10 ms·

NYC Mesh Community Internet

148 points by eu 5y ago

afavour 5y ago
Mesh is such an awesome project. I remember when the pandemic lockdowns started I spoke to friends that teach in poorer neighborhoods and they regarded the schools plans as a joke: even if they distributed Chromebooks/tablets to every student without one, a lot of them didn’t have an internet connection to use it with. A Mesh network with antennas on top of public buildings (schools, libraries) could have been a huge asset. That said, I don’t have a Mesh internet connection because I live in a large apartment building and would need permission from the building owner to install anything. Even then, there are thirty-odd units in my building so splitting that antenna bandwidth between all of us wouldn’t amount to much. A better option (that Mesh provides) is for large buildings to get fiber connections and share bandwidth with the Mesh network at large. But that would require considerable involvement from my building management and they couldn’t care less. Given how common that is it seems like a big hurdle for the project, while corporate competitors like Starry will probably have an easier time convincing skeptical owners. Fingers crossed that as they roll out more locations more building owners will get on board.
- paulcarroty 5y ago
  > I live in a large apartment building and would need permission from the building owner to install anything. Kinda strange for me. Do you need a permission for router install too?
  - afavour 5y ago
    I should clarify, I need permission to install anything on the roof, which is how Mesh connections are almost always made.
    - yepthatsreality 5y ago
      You don’t have to share your mesh connection with all 30 units and the equipment you install wouldn’t be able to support 30 units. Mesh also isn’t really available for Mega ultra fast connection speeds but more of a secondary connection. Having said that, the fun of mesh is having those conversations and getting others to also purchase equipment and install. Also as your neighbors and surrounding buildings add their own installs, the boxes will also wirelessly mesh together which will increase bandwidth and possibly speed. So maybe you could ask 2 of your neighbors to pitch in, which would get you the connection but also influence others to join in on your neighborhood network. Right now I bought a Ubiquiti Edge router and balance my connection so that NYC Mesh is a failover. Initially was receiving 40Mpbs download but checked again recently and now am sometimes seeing speeds of 100Mbps because the nodes in my neighborhood grew.
      - afavour 5y ago
        > You don’t have to share your mesh connection with all 30 units and the equipment you install wouldn’t be able to support 30 units. Right, and that’s the key problem with building management approval. They’re already disinterested and they’re even less interested in installing something that only benefits one apartment or maybe a couple. There’s already a specific exclusion against the likes of DirectTV satellites that only serve one apartment on the roof. So the best chance of getting approved is to go down the fiber route, but that’s a so much larger and complex solution that there’s less chance it’ll ever happen. Feels a little catch 22-ish: the small solution is too small to get approved, the large solution is too large to get approved. None of this is Mesh’s fault, it’s just that plodding real estate interests in the city always default to doing nothing if they can. (worth noting though that a number of folks in NYC live in co-op buildings where the apartment owners are the building management, I imagine the fiber option could make inroads there much more easily)
        yepthatsreality 5y ago
        I don’t think the small solution is too small to get approved. You just need to make the right arguments. “Hey let’s install this so every apartment has free/low cost internet connection.” Isn’t the right argument. “Let’s install this so we can be apart of a growing network, then if other residents are interested they can join with their own time investment. This way people have options and a working relationship with management. If this ends up as too much work then the equipment is easily removed.” Make the argument to opt out and I think you will find that once it’s in place no one will want to put in the time to opt out because the opt-in is all benefit. I understand what you’re saying and the fiber option could be a later enhancement. I know NYC building management is sometimes difficult but my installs were fun and painless that I’m hard pressed to believe it wasn’t worth it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- coolaliasbro 5y ago
  I'm not familiar enough with the technology to understand the privacy implications--are operators able to identify/snoop on specific users? I'm wondering how easily a building owner or landlord could collect and leverage their residents' data for any number of nefarious reasons.
  - gardnr 5y ago
    It's just like any other connection. You can think of the wifi links just replacing a cable. If NYC Mesh are linking through fibre installed at various buildings around town then yes, anyone with access to that router could snoop. In Germany, the Freifunk mesh project solved this problem by routing through VPN tunnels: https://pinneberg.freifunk.net/en/faq https://pinneberg.freifunk.net/en/faq
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  We need to work on changing the laws so that “they couldn’t care less” is no longer relevant. Internet access is a human right. Housing without internet access should be viewed similarly to housing without electricity or indoor plumbing.
ThaDood 5y ago
Dunno if this is allowed or not, but paywall free version is here: https://archive.is/Z6GXD https://archive.is/Z6GXD I would really love to do something like this in my neighborhood. Seems like an interesting project and a fun hobby but sadly I think I would have a hard time with hardware and finding willing people to help out.
