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NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

nycmesh.net

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Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#81

Post by jonah-archive »

komali2 wrote: post #17
markn951 wrote: post #3

Stuff like this make me long to live in NYC. Only city in the US with the density, technical expertise, and money for this kind of thing to happen.

I thought the same was true for the Bay Area, hence why I moved here. I was genuinely surprised to find Google Fiber isn't even available, let alone any mesh networks. In all other aspects of technical expertise though it's blowing my previous city, Houston, away. Companies open to candidates based on technical expertise alone (rather than throwing non-B.S. degrees straight into the garbage), lots of great meetups, l…

There's definitely some mesh networking stuff going on, e.g. https://peoplesopen.net with weekly meetings at https://omnicommons.org

There are a large-scale effort in SF many years ago... but it's a hard city to build in. You can read a bit of that history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wirele...

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#82

Post by shmerl »

nerdponx wrote: post #47
markn951 wrote: post #3

Stuff like this make me long to live in NYC. Only city in the US with the density, technical expertise, and money for this kind of thing to happen.

Better still, if you live in Brooklyn you can actually subscribe to an independent locally-run fiber ISP: http://bkfiber.com/ It's more of a business product than a consumer product, and it's got limited range, but it's great to know the option even exists.

Unfortunately it's limited to very few places and is practically non existent if you consider Brooklyn as a whole.

Meanwhile Brooklyn has Verizon fiber gigabit network and supposedly getting one from Altice too. Two gigabit fiber ISPs in one place would be something quite unique.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#83

Post by et-al »

komali2 wrote: post #42
glitch003 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno where you are in the Bay Area, but in SF I have Sonic which is synchronous gigabit for ~$40 a month. It's not Google Fiber, but it's close.

For some reason they offering only 10Mbps in my building in downtown SF... compared to the 150 I get through Comcast. I hate their guts, but they do at least give me pretty darn fast internet.

10Mbps sounds like Sonic Fusion (AT&T DSL partnership) and not Sonic Fiber.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#85

Post by keerthiko »

lyall wrote: post #55
komali2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same was true for the Bay Area, hence why I moved here. I was genuinely surprised to find Google Fiber isn't even available, let alone any mesh networks. In all other aspects of technical expertise though it's blowing my previous city, Houston, away. Companies open to candidates based on technical expertise alone (rather than throwing non-B.S. degrees straight into the garbage), lots of great meetups, l…

Monkeybrains ( https://www.monkeybrains.net/ ) operates a mesh network in SF. They're not community owned but they are very much a local business.

I wanted to like Monkeybrains but they were just too subpar for the competition in terms of speed, reliability and flexibility. I switched to sonic and get 1GBps fiber for barely $12/mo more than what I paid MB.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#86

Post by 8bitsrule »

benwilber0 wrote: post #54
ATsch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freifunk, a somewhat similar German project solves this by using a mesh VPN to tunnel traffic out.

why would i go through all this effort just to let some stranger torrent iron man on my internet account

The general idea of Meshnets worldwide is to turn 'my internet account' into 'our internet'.

all this effort = buying a router and plugging it into your computer.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#87

Post by int_19h »

hyperpallium wrote: post #76

What about a mesh that is not connected to the internet? These days, people use the internet like TV or radio: many consume, few produce. What about a " community " mesh, where e.g. a small town has websites, email, webservices, gaming hosts etc for shops, businesses, sporting, clubs, council, local news and social media for that town?

Check out Broadband-HamNet.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#88

Post by PascLeRasc »

I have a few naïve questions maybe someone can answer:

1 - Why aren't they recommending any of the newer routers like the Asus RT-N66U/RT-AC68U? They're well supported by OpenWRT and more available.

2 - To start a similar service in another city, do you need fiber already to be laid? For example, I'm in Pittsburgh and we don't have any fiber anywhere, does that mean it'd be impossible to have a community mesh like this here?

3 - Is there a way to find the "internet backbone" building in your city?

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#89

Post by iak8god »

hyperpallium wrote: post #76

What about a mesh that is not connected to the internet? These days, people use the internet like TV or radio: many consume, few produce. What about a " community " mesh, where e.g. a small town has websites, email, webservices, gaming hosts etc for shops, businesses, sporting, clubs, council, local news and social media for that town?

https://disaster.radio is a neat little project that might be helpful for building something like this.

Re: NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection

#90

Post by sneak »

rickycook wrote: post #58
sneak wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpicking about tool choices is not a useful contribution to a volunteer project starved for resources. There are better ways to contribute.

there are certainly better ways to contribute, but i’m not sure it’s nitpicking. it seems like this issue is pretty close to the network’s core values and reason for existing: getting away from centralisation, censorship, big companies, etc

This reasoning is a distraction. The fact is that it is unhelpful and slack works fine.
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