How a DIY Network Plans To Subvert Time Warner Cable's NYC Internet Monopoly (vice.com)

Jason Koebler writes: Toppling a telecom monopoly is the dream of many Americans, but the folks at NYC Mesh are actually doing something about it. On any given weekend, Brian Hall and his fellow organizers can be found around the city, installing directional Wi-Fi routers on rooftops. Anyone in the city who lives near another person on the network is welcome to join, and NYC Mesh volunteers will help you install a rooftop router. The network is still small, but it has partnered with two internet exchanges to install "super nodes" that have a range of several miles and are connected directly to the backbone of the internet.

Comments

sounds good on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

but just wait until it gets over-subscribed...

Re:sounds good on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

In a mesh, more nodes = more paths.

Re:sounds good on paper

[geoskd]

In a mesh, more nodes = more paths.

It's also wireless, which means that more nodes = more total traffic one the limited bandwidth available. Doccis has the same limitation, but when you add a router to a congested wifi location, the congestion gets worse, not better. When you add routers to Doccis, the individual congestion clears up.

Mesh networks work reasonably well up to about 1000 - 2000 nodes per square mile. Above that, performance drops as a function of n*log(n). By the time you reach 10,000 nodes per square mile, performance on 802.11n drops to less average bandwidth than old school DSL. at 20,000 nodes per square mile, bandwidth has dropped to dialup speeds. New york city (including the boroughs) has over 25,000 residents per square mile. That means that the Mesh network cant handle more than 10% of the population before performance begins to drop under ideal conditions. Under real world conditions, It is likely to be half that, and will get worse over time as more and more bandwidth pollution is brought into service in the form of the IoT. The part that people don't understand about mesh networks, is that even with huge numbers of gateway routers, once more than a dozen nodes are within reach of each other, their traffic starts interfering with each other significantly due to multiple transmission collisions. Directional antennas help a little, but not nearly enough, especially when there are vastly more sources of wifi that are not part of the mesh that inject pockets of congestion and provide no services to the mesh (other peoples wifi routers who are time warner customers for example).

Mesh networks have their uses, but the operating envelope is a relatively narrow band of opportunity, which will not allow them to "take the city by storm".

Re:sounds good on paper

[HiThere]

That's not necessarily true if you're using directional antennas to partition the mesh. For that matter, if you're using directional antennas you could probably get away with infra-red links, which have a huge potential bandwidth. Doesn't sound like they're doing anything that fancy, though. Sounds more like a cellular system with a mesh local connection, which, which a small enough cell, could be done with next to no power so you wouldn't have a problem with overloading.

Yeah, if they were using a simple mesh network they could easily get overfilled, but then they wouldn't be using directional antennas, so that's not what they're doing.

Re:sounds good on paper

[bugs2squash]

You can make your receive as directional as you like, but the transmit has EIRP limits imposed by the FCC so you can't just focus it down to a narrow beam or amp up the power.

Also the wireless network may be a mesh. but everyone wants to connect to the internet, so it becomes a (multi) star topology centered around, presumably, a handful of wireless Internet gateways.

Also (can I have that many alsos ?) for most people the traffic will be coming mainly from the internet to the edge not the other direction, I think the limits on eirp for the "downstream" link will be the ultimate limiting factor in scaling.

Plus what does this do to everyone else's UNII and ISM band devices ?

Perhaps they should concentrate on Netflix only and put a number of shared CDN cache nodes at the edge.

This would be better in licensed spectrum, there are "licence lite" spectral allocations available for this kind of WiMax style operation and reasonably priced equipment too

Re:sounds good on paper

[adolf]

The part that you don't understand about two-way radio communication is that transmit power is always downwardly adjustable. Therefore, self-interference can be mitigated.