- cartoonworld 5y ago
  The hardware is readily available, you can also just use yagi or directional normal wifi, but the real difficulty is getting buy in and people to want to connect. Is it the sole internet or backup is an important question to answer. Find a local ham group, they may already be doing something similar and might be interested in other projects.
  - ThaDood 5y ago
    Oh yeah, hardware access is no problem. Its just cost, for me atleast. Finding people to connect would also be difficult. Funny you mention hammers. I checked and my local ham group is run by a bunch of right-wing nut jobs, so I don't think they would be interested in a meshnet.
    - gravypod 5y ago
      To echo this: When I was in college at NJIT I had access to a building, with roof access, 10G networking, head of networking was a friend, battery backup, and staff members on site at all times [0] and attempted to figure out what we'd need to connect to NYC Mesh or if they'd be interested in starting a sister mesh. We're in NJ so connecting to the NYC Mesh might have been difficult but we likely had line-of-sight to some parts of Manhattan. tl;dr: No one was able to help at the time and we'd have to foot the bill for the equipment which was not possible at the time. This is obviously completely reasonable but hopefully as they grow they can do more outreach. A Mesh alternative to standard ISPs is critical in my opinion. It could even be used for emergency communications in the next Sandy-like scenario. [0] - https://www.k2mff.club/ https://www.k2mff.club/ & https://web.njit.edu/~k2mff/ourwork.html https://web.njit.edu/~k2mff/ourwork.html > and we'd have to foot the bill for the equipment which was not possible at the time. This is obviously completely reasonable but hopefully as they grow they can do more
rognjen 5y ago
I had a positive, albeit short, experience with mesh.
- jefftk 5y ago
  Why short?
  - rognjen 5y ago
    Because I stayed in NYC for a short time only.
seibelj 5y ago
The article mentions a problem is the mesh goes down and they rely on volunteers to fix it. Furthermore the “volunteer” who installed required a $50 tip to come out. I get why this is so much cheaper but without an organizational structure with people paid to come fix stuff you will always have situations where stuff is busted. Plus as more non-tech, non-ideological folk get connected they will abuse the volunteers when they come to help just as people do with any tech support, and volunteers are under no obligation to assist if they get annoyed. I think a formal non-profit structure with employees will be required to make this work. If the goal is an under-the-table donation at fixed prices then this can work as a tax dodge for informal employment (which is also interesting) but again, this isn’t a sustainable model.
- yepthatsreality 5y ago
  Their model goes beyond creating a community based network. They also encourage a fair amount of self education. The non-technical market is not the market for nyc mesh and probably never will be. If you want an internet connection that is serviced you should pay a service provider. The goal of nyc mesh is not capitalism or to become a standard ISP.
  - seibelj 5y ago
    I don’t see how anyone goes through the hassle of installing this for a, “eh, maybe it works sometimes” internet connection. This has nothing to do with capitalism other than the basic understanding that people won’t give their time away for nothing on a reliable, ongoing basis.
    - yepthatsreality 5y ago
      If you do not understand why you would install equipment and grow a network owned and operated by a community that gets better with each addition, then you are not part of the market for this. No one said it only works sometimes or wasn’t reliable. You just won’t be using it to binge watch TV shows or competively gaming.
Fnoord 5y ago
Amsterdam had such a project in ~2002, called Wireless East. It was subsidized. Not sure if still exists. I been to Serbia in 2008 and they were also rolling such out. Back then mobile traffic costs were insane.
seventytwo 5y ago
How applicable is this model to rural or mountainous regions?
- iptrans 5y ago
  A mesh network requires short hops or line of sight and willing participants. You might come up short on all accounts. A traditional WISP model might be more practical, if you can secure tower sites.
- nycmesh 5y ago
  Community networks are pretty common in rural areas in other countries. My favorites are guifi.net and b4rn.org.uk. They both use lots of fiber running through farms.
foobarbecue 5y ago
This is great but I want to see a community mesh network which competes with the internet rather than delivering it. Best of it was based on existing wifi overlaps. Distributed, decentralized.
- iptrans 5y ago
  People want to access to the Internet, not your LAN.
  - foobarbecue 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27946947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27946947
    - iptrans 5y ago
      While interesting from an intellectual point of view, how is the link relevant to the topic being discussed?
cjmaria 5y ago
My small upstate NY city has a mesh internet provider https://www.massivemesh.net/ https://www.massivemesh.net/ but frankly its one of the worst in town. They don't even list bandwidth speeds on their packages because they are so poor. They might be a better option than DSL, but not cable-based internet. I have team members who live in buildings that contract with this mesh company and they are constantly dropping out of zoom calls for unstable connections. The poorest parts of the city are out of range for their mesh network, but luckily people in these areas can qualify for low-income internet pricing from the cable company.
- simfree 5y ago
