81–90 of 237 posts
I'm curious about the technology they are using. Is it an actual mesh network or point-to-point wireless?
We are a hybrid of mesh, p2p and point to multi-point (sector antennas). Whatever is most appropriate to give the best connection for reasonable price.
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…
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 to engineer and architect it, salaries for 24x7x365 clued-in NOC staff, equipment, salaries and expenses for field technicians to build it. ...
Going back to my first point, almost no one is unwilling to pay for their internet connection.
They're unwilling to pay less to get TV service they have no use for and internet than they are internet alone.
They're unwilling to look at the cost of network access in other countries and be happy when comparing that to the cost of internet in a major, densely populated area in the US.
They're unwilling to accept transfer caps and accept the lies they they help the network by making people share when they know that transfer is irrelevant and bandwidth is the limited commodity.
They're unwilling to accept lies of bandwidth speed that isn't attainable even under the best of conditions.
They're unwilling to accept shady and underhanded business practices such as random, "accidental" charges.
> It just needs to be channeled the right way so that they can figure out what it actually costs to run a reliable ISP. I'm all in favor of new startup ISPs.
However, as an "actual ISP network engineer", you must understand the (very arguably unfair) regulatory issues that the big players have put in place to make this impossible to do. Google failed at starting an ISP, and it's not like they are tight on either cash or lawyers.
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…
Starting a small ISP based out of extreme dissatisfaction with huge, evil incumbents is something that I encourage any plucky upstart to do. If you don't like Comcast, Charter, RCN, etc, if you have sufficient clue, go do it yourself. Just don't try to do it with $20,000 and some good wishes, because something with much deeper pockets like Webpass will come along and obliterate you.
The point that I am rather bluntly trying to get across to these folks is that if they're going to invest significant amounts of their personal time/engineering resources into it (unpaid labor?), that they should treat it like a serious business and not a nonprofit. Raise sufficient funds, somewhere in the $500,000+ range to start, to build a network that actually does meet five nines through sufficient diversity in topology and routing.
Compared to random YC companies that seem to raise $1m to $5m to do some vaguely defined web2.0 SAAS thing, the amount of money that a group of people need to raise to build the core of a serious ISP is not huge. Elsewhere in this thread I threw out a figure like $750,000 in beginning CapEx if they're serious. For some good reasons, however, it's easier to get $5m of series A funding from a VC for a pure software development business than a wholly-owned-facilities-based startup ISP.
Even if you completely ignore things like colocation costs, IP transit costs, IX/peering costs, office rental, office utilities and overhead, running a serious ISP with live, clued in humans watching the network takes a lot of money per year for salaries.
3 to 5 NOC persons for 24x7x365 NOC phone coverage. At a certain point if you peer with the big boy ASNs they will expect a live human to answer the phone at 3am when something unusual happens in traffic between your mutual networks. That live human needs to be somebody who has the equivalent of 'enable' on your peering router and sufficient clue to wield it.
2 network engineering/architecture positions, multiply by expected fully loaded yearly salary and benefits package for each person.
at least 2 field technicians
vehicles, vehicle insurance, tools for technicians
At NYC salaries? In a greenfield scenario, I could easily spend $900,000 a year in just payroll and benefits, just to begin to attempt to duplicate what some other serious ISPs already have in place for manpower.
And again that is before you spend one dollar on equipment.
Mesh networks are too complicated to be reliable over a long term. They are useful in disaster situations or places with no infrastructure. Project Byzantium ( http://project-byzantium.org/faqs/ ) is a great way to quickly stand up a mesh network as a temporary thing.
I mean, this isn't true. I'm not even sure to begin. Perhaps specific points instead of nebulous nonsense would help us better understand you.
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…
> I'm guessing that users share the same IP address I don’t see why that would be the case - you can give every user their own public IP directly. I would imagine they’re giving everyone an IPv6 /64 and a carrier-grade NAT for IPv4 (as it’s really hard for any new player to get usable amounts of IPv4 space).
Earlier 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.
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.
A bunch of businesses and nonprofits offer free wifi to their customers, and over time you build up a big enough blanket that pretty much anybody can walk into a coffee shop or library and check their email.
Tons of security risks, of course, but... I mean, I've used public wifi before during personal emergencies, and I was pretty grateful it existed. If you're gonna pick a comparison to be derisive with, maybe don't pick something that's widely useful and appreciated?
Comcast has even turned this into a selling point (I think somewhat unethically) by turning all of their customer access points into semi-public routers for other customers. It actually seems to scale pretty well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why doesn't a startup run their own fibre? Are building owners that protective? Actually scratch that, I tried getting a 1 gig cross manhattan link. Cost more than 1g to London.
Building owners? Before you get anywhere near the buildings, you have to dig up the streets to run cabling around the city. Any idea how much that costs?
Earlier 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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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…
~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 ISP.
> Starting a small ISP based out of extreme dissatisfaction with huge, evil incumbents is something that I encourage any plucky upstart to do. ... Just don't try to do it with $20,000 and some good wishes, because something with much deeper pockets like Webpass will come along and obliterate you.
You can't be a plucky upstart while simultaneously having pockets deep enough to fend against the current major ISP players.
I'm not going to sit here and reply line-by-line to your post. The issue isn't that people want a free network. The issue is that people are fed up with the large ISPs and that the large ISPs have made it all-but-impossible to start an ISP.
You seem to think that VC-sized money is the only thing people need to enter the market. You're entirely wrong. Entrenched players have made it next-to-impossible to compete in terms of capital and regulatory hurdles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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…