8 ms·

As you can surmise by reading this article, the rise of the wireless ISPs (or WISPs) is not because the wireless technology is better or drastically cheaper. It

by apeace 9y ago

As you can surmise by reading this article, the rise of the wireless ISPs (or WISPs) is not because the wireless technology is better or drastically cheaper. It's because in so many places, the incumbents are able to prevent you from building out fiber. They simply haven't developed the weapons to destroy the WISPs yet, but unless the political climate in states/cities changes, they will. It is tough for WISPs to compete on latency[1]. Not to say there's no value in it or that it couldn't be improved, but right now, aside from the political/regulatory issues, fiber is the best way to build an awesome network for customers. If you want to work on software at a company that is deploying fiber in multiple cities, we're hiring[2]. [1] https://serverfault.com/questions/286588/intermittent-high-ping-latency-problem#286603 https://serverfault.com/questions/286588/intermittent-high-p... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16493742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16493742

sireat 9y ago
Speaking of latency: a well calibrated point to point wireless connection is less latency than fiber jumping a bunch of switches. Proof: finance industry's wide use of microwave towers. https://meanderful.blogspot.com/2017/05/lines-radios-and-cables-oh-my.html https://meanderful.blogspot.com/2017/05/lines-radios-and-cab... There was another set of articles describing microwave towers in Europe, quite fascinating. Not sure if this was the one: https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/hft-in-my-backyard-part-i/ https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/hft-in-my-ba...
- seattleeng 9y ago
  Doesn't weather adversely affect these, though?
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    What of it? If you have an advantage half the time that's better than not having it, as long as benefits exceed costs.
    - sgrove 9y ago
      I think that's a benefit to the finance industry, certainly, but believe the OP may have been thinking about using microwaves for normal non-tech-saavy consumer, in which case inclement weather might be aggravating for them.
    - theptip 9y ago
      That assumes that the marginal utility of more bandwidth doesn't decrease; personally I'd rather have 10Mb all the time, than an average of 10Mb that is sometimes 1Gb and sometimes 0.1Mb. If you can't stream Netflix when it's raining heavily outside, that's a big problem.
      - anigbrowl 9y ago
        I don't think that's the right way to look at the problem. Financial concerns use these microwave networks for additional speed; if it's not available all the time, their competitive edge is limited, but their trades still go through, just not a few milliseconds in advance of their competitors. At least, one hopes that their trading strategy is based on a combination of financial fundamentals and a technological speed boost; if the speed boost is the only thing they've got going for them then that doesn't speak very well of their business.
        theptip 9y ago
        My comment was referring to the broader conversation about WISPs vs. fiber for consumer broadband. I agree that in the financial use-case, the trade-offs are different, and perhaps you can just turn off your wireless link and just fall back to normal fiber when it's raining. To address your last point, under my limited understanding of high-frequency trading, the edge is in predicting small fluctuations in price, and acting first. For that kind of trading if you incur unpredictable latency, you'd expect to lose money on more trades, since your orders come in after the latency arbitrage has been removed. You still need to be able to (somewhat) accurately predict those price movements, but that prediction is meaningless if you can't also execute quickly. So the speed boost is a necessary but not sufficient criteria for executing many HFT strategies.
- apeace 9y ago