Re:sounds good on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

My own experience with a WISP, which is no doubt not the same is pretty bad. I suspect you might be able to rely on 768kbps, if your lucky, but usually not even that. Still, routing using wifi between wifi nodes seems a lousy use of finite bandwidth. Someone else mentioned infrared. I was thinking of a very low power laser links between stations. In that way, you could remove everything except the last hop from the wifi spectrum load. Of course that is not easy to setup. I wonder if the right kind of mirrors in the right location could bounce a communications laser reliably? There must be some beam spread. Another solution is just to somehow arrange the network so each access point has a direct link. That sounds problematic, contract wise.

Basically, if we could:
1) get rid of all (or most) private wifi, so that bandwidth is freed up.
2) get rid of all cell phone networks so that bandwidth is freed up.
3) Setup a micro cell/domain/whatever structure using the available bandwidth.
4) Enable fair queuing and such. That way if one user is only using a phone, he or she gets through.
5) Connect all the micro cells directly to the wired backbone, or through some other high capacity link such as a laser.

Then it should be at least closer to working for everyone. Of course such a plan has no chance of happening. Also, in the case of (1) you could, in theory, just replace it with a VPN link to your home network, which would have the other end of the link. That way you could be anywhere in the city, and have secure access to your entire network at full rate, as if you were in your house.

Actually, I'm half curious if the numbers work out. Does anyone care to do the math? What if this crazy socialist idea was reality? (You could also have your device VPN to a slightly more walled garden, should you desire to do so.) Would multicast and such work with such a scheme efficiently? (For television, so you could free up that bandwidth as well..)

Re:sounds good on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, love the tech talk. But get a kick out of all this being a repeat of "wifi for all!" in the 90s. And the autes, and just... well... repeating the same BS every 10 years I guess.

Re:sounds good on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Also the wireless network may be a mesh. but everyone wants to connect to the internet, so it becomes a (multi) star topology centered around, presumably, a handful of wireless Internet gateways.

If the mesh spans a city, then some of the servers accessed will be in-city. People do a lot of business in-city, and read city-specific newspapers/blogs. If they're smart, they also do some caching in the mesh. No need for the same break-the-internet image to be downloaded many times through the same router.

Re:sounds good on paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Things you forgot that sink your well laid out rebuttal.
Polarity, & Frequency.
Not sure how in depth the people doing this are going to go. But as they hit growing pains the people engineering this will either know the whitepapers or beat their heads on the wall until they do. you can quadruple density easily by judicious use signal polarities & differing freqs (for mainstream trunk directional shots), for the high density user areas you can checkerboard different freqs.
Things you forgot that really support your well laid out rebutt of the article.
harmonics, spurious signals, the fact that everything is functioning in such a narrow spectrum.
Sadly the amount of spectrum available is small & the number of devices that broadly radiate (microwave ovens anyone) & will not be under the control of this attempt at a coop network are large and wholly uncontrollable.

This might be a good time to suggest a grassroots lobby for a municipal / coop frequency(ies) granted by the FCC for the sole reason to avoid a jealous isp putting in high powered jammers, as an example. Class C devices suck hind tit, & 2.4ghz is really crowded.

Re:sounds good on paper

[Bengie]

IR and fiber are just forms of directional wifi. There are good implementations of wifi backhauls in cities with congested frequencies. There are limitations, but you can have a pretty reliable good design.

Just another ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

So they have a backbone to TWC which costs somebody money, so after the news is out the group says they will be only charging this low low free of $10 to join the mesh. Next up, they will throttle your bandwidth and charge you $60. You just created an ISP, congrats.

Re: Just another ISP

[WarJolt]

I don't think you need to throttle, but you can have speed tiers. You would probably require each subscriber to use PPPoE to prevent abuse.

If you have a node that is near a super node you will probably be using significantly more electricity and using more of your wireless bandwidth. That means less bandwidth for local traffic.

Re:Just another ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd prefer to see the mesh hosting any number of ISPs (which the ISP subscribers would tunnel to through the mesh) kind of like when municipal fiber is done right.

Re: Just another ISP

[IBME]

I would like to see this done with cable tv. Instead of cable companies trying to charge for each and every line and or address, partner up with your neighbors and split every payed cable at least 4 ways (tv's). Same principle to maximize bandwith and in the end the consumer's cost is then actually reasonable.

