6 ms·

Stuff like this make me long to live in NYC. Only city in the US with the density, technical expertise, and money for this kind of thing to happen.

komali2 8y ago
I thought the same was true for the Bay Area, hence why I moved here. I was genuinely surprised to find Google Fiber isn't even available, let alone any mesh networks. In all other aspects of technical expertise though it's blowing my previous city, Houston, away. Companies open to candidates based on technical expertise alone (rather than throwing non-B.S. degrees straight into the garbage), lots of great meetups, lots of fellow geeks doing exciting work. Actually, another thing that surprised me was lack of hacker spaces - Houston seemed to have the same amount of them... one. The only major one I'm aware of here is Noisebridge, same for Houston which has TX/RX. edit: oh, apparently SF has quite a few more than I realized. So does Houston, but not as many. https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/San_Francisco https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/San_Francisco https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Houston https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Houston
- fivefive55 8y ago
  I live less than 10 minutes from the Google complex and google fiber isn't an option. It's really sad.
- glitch003 8y ago
  Dunno where you are in the Bay Area, but in SF I have Sonic which is synchronous gigabit for ~$40 a month. It's not Google Fiber, but it's close.
  - komali2 8y ago
    For some reason they offering only 10Mbps in my building in downtown SF... compared to the 150 I get through Comcast. I hate their guts, but they do at least give me pretty darn fast internet.
    - et-al 8y ago
      10Mbps sounds like Sonic Fusion (AT&T DSL partnership) and not Sonic Fiber.
- lyall 8y ago
  Monkeybrains (https://www.monkeybrains.net/ https://www.monkeybrains.net/) operates a mesh network in SF. They're not community owned but they are very much a local business.
  - keerthiko 8y ago
    I wanted to like Monkeybrains but they were just too subpar for the competition in terms of speed, reliability and flexibility. I switched to sonic and get 1GBps fiber for barely $12/mo more than what I paid MB.
- jonah-archive 8y ago
  There's definitely some mesh networking stuff going on, e.g. https://peoplesopen.net https://peoplesopen.net with weekly meetings at https://omnicommons.org https://omnicommons.org There are a large-scale effort in SF many years ago... but it's a hard city to build in. You can read a bit of that history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wireless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wirele...
nerdponx 8y ago
Better still, if you live in Brooklyn you can actually subscribe to an independent locally-run fiber ISP: http://bkfiber.com/ http://bkfiber.com/ It's more of a business product than a consumer product, and it's got limited range, but it's great to know the option even exists.
- shmerl 8y ago
  Unfortunately it's limited to very few places and is practically non existent if you consider Brooklyn as a whole. Meanwhile Brooklyn has Verizon fiber gigabit network and supposedly getting one from Altice too. Two gigabit fiber ISPs in one place would be something quite unique.
rmason 8y ago
I know people doing this in Detroit on a smaller scale. The nodes are I believe using cable modems, not 20 GB connections. But it's free because they have money from a foundation and it's all volunteers. It's all about getting the poor on the net. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kz3xyz/detroit-mesh-network https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kz3xyz/detroit-me...
jdanp 8y ago
NYC is a nice place to believe in in an idealistic way, but crummy when it comes to the nitty gritty function of the city. Source: I live here
- markn951 8y ago
  Oh :(
- remar 8y ago
  Could you maybe elaborate on some examples you have in mind? I'm strongly considering accepting a job offer for a company in NY since I'm starting to get bored of living in Seattle. I figure moving to NY would mean being surrounded by more people and having more opportunities to collaborate on projects like these.

komali2 8y ago

I thought the same was true for the Bay Area, hence why I moved here. I was genuinely surprised to find Google Fiber isn't even available, let alone any mesh networks. In all other aspects of technical expertise though it's blowing my previous city, Houston, away. Companies open to candidates based on technical expertise alone (rather than throwing non-B.S. degrees straight into the garbage), lots of great meetups, lots of fellow geeks doing exciting work. Actually, another thing that surprised me was lack of hacker spaces - Houston seemed to have the same amount of them... one. The only major one I'm aware of here is Noisebridge, same for Houston which has TX/RX. edit: oh, apparently SF has quite a few more than I realized. So does Houston, but not as many. https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/San_Francisco https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/San_Francisco https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Houston https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Houston

fivefive55 8y ago
I live less than 10 minutes from the Google complex and google fiber isn't an option. It's really sad.
glitch003 8y ago
Dunno where you are in the Bay Area, but in SF I have Sonic which is synchronous gigabit for ~$40 a month. It's not Google Fiber, but it's close.
- komali2 8y ago
  For some reason they offering only 10Mbps in my building in downtown SF... compared to the 150 I get through Comcast. I hate their guts, but they do at least give me pretty darn fast internet.
  - et-al 8y ago
    10Mbps sounds like Sonic Fusion (AT&T DSL partnership) and not Sonic Fiber.
lyall 8y ago
Monkeybrains (https://www.monkeybrains.net/ https://www.monkeybrains.net/) operates a mesh network in SF. They're not community owned but they are very much a local business.
- keerthiko 8y ago
  I wanted to like Monkeybrains but they were just too subpar for the competition in terms of speed, reliability and flexibility. I switched to sonic and get 1GBps fiber for barely $12/mo more than what I paid MB.
jonah-archive 8y ago
There's definitely some mesh networking stuff going on, e.g. https://peoplesopen.net https://peoplesopen.net with weekly meetings at https://omnicommons.org https://omnicommons.org There are a large-scale effort in SF many years ago... but it's a hard city to build in. You can read a bit of that history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wireless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wirele...

nerdponx 8y ago

Better still, if you live in Brooklyn you can actually subscribe to an independent locally-run fiber ISP: http://bkfiber.com/ http://bkfiber.com/ It's more of a business product than a consumer product, and it's got limited range, but it's great to know the option even exists.

shmerl 8y ago
Unfortunately it's limited to very few places and is practically non existent if you consider Brooklyn as a whole. Meanwhile Brooklyn has Verizon fiber gigabit network and supposedly getting one from Altice too. Two gigabit fiber ISPs in one place would be something quite unique.

rmason 8y ago

I know people doing this in Detroit on a smaller scale. The nodes are I believe using cable modems, not 20 GB connections. But it's free because they have money from a foundation and it's all volunteers. It's all about getting the poor on the net. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kz3xyz/detroit-mesh-network https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kz3xyz/detroit-me...

jdanp 8y ago

NYC is a nice place to believe in in an idealistic way, but crummy when it comes to the nitty gritty function of the city. Source: I live here

markn951 8y ago
Oh :(
remar 8y ago
Could you maybe elaborate on some examples you have in mind? I'm strongly considering accepting a job offer for a company in NY since I'm starting to get bored of living in Seattle. I figure moving to NY would mean being surrounded by more people and having more opportunities to collaborate on projects like these.