  Thanks for the links! They're really interesting. For long paths where you need very low latency, microwave is the way to go. This is why the finance industry uses it. But this article is about more consumer-level internet access, which is why I mentioned WISPs. A WISP will carry your data wirelessly from your building to a nearby point of presence, where it will then be carried over the normal (fiber-based) internet. For the short distance between your building and the POP, my understanding is fiber will provide much more consistent bandwidth and latency.
- rtkwe 9y ago
  The reason they're faster isn't so much that as they're geographically more direct. The older fiber networks were already pretty optimized for latency at the network level to the point that the last place to make any real gains was physically shortening the connections. That's hard with fiber because you have to get agreements along the whole route to dig and bury the fiber where microwave links only need periodic installations.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  Proof: because EM radiation travels at basically the speed of light and take the shortest distance between two points.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mentos 9y ago
Any thoughts on Starlink? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...
- apeace 9y ago
  I think it's really exciting and a great way to provide internet access to areas of the world that don't have infrastructure for cables. If they can get the latency they're talking about (that Wikipedia page says 7ms, which I assume is round-trip to the satellite), that would be pretty good. If you're on fiber, you should have sub-millisecond latency to the point of presence. Then the question becomes: which is the shorter path, the satellite-to-satellite path or the transit/dark fiber your fiber ISP is using? I'm not sure how the math works out, but I'd assume for shorter paths (say, your closest AWS region) fiber is going to come out on top, whereas for trans-continental traffic the satellites could be really competitive. For example, I am getting 6ms total round-trip-time from NYC to AWS in Virginia.
stcredzero 9y ago
They simply haven't developed the weapons to destroy the WISPs yet, but unless the political climate in states/cities changes, they will. Basically, authoritarianism rears its ugly head in the US once again, across corporate, national, state, and local levels. The same general kind of gaming of the system which resulted in interstates dividing white from non-white neighborhoods is now maintaining the media status quo. On one side, it's the corporatism and Crony Capitalism the left traditionally complains about, now wielded by the Far Left as a non-governmental form of censorship. On the other side, it's legal and regulatory blocking of progress to maintain the status quo for old media and to use as leverage against the tech giants. This is potentially deadly for US society. Until we once again have a healthy 5th estate which can reach the whole of society, the Fox-Newsification and the Gawker-ization of our news media is basically destroying what little actual discourse we have left.
- specialist 9y ago
  "...now wielded by the Far Left..." What is my tribe accused of this time? My peeps are trying to expand broadband, so I guess none of us got the memo.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    What is my tribe accused of this time? Kicking out groups that don't hew to the party-line on YouTube. Not only the genuinely far-right, but also moderates, mainstream Republicans, and various sub-cultural enthusiasts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTI4Bm5OxkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTI4Bm5OxkU My peeps are trying to expand broadband, so I guess none of us got the memo. As I referenced above, old-media interests and local interests oppose the expansion of broadband (as well as broadly defined Net Neutrality) in order to preserve an old-media status quo. Google Fiber, had it been successful, would have been a competitive force against this, destroying the barriers which keep Cable and old-media from being completely washed away. If "your peeps" had succeeded, I suspect "Adpocalypse" wouldn't have happened. YouTube and the like would have done something about ISIS videos, stopped around there, then told the mainstream corporate ad-money to just deal with the rest or go screw. As it is, the status-quo corporate money is being used as leverage against new media through YouTube.

