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'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

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Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#181

Post by bogomipz »

walrus01 wrote: post #46

Actual ISP network engineer here: I'm sure these people are having fun and all, but it's insignificant in the larger scheme of things. (correction to original post: I did not at first see an ASN for them, or announcements of their own IP space. They have an ASN and announce two /24s, and peer at one physical location in metro NYC). Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment. This part…

I have to wonder at the level of condescension in your comments. I'm wondering if it's because you actually feel threatened by this.

>"Actual ISP network engineer here: I'm sure these people are having fun and all, but it's insignificant in the larger scheme of things"

No it is actually very significant. In a past life I was also an "Actual ISP network engineer" at a large ISP. And what I can say is that large ISPs aren't exactly wellsprings of innovation. However these folks are hacking on things, solving an actual problem and seem to be having fun in the process. It's exactly this ethos that usually ends up moving the needle. Sometimes by accident. It's curious that you are so keen to poo-pooh them.

>"Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment"

There is no ISP that provides customers 5 9's of uptime. Not even for business customers. With a Time Warner or Comcast you are lucky if you get 3 9's from their network. This is what you get from "the duopoly."

>"And that's before you get into things like establishing colo at major IX points, serious core routers that cost $15k each (do you really want to deploy something in the year 2018 to take several full BGP tables that doesn't have a 4 million FIB capacity?), etc."

There a clue in the article about which IXP they're - 32 Ave of the Americas(DE-CIX.) It's one of the 3 of the most "wired" buildings in NYC. You can peer with everyone there. These people seem to have done their homework. And you don't need to buy $15K Cisco ASR any more. You can take full tables on commodity hardware running Linux and ExaBGP or BIRD. There are many CDNs and IXP's doing just that.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#182

Post by bogomipz »

nycmesh wrote: post #54
walrus01 wrote: post #46

Actual ISP network engineer here: I'm sure these people are having fun and all, but it's insignificant in the larger scheme of things. (correction to original post: I did not at first see an ASN for them, or announcements of their own IP space. They have an ASN and announce two /24s, and peer at one physical location in metro NYC). Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment. This part…

Our ASN is AS395853. Our peering info is here- https://nycmesh.net/peering/ We have v4 and v6 space. Our uptime when connecting to supernode1 is significantly better than Time Warner Cable as many of our members have reported. We are already established. This is something we have already done! It isn't impossible. Our IXP is DE-CIX, the worlds biggest IXP. We are currently in one data-center/IXP and talking to a few…

>"Our IXP is DE-CIX, the worlds biggest IXP."

Yep, DE-CIX is great and 32 Ave of the Americas is one of the most wired buildings in NYC. Great choice. Kudos on you folks, this is a great initiative. Reading this article made me happy. And I'm glad you are getting some press!

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#183

Post by jonnydubowsky »

afarrell wrote: post #137
alexandercrohde wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My reading of the negativity in this thread isn't "here is why I am opposed to your project" but rather "here is why your project seems like it will fail". The latter isn't anti-startup or pro-comcast at all.

And those commenters have a different understanding of what success is for a project like this, then the team of volunteers working on it, and the customers who are using it. The success of this project is entirely defined by those two groups. I am inspired by this project and see a great deal of "good will" value and the potential to serve as an emergency backup internet in the increasing hurricane season prone NYC floodplain is an additional value stream for sure.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#184

Post by bogomipz »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #10

This 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…

>"This 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"

Far fetched you mean like getting instantly connected to the internet for a fraction of the cost and with better bandwidth in major city?

You realize that mesh is just for the access network correct? There's still fiber between them and their transit providers. Mesh makes a lot economic sense compared to the costs of trenching and laying fiber miles.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#185

Post by stephengillie »

walrus01 wrote: post #167
jimktrains2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC, and potentially a few other urban areas, have the capability to run fiber easily. I'm also just not sure why you're acting like this. You're being simply dismissive of the project. There are many successful meshnets. You've yet to give a specific complaint about this project and have simply ranted about how they're just small, underfunded, and not a real ISP without ever actually substantiating any of that or sp…

NYC is actually the textbook example of most expensive places to run new fiber, due to needs for nearly 100% underground, and extensive pre existing utilities. I'm going to guess you've never been involved with an outside plant fiber project.

With your knowledge of the subject, how would you suggest they overcome this challenge?

Do they need to run their own fiber - is there a way they could rent fiber space from an existing line? At least for a little while?