  A proprietary, centrally ran ISP with little community input is a false equivalent of NYC Mesh. The friends of mine that use NYC Mesh often experience speeds faster than what can be reasonably purchased from other ISPs available in the same building. It's a great way to eliminate your internet bill and gain much faster upload speeds.
rshnotsecure 5y ago
It bothers me that people are not more suspicious of things like this. Setting up a mesh internet grid is not a trivial engineering task. You would need to recruit at least several extremely skilled, extremely expensive network engineers with phenomenal understanding of how antennas work and radio wave propagation. You would have to run operations 24/7. You would need skilled lawyers in local, state, and federal law to fend off the legal challenges. Also you would have to have fierce integrity and honesty to not sell the data to recoup some of your costs. In addition to all this, you would have to be running an aggressive counterintelligence program internally, because such an operation any intelligence agency would love to be part of, whether you know it or not. The lack of widespread computer science knowledge in the United States makes it so we all continually fall for what are likely scams or intelligence agency plays.
- iptrans 5y ago
  Ignoring the lack of faith in humanity, what legal challenges are you afraid of?
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  The NSA already taps normal ISPs; why would them compromising this be any worse?
mdasen 5y ago
One of the things I've wondered is why people don't create small-mesh networks off their cable internet? For example, if I'm living in a relatively small apartment with nearby neighbors, why not get one of those WiFi mesh router systems and hook up 2-4 apartments to a single internet connection? This project is really interesting, but it requires a certain amount of organization and technical expertise. Installing directional antennas, running wires, etc. isn't incredibly hard, but it's a lot more work than setting up a router. The new WiFi mesh routers are pretty great at covering a larger area and in my city the apartments are pretty close together. In a 3-unit building, it seems like you could just get one internet connection in the middle unit and a nice 3-unit WiFi mesh system and save on internet costs.
- iptrans 5y ago
  ToS violation. You may not share Internet connections without explicit consent from the ISP. You can order a connection which allows sharing, but it’ll cost you about a grand or so per month.
  - simfree 5y ago
    Shareable/resellable connections are often not offered over cable systems. I have tried to acquire this type of service over coax from with Comcast, Cox & Wave/RCN/Grande.
    - iptrans 5y ago
      Yeah, you’ll have to ask the cable company to drop you a fiber line and you’ll be in business.
- op00to 5y ago
  I don’t want to get raided by the DEA cause my neighbor and network sharer likes to buy LSD online.
  - iptrans 5y ago
    That’s not the reason why you don’t share your Internet connection, that’s the reason why you keep logs.
purple_ferret 5y ago
I thought about joining the network but it's a hard sell over Verizon Fios. 300/300 for $40 a month is hard to beat.
- julesqs 5y ago
  you get that price in NYC?
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    Yup. It's on their website.
    - julesqs 5y ago
      wild how different the prices are, but I guess that's what happens when a lot of buildings only have one or two providers. No fios available for me, but I'm paying $70/month for optimum "up to 300 download, up to 35 upload". Usually on speedtests I'm usually getting 15%-20% lower than that. edit for context: in brooklyn
      - xyzelement 5y ago
        Yeah makes sense. I never paid more than $35/40 but I always lived in the city with at least a few other options (FIOS and RCN) in addition to Time Warner. BTW was using RCN the last few years and they were very good. Now we're moving to Long Island and the town has only two choices - optimum and FiOS. When I looked at the Optimum statement, there was a ton of "discounts" for being in a high-competition area which is how they got the price down to ~35 as well, from the base of about $70 as you said. Though we later changed our minds and went for Fios at about $39.
saaaam 5y ago
I use Mesh at home as my sole internet provider and I've had a great experience so far. I typically get 80mbps download, and the service has been overall very reliable (although there is an occasional brief outage or slowdown when it's raining hard). The only other option in my building is Optimum, which has its own reliability issues and is much more expensive (~$100/month for 200mbps).
julesqs 5y ago
a coalition of groups in New York City is also pushing for a municipal broadband option: https://internetforall.nyc/ https://internetforall.nyc/
oliv__ 5y ago
"Mr. Hall secured funding from the Internet Society to set up NYC Mesh’s first “supernode” on top of the former Verizon building in downtown Manhattan" Isn't that a "secret" government agency location now?
- xaprof 5y ago
  You may be thinking of the AT&T “Long Lines Building” at 33 Thomas Street. (AKA “The Oldest House” from the game Control.) NYC Mesh’s Supernode 1 is on top of a different building, at 375 Pearl Street.
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
what ever happened to the possibilities/power of those LinkNYC phone booth towers all over the city? I was impressed/very excited about them when they first deployed. The speed coming off those things was great. Could those not add tons of nodes to the Mesh? or are they all in the 'wrong' part of the city heh
- nycmesh 5y ago
  We tried repeating LinkNYC kiosks a few years ago but it wasn't reliable enough, making it too difficult to support. We have instructions for a DIY connection on our website and a channel on our Slack where you can ask other members about problems. The DHCP lease tends to go dead every couple of months and we have various things to try when that happens.