Re: Just another ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, they consider that theft of service.

Re: Just another ISP

[IBME]

Ahhh. I feel terrible for there sudden loss. Send flowers dear.

Community Activism

[surfdaddy]

When there is a will there is a way. It's only a matter of time before the "last mile" problem finds alternate solutions. I *love* this!

Re:Community Activism

[Anonymous Coward]

COMMUNity activISM.

Re:Community Activism

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Time-Warner is bad, google Alaskan internet service. People have to wait until the end of the month to use Netflix.

Last mile monopolies

[penguinoid]

This will provide some healthy competition to a market where there's usually only one or two companies providing internet and who own an officially sanctioned monopoly in the area.

Re: Last mile monopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

It will provide competition until these guys are regulated out of existence. Never underestimate the power of a bag full of money dropped in front of politicians.

Re:Last mile monopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amusingly ironic that the US, with its supposed "free enterprise" ethos typically ends up with a monopoly or near-monopoly in internet provision, where we in the UK, with a regulated telecomms market with a single near-monopoly carrier have a thriving market. Because we had a single carrier at one time, they are obliged to resell wholesale bandwidth to any qualifying operator - so, even out in the sticks I can choose from upwards of 40 providers, all of which rely on BT's infrastructure, and I don't have to buy from BT.

If you *do* buy from BT, there is a "Chinese wall" between BT wholesale and retail operations - the retail arm is just another customer of the wholesale arm.

(Why anyone *does* buy from BT escapes me- their call-centres are without clue).

Re:Last mile monopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

Monopolies are a natural result of unregulated capitalism. For capitalism to work, a regulated market is required. Adam Smith, which it touted by lots of people who apparently think that monopolies are ok and are lobbying for less regulation, mentioned that monopolies would appear in unregulated markets and warned that this should not happen.

People who quote Adam Smith and at the same time think it's fine to stifle competition very conveniently forget the other bits that Adam Smith mentioned about regulating markets when using capitalism.

Neo-liberalists who want more regulation, don't want a free market, they want a stranglehold on the market.

Re:Last mile monopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

They can say that since anyone can join the mesh and be effectively anonymous, it enables terrists and pedos and therefore must be banned

Re:Last mile monopolies

[byornski]

The call centers seem generally ok if you know (or sound like you know) what the issue is and have checked the master socket for any signal. When I first got one of their routers, none of the ethernet ports were working properly. I called up and they started trying to go through the step-by-step pc test and I said that I'd tested it with different devices on different operating systems and they said OK and agreed to skip that and just send out a new router.

Re:Last mile monopolies

[BradMajors]

There is no monopoly. There are already 28 ISPs in Brooklyn New York:

http://broadbandnow.com/New-Yo...

Re:Last mile monopolies

[aliquis]

From my apartment I can pick:
1) Any cellular phone service.
2) DSL - various companies.
3) 50-1000 mbps by the cable TV network.
4) Connect through the first Ethernet network we got in the area back in year 2000 which I don't know what speeds they sell because for whatever reason I can't connect to their webpage right now (even though I still use them.)
5) Connect through the municipal network which has 13 different providers which offer Internet at a speed from 10 - 500 mbps.

I don't know how many options that give me in total and many of the companies in the industry of course do all of Internet, regular telephony and cellular telephony but at-least I'm not stuck with just one single option.

And this is in Sweden.
Seem like America has something to learn about free market and competition? ;)
(Sure the telephone-network is built by the former exclusively government/nation-owned company and sure the municipal network is built by the municipality but it's a dark net and both networks are open for competition among service providers.)

Re:Last mile monopolies

[bhny]

In NYC apartments you usually have one choice and that is mostly Time Warner cable. Some people also have Verizon FIOS. Most of those ISPs in that list are for businesses.

Fuck you, pay me

[Anonymous Coward]

If this gets big enough, owning a wireless router will require a municipal license...