Don't be worried that a new player has entered the space; be worried that the existing ones haven't improved the space. The total market space can be increased by creating new connections, and someone has to do it.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#186

Post by adamsea »

ForHackernews wrote: post #142
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I imagine consumers would be fine with 95% uptime of a gigabit connection compared to 99,99999% uptime of 16mbit. I can guarantee that nobody would be okay with 95% uptime. That means that your Internet access is down for over an hour every day. Given that people go berserk when their Internet is down for even a few minutes, 95% uptime will be unacceptable to consumers.

Depends which hour it's down. Plenty of people would be happy to have their internet down from 3-4 am every morning if it meant they paid $10/month instead of $70/month.

First guess is it would be most likely to be down when traffic is highest.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#187

Post by pavs »

tlrobinson wrote: post #151

There's an impressive amount of negativity in these comments. A community-run mesh network? HN should be all over it, but it appears to have turned into a bunch of network engineers telling us why they are very smart and it won't work, or is "insignificant". More power to you, NYC Mesh.

It's OK to be optimistic about something different. It's also ok to discuss the reality, that's not necessarily negativity towards a project. Are we only supposed to discuss one side of the argument and ignore reality just because it makes us feel nice inside?

There are bazillion reasons that this is nothing more than a cute side project that will fall on its face when its time to scale in any meaningful way. Unless they have discovered a new technology they are not taking on ISPs by any meaningful way. Especially in NYC.

There is a difference between, just "connecting to the internet" and having a "reliable connectivity to the internet", the difference is a massive investment in infrastructure. Wifi p2p mesh networks don't work on magic. They are very unreliable and hard/impossible to scale to 100,000 users, let alone millions of users. In some places, wifi p2p connection hardware actually costs more money than a traditional wired network.

Mesh networks have been around for a while, technical and reliability aspect of this is well understood within the networking industry. There is a reason why it's not widely used, especially in cities. In remote areas, this kind of network makes sense, if you don't have a choice or an alternative.

Don't brush of educated criticisms from people within the industry. I own an ISP for 5+ years (mostly wired). I am not in US and I am not at all worried if this kind of network comes in my country/area. We are not worried because we have tried and deployed this kind of network in cities and they are extremely unreliable and costs real money.

I also don't understand the "Anti-authority" angle of the argument, unless I live in a different universe, they still have to get license/permit from the local government to do this business (non-profit or not), they still have to follow the same rules enforced by local and federal government when it comes to log/customer information sharing to LEO. So not sure how they are Anti-authority? Unless they mean anti-establishment?

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#188

Post by rayiner »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #82
walrus01 wrote: post #46

Actual ISP network engineer here: I'm sure these people are having fun and all, but it's insignificant in the larger scheme of things. (correction to original post: I did not at first see an ASN for them, or announcements of their own IP space. They have an ASN and announce two /24s, and peer at one physical location in metro NYC). Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment. This part…

> Actual ISP network engineer her So then you must intimately understand the depth of the lies and anti-consumer business practices that spur such networks. > Real five nines network infrastructure takes significant capital investment. 5-9s is 5 minutes of downtime a year. I've never had a commercial, let alone residential ISP hit that mark. > Actual, reliable internet costs real money, both in the salaries of people…

Do you have any experience with either ISP level network engineering or regulation? Because you speak awfully authoritatively.

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#189

Post by paulific »

pasbesoin wrote: post #160
danShumway wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? That's a good question. Judging from software development (which may or may not map perfectly to hardware infrastructure) both seem to work pretty well. Depending on who you ask you'll get different answers about whether…

The incumbents are really good at suppressing competition. One response/workaround: Guerrilla networking. Why, in part? Because there's nothing much to target, financially. In some ways, legally. Instead, the incumbents have to elicit suppression through regulators and law enforcement, if they can. Google has deep pockets. But it could spend years trying to get access to poles. Incumbents don't just pay to oppose; th…

Reminds me of the Corey Doctorow/Charles Stross short story Unwirer: https://craphound.com/unwirer/

Re: 'Anti-authority' tech rebels take on ISPs, connect NYC with cheap Wi-Fi

#190

Post by rayiner »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #89
walrus01 wrote: post #83

Earlier 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…

> 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. ~Kind of sounds like it failed.~ Apparently Google Fiber is starting to expand again. I still think it serves as a good case against why the current climate makes it near-impossible for a "plucky upstart [with vc funding]" to start a large, traditional…

Google is just a terrible example. On net, Google got incredibly preferential regulatory treatment. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-...

They just realized it makes no sense for them to be in a low ROI industry: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functio...

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