148 points by eu 5y ago

Mesh is such an awesome project. I remember when the pandemic lockdowns started I spoke to friends that teach in poorer neighborhoods and they regarded the schools plans as a joke: even if they distributed Chromebooks/tablets to every student without one, a lot of them didn’t have an internet connection to use it with. A Mesh network with antennas on top of public buildings (schools, libraries) could have been a huge asset. That said, I don’t have a Mesh internet connection because I live in a large apartment building and would need permission from the building owner to install anything. Even then, there are thirty-odd units in my building so splitting that antenna bandwidth between all of us wouldn’t amount to much. A better option (that Mesh provides) is for large buildings to get fiber connections and share bandwidth with the Mesh network at large. But that would require considerable involvement from my building management and they couldn’t care less. Given how common that is it seems like a big hurdle for the project, while corporate competitors like Starry will probably have an easier time convincing skeptical owners. Fingers crossed that as they roll out more locations more building owners will get on board.

paulcarroty 5y ago
> I live in a large apartment building and would need permission from the building owner to install anything. Kinda strange for me. Do you need a permission for router install too?
- afavour 5y ago
  I should clarify, I need permission to install anything on the roof, which is how Mesh connections are almost always made.
  - yepthatsreality 5y ago
    You don’t have to share your mesh connection with all 30 units and the equipment you install wouldn’t be able to support 30 units. Mesh also isn’t really available for Mega ultra fast connection speeds but more of a secondary connection. Having said that, the fun of mesh is having those conversations and getting others to also purchase equipment and install. Also as your neighbors and surrounding buildings add their own installs, the boxes will also wirelessly mesh together which will increase bandwidth and possibly speed. So maybe you could ask 2 of your neighbors to pitch in, which would get you the connection but also influence others to join in on your neighborhood network. Right now I bought a Ubiquiti Edge router and balance my connection so that NYC Mesh is a failover. Initially was receiving 40Mpbs download but checked again recently and now am sometimes seeing speeds of 100Mbps because the nodes in my neighborhood grew.
    - afavour 5y ago
      > You don’t have to share your mesh connection with all 30 units and the equipment you install wouldn’t be able to support 30 units. Right, and that’s the key problem with building management approval. They’re already disinterested and they’re even less interested in installing something that only benefits one apartment or maybe a couple. There’s already a specific exclusion against the likes of DirectTV satellites that only serve one apartment on the roof. So the best chance of getting approved is to go down the fiber route, but that’s a so much larger and complex solution that there’s less chance it’ll ever happen. Feels a little catch 22-ish: the small solution is too small to get approved, the large solution is too large to get approved. None of this is Mesh’s fault, it’s just that plodding real estate interests in the city always default to doing nothing if they can. (worth noting though that a number of folks in NYC live in co-op buildings where the apartment owners are the building management, I imagine the fiber option could make inroads there much more easily)
      - yepthatsreality 5y ago