Re:Fuck you, pay me

[taustin]

The easier regulation is to hold the router owner responsible for everything that passes through it, which will, of course, include child porn and terrorism.

Re: Fuck you, pay me

[Anonymous Coward]

Place got hit by lightning? Fuck you, pay me. Oh you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me.

Re: Fuck you, pay me

[Anonymous Coward]

Great movie.

Re:Fuck you, pay me

[DraconPern]

That would become a huge liability for the ISP since they have the biggest router. So no, they won't push for that one.

Re:Fuck you, pay me

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think laws intended for peasants also apply to their owners?

Mesh who's the backbone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Confused? this is a mesh,somewhere along the mesh they must connect to the Internet , aren't those folks likely using an incumbent (Cable/ Telco) to make that connection? If so those nodes are likely in violation of TOS , Here's a typical legal-ease from TWC which basically says you can't resell your signal (check here section 3: https://help.twcable.com/twc_sub_agreement.html#section3) "If you knowingly access Services that you have not paid for, enable others to access Services that they have not paid for, or damage or alter our Equipment (or use Customer-Owned Equipment) in order to do so, you will have breached this Agreement and possibly subjected yourself to statutory damages, fines or criminal charges. " So unless the nodes providing the WAN connection are unencumbered, I don't understand how this works.

Re:Mesh who's the backbone?

[BarbaraHudson]

You don't need to be confused. Just read the summary.

it has partnered with two internet exchanges to install "super nodes" that have a range of several miles and are connected directly to the backbone of the internet.

Re:Mesh who's the backbone?

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, they mention that they are partnering with two Internet exchanges, so I assume TWC is not involved.

Re:Mesh who's the backbone?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't understand how this works.

Somewhere, it funnels everyone to an AOL dial-up machine running Trumpet ...

Re:Mesh who's the backbone?

[smelch]

They have two links to the backbone. The agreement you sign for that type of a hookup is not going to be the same as consumer internet access agreements. They are pretty explicitly creating an ISP. Every ISP is hooked up somewhere to the backbone as well, so you can't say "oh they hooked up to the backbone therefore they aren't allowed to provide internet services". That doesn't follow at all. The novelty of this is the network. They are installing wireless routers to create a mesh network that will facilitate communication inside the network and everything else goes in and out of the backbone hookup. This is different from the physical infrastructure required by running cables and setting up towers because presumably they are in unregulated EM spectrum with small devices for the regular nodes. It's easy for them to expand the network cheaply and don't have issues with getting approval from the municipal government.

Re:Community Activism: Yagi Antennas

[BoRegardless]

They and others have been around for over a decade and are highly efficient. I assume that is what they are using.

Survival of the bribiest.

[Tablizer]

Indeed. A lot of regulation out there is NOT socialists per se trying to control things, but rather crony capitalism whereby fat cats (legally) bribe laws into place to keep small cats out of the market.

Socialists then get all the blame.

I'm happy someone is trying to stick it to a big telecom. Big telecoms have turned me grayer than Bernie Sanders over the years. They can die an ugly painful death along with Microsoft, Oracle, and SCO. I wish this new endeavor luck and success.
     

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Far more often I see "lasseiz-faire" or the free market blamed for crony capitalism, not socialists.

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[asylumx]

He means socialists get the blame for the bad regulation, not for the crony capitalism itself. The distinction doesn't really matter though, it's just a distraction to keep most of us arguing with each other about capitalists vs. socialists while a few individuals keep making their billions off of us.

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[DNS-and-BIND]

A lot of die-hard right wingers want to stick it to big telecom, too. The problem with regulations is that socialists in a capitalist society can and will use these regulations to destroy companies they don't like (which is pretty much all of them). So it makes it hard to tell the difference.

Socialism is worse than crony capitalism because crony capitalists only do evil things that they can make money from. Socialists will do any evil, and money is no object. In fact, they'll happily run their own national economies into the ground with their schemes. It's sad.

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are full of crap.

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[The-Ixian]

Yep, socialism is the worst... we really need to get rid of that social security and medicare socialist BS.

