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This stuff is cool and maybe useful in far-fetched scenarios, but it's not going to replace ISPs anytime soon. Mesh networks don't make economic sense in most c
by jeffreyrogers 9y ago
This stuff is cool and maybe useful in far-fetched scenarios, but it's not going to replace ISPs anytime soon. Mesh networks don't make economic sense in most circumstances.
Also, I'm guessing that users share the same IP address, which can cause problems. Plus, if one user is doing something illegal and causes the supernode to get shutdown then no one on the mesh network will have access to the internet.
Addition: quotes like "The internet doesn't really cost you anything, it's just the connection [that has a fee]... Nobody owns the internet, there's no one to pay." Are shockingly naive. Who does he expects pays for the fiber that runs across the country and along the ocean floor? The marginal cost of a new user on the internet is effectively zero, but that doesn't say anything important. The infrastructure that makes the internet work is enormously expensive.
- bogomipz 9y ago>"This stuff is cool and maybe useful in far-fetched scenarios, but it's not going to replace ISPs anytime soon. Mesh networks don't make economic sense in most circumstances" Far fetched you mean like getting instantly connected to the internet for a fraction of the cost and with better bandwidth in major city? You realize that mesh is just for the access network correct? There's still fiber between them and their transit providers. Mesh makes a lot economic sense compared to the costs of trenching and laying fiber miles.
- nycmesh 9y agoWe are replacing ISPs in NYC for our members. This is now, not the future. The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs. All networks, including us, add to this expensive infrastructure. The difference with our infrastructure is it is owned and shared by members.
- Paul-ish 9y agoVery cool. Is this a customer coop or a non-profit (or something else)?
- nycmesh 9y agoIt's a non-profit
- prklmn 9y agoMaybe you could get Ubiquiti to put up some money for promotion around the city to boost installs.
- gowld 9y agoSure thing. And I offer free WiFi access to all my household members, houseguests, and next-door neighbors. The main thing holding me back is scaling up the number of installs too. I'm hoping a billion dollars of donations can square that away for me and my wider-area neighbor.
- Stephen304 9y agoThis is essentially what I do. I do have my housemates pay a share because they have access to a hardwire connection, but I have an open AP which my neighbors, guests, and anyone within line of sight down the street use. I have plenty of bandwidth that goes unused so I don't mind - I pay to have fast bursts of traffic, so I don't have a problem letting other people use what I don't. The only thing holding me back from having more people use it is locations nearby for repeaters. But I may put more effort into getting neighbors interested in hosting repeaters so that may change.
- danShumway 9y agoI get that you're joking, but this is basically how public wifi works. A bunch of businesses and nonprofits offer free wifi to their customers, and over time you build up a big enough blanket that pretty much anybody can walk into a coffee shop or library and check their email. Tons of security risks, of course, but... I mean, I've used public wifi before during personal emergencies, and I was pretty grateful it existed. If you're gonna pick a comparison to be derisive with, maybe don't pick something that's widely useful and appreciated? Comcast has even turned this into a selling point (I think somewhat unethically) by turning all of their customer access points into semi-public routers for other customers. It actually seems to scale pretty well.
- gowld 9y agoComcast doesn't do it for free. That is financed by bill-paying customers
- danShumway 9y agoYes? Comcast provides its wifi by allowing you to connect to any other customer's router. (Roughly) a mesh network provides its wifi by allowing you to connect to any of the other nodes within the mesh. What's your point? Is the money/infrastructure less legitimate because it was donated? Is the public wifi down at the library fundamentally worse because its cost wasn't bundled into the price of a coffee? Hardware is hardware. If it works, who cares where it came from?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- peterwwillis 9y ago> The main thing holding us back is scaling up the number of installs. So the main thing holding you back is time, money, resources, access, customers, and logistics?
- nycmesh 9y agoMainly logistics. We've had a huge influx of people wanting to be connected since December, so we've had to add stuff like a ticketing system, inventory tracking and also we're training people to lead installs. It's normal scaling problems that fast growing organizations have.
- Rjevski 9y ago> I'm guessing that users share the same IP address I don’t see why that would be the case - you can give every user their own public IP directly. I would imagine they’re giving everyone an IPv6 /64 and a carrier-grade NAT for IPv4 (as it’s really hard for any new player to get usable amounts of IPv4 space).
- jeffreyrogers 9y agoMany WISPs have their customers share the same IPv4 address, which means when one customer gets the IP banned from some site, all of the customers are banned until the WISP resolves the issue. I don't know if that is the case here, but it is common enough that I think it's likely.
- ballenf 9y agoHow are they at any greater risk than any other ISP?