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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

#211

Post by pavs »

hux_ wrote: post #203
pavs wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Once upon a time the network, storage and data center guys thought Facebook/YouTubes one to many broadcasting of content would never scale too. Now they fall over themselves to work there.

They scaled by making a huge investment in their network. They didn't make a fundamental new technical discovery that didn't exist before. They had money, they threw money at the problem, as expected it worked. The problem was an investment (which takes time), not technical.

https://peering.google.com/#/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/565767133547005/steering-oce...

Any ISP (if big enough), can host their own Google, Akamai, Facebook, Netflix nodes on their premise.

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

#212

Post by juliangoldsmith »

zimablue wrote: post #205
adamsea wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You could switch to mobile data on downtime? And make that switch automatic/unobtrusive?

That means that you either have to provide an LTE connection for every customer, which would entirely defeat the purpose of your main connection, or your customers would need to have their own LTE connection, which would entirely defeat the purpose of your service in general.

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

#213

Post by d0lph »

Paul-ish wrote: post #60
alexandercrohde wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the content of your requests will be encrypted, that's what SSL is for. Also, individuals who are concerned about this would be free to purchase a direct line via an ISP.

Website fingerprinting is still possible.

DNS over https

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

#214

Post by jeffreyrogers »

teraflop wrote: post #153
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think mesh makes sense from an economics perspective. The number of edges scales O(n^2), where n is the number of people in the network. That's not very efficient. Even if you think wireless internet is feasible in dense urban areas (I think this is still an open question) it seems like a star topology connected by wireless backhaul to fiber makes more sense. This scales O(n).

> The number of edges scales O(n^2), where n is the number of people in the network. I don't see how this is true for any reasonable definition of "edge". It's certainly not the case that every node directly communicates with every other node; if they did, you wouldn't need a mesh.

A mesh network is defined as a network where the nodes connect to as many other nodes as possible. In the limit this is a complete graph with O(n^2) edges. It's true that in practice you won't have a complete graph but it's still less efficient than a more hierarchical, tree-like network structure.

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

#215

Post by stephengillie »

nycmesh wrote: post #191
stephengillie wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someon…

There are about 10 fiber providers in the city. We've spoken to most of them. It's pretty much impossible for us to lay fiber, so we have to lease it. We'd like to eventually lease a fiber ring across the city so we can cut costs when connecting multiple buildings. If you don't have a ring then you have to pay for the run all the way back to a coloc.

That's a good start to having "your own" network, and then you can choose to have packets traverse your network or the peering networks. You could shift egress points around, based on cost and other factors as well. Each link you add can multiply your routing options.

Get large enough, and you can start carrying other traffic too, and eventually start buying/laying fiber. But you know this, it's probably part of your business plan.

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

#216

Post by ybloviator »

Pica_soO wrote: post #202
cabaalis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remember the guys who had it easy learning at university? Imagine you are one of them- good at using existing rules, good at ingesting and reusing existing knowledge. But deep down know you are unable to recombine, think outside the box or just experiment childishly - to truly innovate - then those tinkerers poking the unknown could render you a obsolete dinosaur any day. Which explains while there is always a caste…

Or, just maybe, they've poked an antenna up in the air in NYC and noticed the 5GHz spectrum is totally polluted and barely usable.

You want WISP competition (co-op business model or not), then lobby the FCC to free up some spectrum for it. Cheap gear is here, spectrum is the scarcity.

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

#217

Post by ybloviator »

bitcrusher wrote: post #88
gowld wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure thing. And I offer free WiFi access to all my household members, houseguests, and next-door neighbors. The main thing holding me back is scaling up the number of installs too. I'm hoping a billion dollars of donations can square that away for me and my wider-area neighbor.

Obviously you're being sarcastic, but they're not just dumping netgear routers on walls and saying "TADA! MESH!"... They're actually using industrial grade equipment to do this.

I missed the "industrial grade equipment" part in the arcticle, TBH. In fact I saw no real technical details at all. "Mesh" isn't even really defined. You'd think they'd at least mention what firmware they're running on their gear to implement "Mesh".

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

#218

Post by ybloviator »

nycmesh wrote: post #116
walrus01 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the 5100 to 5850 MHz band noise floor in metro NYC, it's a minor miracle that outdoor, roof mounted, PtMP 802.11ac based systems work at all. (Or Cambium PMP450i in the same bands, etc).

Yes the noise floor is bad, but we get about a 2 mile range which covers a huge amount of people in Manhattan. The Ubiquiti sector antennas use TDMA so it is not standard 802.11ac.

Screenshot of a UBNT p2mp at 2 miles in Manhattan please. The dashboard will show the distance. Please post.

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

#219

Post by ybloviator »

tlrobinson wrote: post #3
mapmap wrote: post #2

I'm curious about the technology they are using. Is it an actual mesh network or point-to-point wireless?

Here's a map of their network: https://nycmesh.net/map/ (uncheck everything except "Link" to see the network)

"The network connects directly to the internet backbone, so we do not rely on an ISP."

That makes no sense. I doubt they're a tier-1 backbone themselves, they have to be purchasing transit from an ISP. It feels like lots of the docs are written by marketing-type folks. Also there's a weird diagram that insinuates NAT happens before bgp peering with the not-ISPs they buy internet from. Weird shit.

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

#220

Post by ybloviator »

nycmesh wrote: post #111
mediocrejoker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. This seems like a cool project. Do you know what the cost per user is currently? What frequency do the point-to-point links run at? Have you considered using some sort of lower frequency packet radio for longer distance links, perhaps to other nearby nodes?

Our recurring costs are only for the lease at supernode1, which is around $1000/month. Divide that by our member node count (158) multiplied by users of each node ~4, 1000/(158*4)gives you under $2/month per user. Members usually pay for their own routers so that isn't included. To set up the supernode was about a $10K one-off charge for install fees, servers and antennas. DE-CIX, our IXP, donated bandwidth to us, an…

Ah, so you get free bandwidth from people that want to balance their traffic for better peering contracts. That's clever. Probably not a helpful model for other areas that aren't bandwidth centers like NYC, and should probably be more out there when you're evangelizing so people understand you're getting a large portion of your operating expenses donated...

I have to assume another cost that's not noted is roof rights. That's not free - most people either have to pay or give the property management a kickback.

NYC is an interesting place for this - if you live in Manhattan, you clearly can afford the $80 for 1Gb/s FiOS or $40 for 100Mb/s FiOS or whatever Spectrum is charging. It would be way more interesting to plop this in a rust-belt city where people are on a paycheck-to-paycheck salary...

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