Also, public roads and parks are a socialist agenda, stealing land from people and redistributing it to the public...

Let corporations make the rules, they have our best interests at heart.

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the terms have a lot of baggage, but I prefer using the correct terminology.

Crony capitalism is the "safe" word for fascism. Fascism is an economic structure where the government chooses economic leaders and invites them into the ruling class. All potentially significant competition is destroyed. (cooperative oligarchies are preferred over monopolies because they give the illusion of choice)

Socialism is an economic structure where the government kills all the economic leaders (unless they were already part of the party, then exceptions can be made) and assigns loyal party members to take over the now leaderless sections of the economy. All suggestion of competition is punished harshly.

Despite the popular claim that one is "right wing" and the other "left wing", the perspective of a fair-field (mild oversight) free (mostly) market is so far to the right of both of them that they blur together on the horizon.

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[ultranova]

Socialism is worse than crony capitalism because crony capitalists only do evil things that they can make money from.

Such as slavery, polluting the environment, building a dangerous factories in the middle of a city, locking your employees inside so they'll perish in a fire...

Also, I really don't see why you assume a capitalist - crony or otherwise - wouldn't be just as hungry for power in all its non-financial forms as everyone else.

Socialists will do any evil, and money is no object. In fact, they'll happily run their own national economies into the ground with their schemes. It's sad.

Evil schemes such as universal healthcare, free education up to and including university level, social security...

Re:Survival of the bribiest.

[catprog]

The problem is without regulation, the small cats will not have a chance either.

Fat cat company will heavily discount in the area where small cat is, small cat goes bankrupt. Fat cat buys the assets cheaply.

TWC will try

[Varenthos]

I guarantee that TWC will do anything and everything in their power to stop this, slow down the implementation process, or just make their lives as difficult as possible. Right on down to standing on the steps of city hall holding their breath.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for what these people are doing. I just can't see TWC letting this go without a fight, or at least a temper tantrum.

Re:TWC will try

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm honestly surprised that TWC hasn't sent techs out with hammers to start breaking WAPs.

Re:TWC will try

[geoskd]

I'm honestly surprised that TWC hasn't sent techs out with hammers to start breaking WAPs.

Thats crude. What they have done is made sure that all of their customers have wifi enabled routers that poison the bandwidth for these mesh networks. Its pretty damn effective too.

Re:TWC will try

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be surprised.
That's not the kind of thing that appears on the TWC controlled media networks after all. "individuals" just happen to suffer from "technical difficulties" related to having chosen the wrong provider, is all. It's probably just those child vandals. You know they ludditehate the interweb piping.

Took years for the systemic sabotage of all cement and gravel trucks not owned by certain large montreal corporations (it's where our organized crime gets rich instead of drugs) to ever get a snippet on the news, but in the meantime thousands of wheels and lines were slashed and a good half-dozen small companies destroyed.

Re:TWC will try

[Agripa]

That is the situation some WISPs have faced in contested areas. The incumbent wired ISPs buy up tower space preventing the competing WIPS from using it and then flood the ISM bands with generated traffic. Canopy gear was popular for this because it uses TDMA instead of CSMA. More direct measures like jamming critical nodes with a flood of traffic on the same channel from a directional antenna at long range are also used.

Ever hear of WiMax?

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys might have.

Community Wireless Networks

[Badooleoo]

Air-Stream in South Australia have been doing this successfully for a long time and is one of the largest wireless community networks in the world.

http://air-stream.org/

Also WACAN in Western Australia is doing well.

http://www.wacan.asn.au/

Re:Community Wireless Networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Freifunk is doing quite well too: http://freifunk.net/en/

One per row

[rmdingler]

This seems like a variation on the theme perpetrated in the trailer park to perfection.

Moving to town from the ranch to satisfy the whims of the human I was happily sexing with, we ordered up some cable to go with the only rental our budget would allow. It was like Christmas in April on our row, since the last paying cable customer had departed weeks ago... I say row, because it was ill-advised to cross the paved street with your bootleg connection.

