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When I am working from home, either in my chief tasks as low-bandwidth web browsing or the occasional Zoom meeting, there are zero radios between me and the bac

When I am working from home, either in my chief tasks as low-bandwidth web browsing or the occasional Zoom meeting, there are zero radios between me and the backbone. I'm on the government connectivity plan which covers 100% of my $30/month bill. I'm granted access to Metro WiFi hotspots everywhere I go that my ISP has a presence (and that's everywhere I go.) Now WISPs want me to cut my cables and put at least two radios in between me and the backbone? That's a literally ridiculous prospect. Turning these cables into radios will, I guarantee, reduce the reliability, the bandwidth, and the privacy/security of my connections. What is the upside? I ask you, what upside from this?

hedora 4y ago
Line of sight radio is much more reliable than a Rube Goldberg machine made of big wooden sticks and high tension wires. It’s also fewer network hops (ideally, just one) if you have a good WISP. Having said that, the best and worst ISPs I’ve ever had were both WISPs.
hakfoo 4y ago
The only reason WISPs are a meaningful market presence in urban markets is because we completely whiffed the opportunities to regulate internet service early on. We could have taken the Chattanooga approach (municipal broadband) and gone national with it, giving us Romanian-level connectivity in every city bigger than 200 people. We could have actually held private broadband firms accountable to subsidy terms and buildout requirements, and there would still be enough fibre that we'd regularly trip on it when walking to the Kwik-e-mart. We could have used similar unbundling rules for cable as applied to DSL and we'd at least have competition on prices, caps, and ToS rules. Instead, we're going for WISPs because it can be deployed with minimum external consent. T-Mobile doesn't have to fight legal battles with cities that made guarantees with the cable companies over territories, or dig up everyone's yard to run the cable that should be there in the first place.

hedora 4y ago

Line of sight radio is much more reliable than a Rube Goldberg machine made of big wooden sticks and high tension wires. It’s also fewer network hops (ideally, just one) if you have a good WISP. Having said that, the best and worst ISPs I’ve ever had were both WISPs.

hakfoo 4y ago

The only reason WISPs are a meaningful market presence in urban markets is because we completely whiffed the opportunities to regulate internet service early on. We could have taken the Chattanooga approach (municipal broadband) and gone national with it, giving us Romanian-level connectivity in every city bigger than 200 people. We could have actually held private broadband firms accountable to subsidy terms and buildout requirements, and there would still be enough fibre that we'd regularly trip on it when walking to the Kwik-e-mart. We could have used similar unbundling rules for cable as applied to DSL and we'd at least have competition on prices, caps, and ToS rules. Instead, we're going for WISPs because it can be deployed with minimum external consent. T-Mobile doesn't have to fight legal battles with cities that made guarantees with the cable companies over territories, or dig up everyone's yard to run the cable that should be there in the first place.