        I don’t think the small solution is too small to get approved. You just need to make the right arguments. “Hey let’s install this so every apartment has free/low cost internet connection.” Isn’t the right argument. “Let’s install this so we can be apart of a growing network, then if other residents are interested they can join with their own time investment. This way people have options and a working relationship with management. If this ends up as too much work then the equipment is easily removed.” Make the argument to opt out and I think you will find that once it’s in place no one will want to put in the time to opt out because the opt-in is all benefit. I understand what you’re saying and the fiber option could be a later enhancement. I know NYC building management is sometimes difficult but my installs were fun and painless that I’m hard pressed to believe it wasn’t worth it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
coolaliasbro 5y ago
I'm not familiar enough with the technology to understand the privacy implications--are operators able to identify/snoop on specific users? I'm wondering how easily a building owner or landlord could collect and leverage their residents' data for any number of nefarious reasons.
- gardnr 5y ago
  It's just like any other connection. You can think of the wifi links just replacing a cable. If NYC Mesh are linking through fibre installed at various buildings around town then yes, anyone with access to that router could snoop. In Germany, the Freifunk mesh project solved this problem by routing through VPN tunnels: https://pinneberg.freifunk.net/en/faq https://pinneberg.freifunk.net/en/faq
seanp2k2 5y ago
We need to work on changing the laws so that “they couldn’t care less” is no longer relevant. Internet access is a human right. Housing without internet access should be viewed similarly to housing without electricity or indoor plumbing.

ThaDood 5y ago

Dunno if this is allowed or not, but paywall free version is here: https://archive.is/Z6GXD https://archive.is/Z6GXD I would really love to do something like this in my neighborhood. Seems like an interesting project and a fun hobby but sadly I think I would have a hard time with hardware and finding willing people to help out.

cartoonworld 5y ago
The hardware is readily available, you can also just use yagi or directional normal wifi, but the real difficulty is getting buy in and people to want to connect. Is it the sole internet or backup is an important question to answer. Find a local ham group, they may already be doing something similar and might be interested in other projects.
- ThaDood 5y ago
  Oh yeah, hardware access is no problem. Its just cost, for me atleast. Finding people to connect would also be difficult. Funny you mention hammers. I checked and my local ham group is run by a bunch of right-wing nut jobs, so I don't think they would be interested in a meshnet.
  - gravypod 5y ago
    To echo this: When I was in college at NJIT I had access to a building, with roof access, 10G networking, head of networking was a friend, battery backup, and staff members on site at all times [0] and attempted to figure out what we'd need to connect to NYC Mesh or if they'd be interested in starting a sister mesh. We're in NJ so connecting to the NYC Mesh might have been difficult but we likely had line-of-sight to some parts of Manhattan. tl;dr: No one was able to help at the time and we'd have to foot the bill for the equipment which was not possible at the time. This is obviously completely reasonable but hopefully as they grow they can do more outreach. A Mesh alternative to standard ISPs is critical in my opinion. It could even be used for emergency communications in the next Sandy-like scenario. [0] - https://www.k2mff.club/ https://www.k2mff.club/ & https://web.njit.edu/~k2mff/ourwork.html https://web.njit.edu/~k2mff/ourwork.html > and we'd have to foot the bill for the equipment which was not possible at the time. This is obviously completely reasonable but hopefully as they grow they can do more

rognjen 5y ago

I had a positive, albeit short, experience with mesh.