As fast as the cable company would uncover illegal splices, the park denizens would repair/replace the barely buried RG-6.

Monopoly ISPs are a bad idea

[MrKrillls]

So I love this.

Death to Time Warner

[DaMattster]

I'm looking forward to NYC mesh eating into their bottom line!!! :-)

WTH

[Anonymous Coward]

I live on a hill with line of sight to over 3 million residents and even better LOS between several mountain tops in the region that would allow me to act as a major backbone node. I'd put up something like a Ubiquiti AF24HD and be a 2 Gbps backhaul.

I've tried and tried to get involved in setting something like this up, but every group I encounter devolves into discussions about how they're going to facilitate regulating the content on their network, so I'm not interested. I'm not going to be a node for a walled garden. I will relay data on the condition that all data is relayed equally. The only limits that could ever be needed would be throughput limits that apply to all users equally.

Re:WTH

[dl_sledding]

Nice idea...

But to fit into the FCC's "Safe Harbor" category, where you, as an ISP, aren't held liable and legally responsible for the illegal content flowing through your network (think child porn and DMCA), you'll have to maintain records for each and every IP address: who is using it, when they are using it, and ensure you can send the lawyers to the exact location that was using that IP address at the date/time that they specify.

Did you consider this one legal facet of your idea (out of probably 100?) There's way, way more to being an ISP than just offering a path to the internet...

Re:WTH

[Agripa]

Do you have a citation for this?

I think you might be referring to the CALEA requirements which also apply to WISPs. There is no CALEA requirement to maintain the records you suggest however most ISPs do for other reasons and if you provide voice over IP services, the FCC does require location data to support E991. With or without these records, CALEA requires ISPs to aid law enforcement in identifying and wiretapping targets.

Re:WTH

[dl_sledding]

No, CALEA is completely a different situation, and yes, as an ISP you would be required to conform to CALEA requirements as well. Safe Harbor is defined in the DMCA: http://digital-law-online.info....

what about the bigger legal issues of CP & upl

[Joe_Dragon]

what about the bigger legal issues of CP & uploading / downloading copyrighted stuff over this. Where the host can be the one doing the hard time.

Packet Ham Radio

[DesertNomad]

As much as I admire these folks, it's gonna be a network with limited throughput but potentially high resiliency except where it interfaces with the rest of the 'net. I've done many tens-of-kilometer shots, many home-brewed networks, using things like DD-WRT, Open-WRT, Tomato, etc., and it's great fun but it's something that requires regular heavy lifting, maintenance, investment, and quickly one realizes just how hard it is to not only keep running but to expand and grow. Go for it!

Re:Packet Ham Radio

[havana9]

Back in the nineies Amateur Packet Radio Network was doing something similar, sometimes with ethernet-speed links. Unfortunately having to build the logic with LSI circuits and PCBS made the radiomodem big and costly, but the system worked well. Using modified wi-fi radio with ASICS is more cost effective.

Monkeybrains in SF

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like the same thing...

Socialist liberal traitors

[Anonymous Coward]

Those dirty communists!

Quick! Get a court injunction to stop them! The free market must prevail, even if it needs a bit of help sometimes when the megacorps are threatened.

Re:I have never paid- idiots

[dl_sledding]

Don't feed the trolls.... Don't feed the trolls.... Gotta keep telling myself that...

How it could be done

[AHuxley]

Slashdot readers may recall the:
How a Group of Rural Washington Neighbors Created Their Own Internet Service (November 01, 2015)
http://mobile.slashdot.org/sto...
How a group of neighbors created their own Internet service (Nov 1, 2015)
http://arstechnica.com/informa...

The "But all of the nodes are eventually routed through a .. " to get to the many "internet exchange" or "carrier-neutral interconnection facility” options is the real question.
What can an existing network cartel do about such competition in their captive cities and states? Some car sale related ideas might be useful?
For security each connection has to be paid for, listed and have an ip range that can be logged.
Ensure every connection in the US to a consumer is a final hop directly to a federally listed provider by law?
Make sure the list of allowed brands that can sell to the US consumer is complex, regulated and very expensive to join.
A system of internet medallions per city, state that show users can be tracked. Only a select few traditional providers brands could have long term secure staffing for all direct contact with end users to legally supply the internet.

