable capable ISP, and will eventually either overextend yourselves, run out of rubes to fund you as a nonprofit, or once you reach a size much bigger than you are now, get stomped on and oblite…
This thread has to be one of the most overtly hostile threads I've read on HN in a while. What is your concern here? Why do you seem to feel they shouldn't even be trying? What ISP are you affiliated with?
We bypass traditional ISPs by connecting directly at an internet exchange point (DE-CIX IXP) and peering with other networks. This is basically how the internet is formed, by networks peering with each other. We don't need this ISP layer.
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#126Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#127"Anti-authority" seems like a pretty good marketing campaign that WISPs have figured out.
I mean: good for them.
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
This thread has to be one of the most overtly hostile threads I've read on HN in a while. What is your concern here? Why do you seem to feel they shouldn't even be trying? What ISP are you affiliated with?
We bypass traditional ISPs by connecting directly at an internet exchange point (DE-CIX IXP) and peering with other networks. This is basically how the internet is formed, by networks peering with each other. We don't need this ISP layer.
I think the OP was asking what ISP walrus1 works for, given they've already identified themselves as a network engineer.
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#129I really don't understand the HN reaction here. Why all the presumed negativity? This is tech, the best encyclopedia in the world is built on volunteer work and donations. A genius builds the de-facto version control system on his own in 3 months for fun. 2 guys in a garage build revolutionize search. Certainly there are logistical differences between these things, but I don't understand why one would assert with con…
There is a difference between providing virtual service to providing physical service. There is also a difference between providing a non critical business like wikipedia to providing a critical service which needs to work reliably all the time and the two people who invented a search engine in a garage are charging for it using ads. So people predict that this service will have to charge in some stage and will become like any other ISP only with some technology that does't have much advantage over technologies the other ISPs are using now.
Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are replacing ISPs in NYC for our members. This is now, not the future. The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs. All networks, including us, add to this expensive infrastructure. The difference with our infrastructure is it is owned and shared by members.
> The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs. So the main thing holding you back is time, money, resources, access, customers, and logistics?
Mainly logistics. We've had a huge influx of people wanting to be connected since December, so we've had to add stuff like a ticketing system, inventory tracking and also we're training people to lead installs. It's normal scaling problems that fast growing organizations have.