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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.
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!
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.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
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/
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!
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".
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
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.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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?
....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.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...