Invoke a law to alter free bandwidth use to ensure the final internet connection can only be for use by the user paying for their own network.
Users can connect to each other in a community network but any internet sharing is not legal. No direct selling down to groups of end users.
Track and chat down each home connecting and then find the new "direct" provider. Users will then have to reconnect to the more traditional providers.

Re:what about the bigger legal issues of CP &

[witherstaff]

If they're acting as an ISP they're on the hook for a lot of problems. I doubt cheap routers will allow the realtime access and backdoors required by various laws.

God's light will save you

[SNRatio]

We the Church of God's Light feel our message should be spread and shared. God's light cannot be spread by sound or by electrons. This is God's Light: it must be sent by photons. Google fiber is perfect for spreading God's Light, but many areas are sadly deficient. Members may also string their own fiber optic networks on their local telephone poles to stay in good standing. If your municipality, HOA, or zoning board objects: please explain they will have to ban Jewish eruvs as well and how much luck they will have with that.

Sermons are from 6:00:00 PM EST to 6:00:30 on the summer solstice. Members are warmly encouraged to spread light on their networks at other times and for other purposes. It is all God's Light.

Can I get an Amen?

Re:God's light will save you

[Anonymous Coward]

:))

I love this idea.

Cover up.....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

....incoming Time-Warner lawsuit in 3...2...1...

Oh I can't wait to hear how Time-Warner will claim that this "stifles their business" or that it's an "unfair competitor" or or "will promote child porn" some other such silly horseshit. Whatever it is you can bet the Time-Warner lawyers are working overtime thinking up ways to shut it down. Mark my fuckin' words.

I thought Verizon was also a player

[Krishnoid]

Doesn't Verizon have FIOS and/or wireless networking through converted phone booths? I didn't know Time-Warner had such a firm grip on New York's high-speed Internet access market.

Re:I thought Verizon was also a player

[Anonymous Coward]

I know someone who lives on Staten Island and has FiOS. From what they've told me, the city has a requirement that all the boroughs of New York need to be served by these ISPs, not just select areas. I thought Cox, Comcast, or maybe Cablevision might also be there.

I also head that TWC's wires were rotting in the ground and a lot of people were switching to FiOS, so TWC finally decided to fix them.

Re:I thought Verizon was also a player

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to be considered a player, you have to actually *play*.

Nationwide, this is what billions in subsidies bought us: via Gizmodo.

Huffington Post has some numbers for New York specifically... they aren't even at 50% (as of mid last year).

This is the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Republican Sens. Steve Daines (Mont.), Roger Wicker (Miss.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Cory Gardner (Colo.). Believe they can not be defeated in any election.

Freifunk, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://freifunk.net/en/

Intended originally for free WiFi hotspots, it seems to come pretty close to what this is trying to do. It has been pretty successful in Germany and is expanding quite rapidly especially in my (relatively small) city.

Monopoly?

[Hutz]

I live in NYC. Time Warner Sucks - I've never used them. Over the years I've used DSL, RCN Cable, and FIOS. I welcome new competitors to a thriving marketplace.

Super node range?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope those "super nodes" meet FCC regulations for Part 15 devices. I'm sick of unlicensed illegal shit polluting the RF bands.

Nice job!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick it to the man.

lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of the paid for laws protection racket, and Time Warner goes the way of the dodo. The problem is not technology. The problem is 'democracy'.

Someone needs to create a Kickstarter compaign

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to see a kick starter campaign to shut these companies the fuck down. I think just about every person I know would gladly pay.

Internet 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody needs to be working towards Internet 3.

* Mesh network so government and corporations don't have control.
* No DNS (same reason)
* No DHCP (same reason)
* Full automatic encryption (same reason)