jefftk 5y ago
Why short?
- rognjen 5y ago
  Because I stayed in NYC for a short time only.

seibelj 5y ago

The article mentions a problem is the mesh goes down and they rely on volunteers to fix it. Furthermore the “volunteer” who installed required a $50 tip to come out. I get why this is so much cheaper but without an organizational structure with people paid to come fix stuff you will always have situations where stuff is busted. Plus as more non-tech, non-ideological folk get connected they will abuse the volunteers when they come to help just as people do with any tech support, and volunteers are under no obligation to assist if they get annoyed. I think a formal non-profit structure with employees will be required to make this work. If the goal is an under-the-table donation at fixed prices then this can work as a tax dodge for informal employment (which is also interesting) but again, this isn’t a sustainable model.

yepthatsreality 5y ago
Their model goes beyond creating a community based network. They also encourage a fair amount of self education. The non-technical market is not the market for nyc mesh and probably never will be. If you want an internet connection that is serviced you should pay a service provider. The goal of nyc mesh is not capitalism or to become a standard ISP.
- seibelj 5y ago
  I don’t see how anyone goes through the hassle of installing this for a, “eh, maybe it works sometimes” internet connection. This has nothing to do with capitalism other than the basic understanding that people won’t give their time away for nothing on a reliable, ongoing basis.
  - yepthatsreality 5y ago
    If you do not understand why you would install equipment and grow a network owned and operated by a community that gets better with each addition, then you are not part of the market for this. No one said it only works sometimes or wasn’t reliable. You just won’t be using it to binge watch TV shows or competively gaming.

Fnoord 5y ago

Amsterdam had such a project in ~2002, called Wireless East. It was subsidized. Not sure if still exists. I been to Serbia in 2008 and they were also rolling such out. Back then mobile traffic costs were insane.

seventytwo 5y ago

How applicable is this model to rural or mountainous regions?

iptrans 5y ago
A mesh network requires short hops or line of sight and willing participants. You might come up short on all accounts. A traditional WISP model might be more practical, if you can secure tower sites.
nycmesh 5y ago
Community networks are pretty common in rural areas in other countries. My favorites are guifi.net and b4rn.org.uk. They both use lots of fiber running through farms.

foobarbecue 5y ago

This is great but I want to see a community mesh network which competes with the internet rather than delivering it. Best of it was based on existing wifi overlaps. Distributed, decentralized.

iptrans 5y ago
People want to access to the Internet, not your LAN.
- foobarbecue 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27946947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27946947
  - iptrans 5y ago
    While interesting from an intellectual point of view, how is the link relevant to the topic being discussed?

cjmaria 5y ago

My small upstate NY city has a mesh internet provider https://www.massivemesh.net/ https://www.massivemesh.net/ but frankly its one of the worst in town. They don't even list bandwidth speeds on their packages because they are so poor. They might be a better option than DSL, but not cable-based internet. I have team members who live in buildings that contract with this mesh company and they are constantly dropping out of zoom calls for unstable connections. The poorest parts of the city are out of range for their mesh network, but luckily people in these areas can qualify for low-income internet pricing from the cable company.

simfree 5y ago
A proprietary, centrally ran ISP with little community input is a false equivalent of NYC Mesh. The friends of mine that use NYC Mesh often experience speeds faster than what can be reasonably purchased from other ISPs available in the same building. It's a great way to eliminate your internet bill and gain much faster upload speeds.

rshnotsecure 5y ago

It bothers me that people are not more suspicious of things like this. Setting up a mesh internet grid is not a trivial engineering task. You would need to recruit at least several extremely skilled, extremely expensive network engineers with phenomenal understanding of how antennas work and radio wave propagation. You would have to run operations 24/7. You would need skilled lawyers in local, state, and federal law to fend off the legal challenges. Also you would have to have fierce integrity and honesty to not sell the data to recoup some of your costs. In addition to all this, you would have to be running an aggressive counterintelligence program internally, because such an operation any intelligence agency would love to be part of, whether you know it or not. The lack of widespread computer science knowledge in the United States makes it so we all continually fall for what are likely scams or intelligence agency plays.

