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Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

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Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#81

Post by alsetmusic »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…

You're describing the sort of daydreams I had about running a cable between my home and my friend's home when I was 14 years old. We were too far apart. But playing Descent matches would have been awesome. We got by on dialup, but a kid can dream.

I also dreamt of ISDN. Looking back, it seems such a paltry offering, but that tells you what an old man I've become.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#82

Post by jeff_vader »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…

Not from Russia, but nearby.. It was very common - kinda wild east and nobody cared. As soon our telecom started providing DSL - we (neighbourhood kids) got a commercial DSL into my apartment and shared it between 2 five story apartment buildings. Our set up was tiny and not very reliable. Some local networks like this grew and became almost proper internet providers. But they continued this gray practice of pulling cables in the air, between buildings. They'd also do other sketchy stuff like installing hubs/switches into electrical boxes and tapping supply from the building. We learned about it when a technician from a provider like this dropped a screwdriver on live wires and knocked out power for half of the building.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#83

Post by renewiltord »

wyldfire wrote: post #63
Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…

> Unimaginable in the US With good reason. Building codes in the US prevent disasters like the one that happened at Grenfell Towers in the UK. Run plenum-rated wires through an appropriate space for safety's sake.

Yeah, one of the things that makes disasters impossible in the US is that we have real Professional Engineers with Iron Rings doing everything. If you don’t have an iron ring, you can’t really understand what it takes to build a thing in the real world. You can play with your software or whatever but you’re not going to reliably change the real world.

Even Ghost Ship had no iron rings present. That’s what got them. You need those rings. One of my friends has one on each finger. A true 10x Professional Engineer. Nothing he has ever built has a single flaw.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#84

Post by bombcar »

eqvinox wrote: post #80

Community-owned _ broadband networks _ I'm not sure about. Community-owned _ physical infrastructure _ (especially last-mile — fiber & copper going to everybody's house) … that needs to be the default. And if it's not community-owned, it needs to be regulated with open access requirements. Yes you can theoretically build a second fiber network and hook up people's houses. Yes it has happened in actual practice. But i…

Having the "last mile" be owned by the community just makes complete sense; in fact it should be a requirement of future government subsidies (perhaps with an option for the existing infrastructure, if "good enough - fiber" to be sold to the community) as it reduces overlap and waste.

Around here we have had THREE separate companies drop fiber in the last year (technically not to everyone's house as they only do that last connection when you subscribe) - so my yard now has five fiber lines through it. That's a bit overkill.

They could have had the municipal electric utility run fiber to everyone, and then designate a single building as a POP/exchange and let any company that wanted to run a fat pipe to that and start reselling.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#85

Post by bombcar »

paxys wrote: post #44
mrbluecoat wrote: post #2

Once space-based broadband Internet becomes widely available, I predict shortsighted ISPs will join the ranks of Kodak and Blockbuster.

It takes 5 minutes of back of the envelope calculations to realize that this is a pipe dream. Starlink isn't a substitute for fiber internet, it's a substitute for no internet.

The missing piece is "buckets of Internet" where you pay a provider to have a connection, and they deal with whether it comes over 5G or fiber or Starlink or whatever. Nobody cares about HOW the connection is delivered, just the speed, latency, and reliability.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#86

Post by conradev »

vel0city wrote: post #48
conradev wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe, if we’re lucky, they’ll have to compete on quality as well as price. When Verizon laid down fiber optic cable in my (former) neighborhood, it was so much better than Xfinity’s service, and everyone I knew switched. Not to say that the type of physical cable matters as much, DOCSIS 4.0 is in the cards, but latency and bandwidth will always be better on a (good) wired connection. One quirk worth mentioning, t…

> WWAN did leap-frog WLAN with 5G and especially with ultra-wideband > Until I installed 6GHz Wi-Fi So after you upgraded your WLAN it was faster than your WAN until you bothered upgrading your WLAN. That's a personal deployment decision not necessarily a matter of what was or wasn't' available at the time. >1G WiFi existed years before ultra-wideband was a thing.

The first phone to ship with ultra-wideband was the iPhone 11 in 2019, and the first phone to ship with 6GHz was the Galaxy S21 Ultra in 2021. The Intel AX210 was the first wireless card to ship with 6GHz at the end of 2020 and the first laptop to include it from MSI shipped in 2021.

Calling WiFi 6 >1G is a pretty far stretch. I don't think I've seen a real world test that breaks that barrier in favorable conditions, even with today's routers:

https://evanmccann.net/blog/2022/5/u6-pro-and-u6-mesh-review

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-wi-fi-router...

Whereas ultra-wideband was capable of pulling 2Gbps in 2020, something I have not even seen Wi-Fi 7 able to do. Ultra-wideband still has quite an edge:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ATT/comments/gbr335/this_might_be_a...

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#87

Post by Onavo »

jvanderbot wrote: post #36
josefresco wrote: post #30

Sixteen states (down from 21), detailed here: https://communitynets.org/content/state-state-preemption-sta... Despite this ban, many communities in these states have pushed forward.

And there's more good news. Minnesota is not on that map, but Minnesota has moved in very good directions re: ISPs. My rural neighbors have community internet, and it's _good_. High quality fiber. I have centurylink - ok not a community plan, but it competes directly with T-mobile, Xfinity (comcast), and other cell-based providers, and provides an excellent product for much cheaper. And I know for a fact that colorad…

> Minnesota is not on that map

What are they doing down there? Their governor is literally the Democratic VP nominee.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#88

Post by potato3732842 »

wyldfire wrote: post #63
Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…

> Unimaginable in the US With good reason. Building codes in the US prevent disasters like the one that happened at Grenfell Towers in the UK. Run plenum-rated wires through an appropriate space for safety's sake.

The code is just as bought and paid for by the materials manufactuers in the US as it is anywhere else.

They get fiery but mostly peaceful apartment building siding, we get spray foam and rotten roofs.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#89

Post by altacc »

gosub100 wrote: post #45
bluejekyll wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This debate about regulations is alway interesting. There are regulations which help protect the environment, like not being allowed to dump dangerous chemicals into your local stream or river. Then there are regulations like these which are aimed at protecting the investment companies have made into infrastructure, effectively granting them a monopoly. When people debate this, they often are thinking of the first cl…

And from the article, the telecom industry receives billions in corporate welfare. A common argument against cutting it off is that telecom is capital intensive infrastructure, and if you cut their govbux you're blocking poor people from being able to communicate, we all deserve the right to communicate. But if that's your take, how can you also hate the protectionist laws? Telecom are given a monopoly because it doe…

In some countries there is sometimes a cable & data connection owner and then a separate service provider. Laws regulate that the cable provider must let other companies provide connections to customers over their cables. The service provider pays the cable owner for a bulk of data that its customers use. The cable owner can't charge more than it charges itself when it acts as a service provider.

Not sure if that made sense! I pay company B but my fibre connection is provided by Company A. If I want to change to Company C I start a contract with C and the only thing I change is the cable modem.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#90

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

toast0 wrote: post #57
jtbayly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very hard for me to imagine space-based internet ever being able to be competitive financially with an earth-based option outside of special circumstances.

Running an LEO satellite constellation is very expensive. But installing and maintaining a wire to everyone's house is also very expensive. IMHO, it's a question of capacity and acceptable service levels. Starlink monthly pricing is higher than my DSL and nearby cable as well as my local muni fiber. But it's not so much higher as to rule it out. And the install fee is a lot lower than muni fiber. It's going to take a…

Security in LEO will eclipse the cost of everything else. Right now it’s free. When it becomes critical infrastructure, it has to be protected.
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