by apeace 9y ago

sireat 9y ago

Speaking of latency: a well calibrated point to point wireless connection is less latency than fiber jumping a bunch of switches. Proof: finance industry's wide use of microwave towers. https://meanderful.blogspot.com/2017/05/lines-radios-and-cables-oh-my.html https://meanderful.blogspot.com/2017/05/lines-radios-and-cab... There was another set of articles describing microwave towers in Europe, quite fascinating. Not sure if this was the one: https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/hft-in-my-backyard-part-i/ https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/hft-in-my-ba...

seattleeng 9y ago
Doesn't weather adversely affect these, though?
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  What of it? If you have an advantage half the time that's better than not having it, as long as benefits exceed costs.
  - sgrove 9y ago
    I think that's a benefit to the finance industry, certainly, but believe the OP may have been thinking about using microwaves for normal non-tech-saavy consumer, in which case inclement weather might be aggravating for them.
  - theptip 9y ago
    That assumes that the marginal utility of more bandwidth doesn't decrease; personally I'd rather have 10Mb all the time, than an average of 10Mb that is sometimes 1Gb and sometimes 0.1Mb. If you can't stream Netflix when it's raining heavily outside, that's a big problem.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      I don't think that's the right way to look at the problem. Financial concerns use these microwave networks for additional speed; if it's not available all the time, their competitive edge is limited, but their trades still go through, just not a few milliseconds in advance of their competitors. At least, one hopes that their trading strategy is based on a combination of financial fundamentals and a technological speed boost; if the speed boost is the only thing they've got going for them then that doesn't speak very well of their business.
      - theptip 9y ago
        My comment was referring to the broader conversation about WISPs vs. fiber for consumer broadband. I agree that in the financial use-case, the trade-offs are different, and perhaps you can just turn off your wireless link and just fall back to normal fiber when it's raining. To address your last point, under my limited understanding of high-frequency trading, the edge is in predicting small fluctuations in price, and acting first. For that kind of trading if you incur unpredictable latency, you'd expect to lose money on more trades, since your orders come in after the latency arbitrage has been removed. You still need to be able to (somewhat) accurately predict those price movements, but that prediction is meaningless if you can't also execute quickly. So the speed boost is a necessary but not sufficient criteria for executing many HFT strategies.
apeace 9y ago
Thanks for the links! They're really interesting. For long paths where you need very low latency, microwave is the way to go. This is why the finance industry uses it. But this article is about more consumer-level internet access, which is why I mentioned WISPs. A WISP will carry your data wirelessly from your building to a nearby point of presence, where it will then be carried over the normal (fiber-based) internet. For the short distance between your building and the POP, my understanding is fiber will provide much more consistent bandwidth and latency.
rtkwe 9y ago
The reason they're faster isn't so much that as they're geographically more direct. The older fiber networks were already pretty optimized for latency at the network level to the point that the last place to make any real gains was physically shortening the connections. That's hard with fiber because you have to get agreements along the whole route to dig and bury the fiber where microwave links only need periodic installations.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
Proof: because EM radiation travels at basically the speed of light and take the shortest distance between two points.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mentos 9y ago

Any thoughts on Starlink? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...

apeace 9y ago
I think it's really exciting and a great way to provide internet access to areas of the world that don't have infrastructure for cables. If they can get the latency they're talking about (that Wikipedia page says 7ms, which I assume is round-trip to the satellite), that would be pretty good. If you're on fiber, you should have sub-millisecond latency to the point of presence. Then the question becomes: which is the shorter path, the satellite-to-satellite path or the transit/dark fiber your fiber ISP is using? I'm not sure how the math works out, but I'd assume for shorter paths (say, your closest AWS region) fiber is going to come out on top, whereas for trans-continental traffic the satellites could be really competitive. For example, I am getting 6ms total round-trip-time from NYC to AWS in Virginia.

stcredzero 9y ago

They simply haven't developed the weapons to destroy the WISPs yet, but unless the political climate in states/cities changes, they will. Basically, authoritarianism rears its ugly head in the US once again, across corporate, national, state, and local levels. The same general kind of gaming of the system which resulted in interstates dividing white from non-white neighborhoods is now maintaining the media status quo. On one side, it's the corporatism and Crony Capitalism the left traditionally complains about, now wielded by the Far Left as a non-governmental form of censorship. On the other side, it's legal and regulatory blocking of progress to maintain the status quo for old media and to use as leverage against the tech giants. This is potentially deadly for US society. Until we once again have a healthy 5th estate which can reach the whole of society, the Fox-Newsification and the Gawker-ization of our news media is basically destroying what little actual discourse we have left.

specialist 9y ago
"...now wielded by the Far Left..." What is my tribe accused of this time? My peeps are trying to expand broadband, so I guess none of us got the memo.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  What is my tribe accused of this time? Kicking out groups that don't hew to the party-line on YouTube. Not only the genuinely far-right, but also moderates, mainstream Republicans, and various sub-cultural enthusiasts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTI4Bm5OxkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTI4Bm5OxkU My peeps are trying to expand broadband, so I guess none of us got the memo. As I referenced above, old-media interests and local interests oppose the expansion of broadband (as well as broadly defined Net Neutrality) in order to preserve an old-media status quo. Google Fiber, had it been successful, would have been a competitive force against this, destroying the barriers which keep Cable and old-media from being completely washed away. If "your peeps" had succeeded, I suspect "Adpocalypse" wouldn't have happened. YouTube and the like would have done something about ISIS videos, stopped around there, then told the mainstream corporate ad-money to just deal with the rest or go screw. As it is, the status-quo corporate money is being used as leverage against new media through YouTube.