iptrans 5y ago
Ignoring the lack of faith in humanity, what legal challenges are you afraid of?
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
The NSA already taps normal ISPs; why would them compromising this be any worse?

mdasen 5y ago

One of the things I've wondered is why people don't create small-mesh networks off their cable internet? For example, if I'm living in a relatively small apartment with nearby neighbors, why not get one of those WiFi mesh router systems and hook up 2-4 apartments to a single internet connection? This project is really interesting, but it requires a certain amount of organization and technical expertise. Installing directional antennas, running wires, etc. isn't incredibly hard, but it's a lot more work than setting up a router. The new WiFi mesh routers are pretty great at covering a larger area and in my city the apartments are pretty close together. In a 3-unit building, it seems like you could just get one internet connection in the middle unit and a nice 3-unit WiFi mesh system and save on internet costs.

iptrans 5y ago
ToS violation. You may not share Internet connections without explicit consent from the ISP. You can order a connection which allows sharing, but it’ll cost you about a grand or so per month.
- simfree 5y ago
  Shareable/resellable connections are often not offered over cable systems. I have tried to acquire this type of service over coax from with Comcast, Cox & Wave/RCN/Grande.
  - iptrans 5y ago
    Yeah, you’ll have to ask the cable company to drop you a fiber line and you’ll be in business.
op00to 5y ago
I don’t want to get raided by the DEA cause my neighbor and network sharer likes to buy LSD online.
- iptrans 5y ago
  That’s not the reason why you don’t share your Internet connection, that’s the reason why you keep logs.

purple_ferret 5y ago

I thought about joining the network but it's a hard sell over Verizon Fios. 300/300 for $40 a month is hard to beat.

julesqs 5y ago
you get that price in NYC?
- xyzelement 5y ago
  Yup. It's on their website.
  - julesqs 5y ago
    wild how different the prices are, but I guess that's what happens when a lot of buildings only have one or two providers. No fios available for me, but I'm paying $70/month for optimum "up to 300 download, up to 35 upload". Usually on speedtests I'm usually getting 15%-20% lower than that. edit for context: in brooklyn
    - xyzelement 5y ago
      Yeah makes sense. I never paid more than $35/40 but I always lived in the city with at least a few other options (FIOS and RCN) in addition to Time Warner. BTW was using RCN the last few years and they were very good. Now we're moving to Long Island and the town has only two choices - optimum and FiOS. When I looked at the Optimum statement, there was a ton of "discounts" for being in a high-competition area which is how they got the price down to ~35 as well, from the base of about $70 as you said. Though we later changed our minds and went for Fios at about $39.

saaaam 5y ago

I use Mesh at home as my sole internet provider and I've had a great experience so far. I typically get 80mbps download, and the service has been overall very reliable (although there is an occasional brief outage or slowdown when it's raining hard). The only other option in my building is Optimum, which has its own reliability issues and is much more expensive (~$100/month for 200mbps).

julesqs 5y ago

a coalition of groups in New York City is also pushing for a municipal broadband option: https://internetforall.nyc/ https://internetforall.nyc/

oliv__ 5y ago

"Mr. Hall secured funding from the Internet Society to set up NYC Mesh’s first “supernode” on top of the former Verizon building in downtown Manhattan" Isn't that a "secret" government agency location now?

xaprof 5y ago
You may be thinking of the AT&T “Long Lines Building” at 33 Thomas Street. (AKA “The Oldest House” from the game Control.) NYC Mesh’s Supernode 1 is on top of a different building, at 375 Pearl Street.

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

what ever happened to the possibilities/power of those LinkNYC phone booth towers all over the city? I was impressed/very excited about them when they first deployed. The speed coming off those things was great. Could those not add tons of nodes to the Mesh? or are they all in the 'wrong' part of the city heh

nycmesh 5y ago
We tried repeating LinkNYC kiosks a few years ago but it wasn't reliable enough, making it too difficult to support. We have instructions for a DIY connection on our website and a channel on our Slack where you can ask other members about problems. The DHCP lease tends to go dead every couple of months and we have various things to try when that happens.