10 ms·

Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast expands to hundreds of homes (2022)

577 points by voxadam 2y ago

animanoir 2y ago
[dead]
1970-01-01 2y ago
To get maximum effect, he now needs to write a book. Eventually, someone will come along and make the book into a movie. Soon after, that movie will be shown via Comcast!
- autoexec 2y ago
  Once all the work has been done and this guy is making money I suspect comcast or another ISP will buy his network and the rights to the movie, then jack up the prices considerably so these people will be paying even more to watch it on the ISP owned streaming service
bhelkey 2y ago
This article is dated 2022. Can you append (2022) to the title?
- jihadjihad 2y ago
  Agreed, and this was discussed at the time here (it was a front page submission 3 years ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493
  - dang 2y ago
    Thanks! Macroexpanded: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493 - Aug 2022 (427 comments)
    - keepamovin 2y ago
      It would be funny if there were actual macros in HN and we could have our own replacements like %PASTLINKS=32411493% And someone forgot to turn them off for all users and they were discovered ... HACKED! haha
- dang 2y ago
  Added. Thanks!
bentt 2y ago
I really wonder how the availability of Starlink affects these sorts of projects.
- anonfordays 2y ago
  This. How is local fiber not the easiest solution to the problem though?
  - candiddevmike 2y ago
    Easements and access.
  - PaulRobinson 2y ago
    Laying fiber is expensive and time consuming. Satellite is - once you've got the infra up in the air - very straightforward, with the downside that your satellite ISP is likely owned/operated by an unregulated billionaire nutcase that will turn off your access if he doesn't like you any more (c.f. Ukraine front line). It's hard to do that with regulated fiber backhaul, but not impossible. I've seen a few wireless ISPs mentioned here before, which can be a nice hub/spoke model - run fast fiber to a community, but distribute via wireless (note, not WiFi) to homes and businesses within range. I'd definitely love to see more community-run ISPs in the World, it's how the Internet should work, really.
    - qwerpy 2y ago
      > owned/operated by an unregulated billionaire nutcase that will turn off your access if he doesn't like you any more (c.f. Ukraine front line) Is this actually true? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain... > In 2022, Elon Musk denied a Ukrainian request to extend Starlink's coverage up to Russian-occupied Crimea during a counterattack on a Crimean port, from which Russia had been launching attacks against Ukrainian civilians; doing so would have violated US sanctions on Russia. This event was widely reported in 2023, erroneously characterizing it as Musk "turning off" Starlink coverage in Crimea.
gosub100 2y ago
Let's hope he actually delivers. This company took $9MM of government grants and squandered it: https://mynews4.com/on-your-side/ask-joe/ask-joe-usda-cuts-ties-with-uprise-pulls-27-million-in-federal-funding# https://mynews4.com/on-your-side/ask-joe/ask-joe-usda-cuts-t...
- sergers 2y ago
  you could review their coverage map and they taking 2025 signups. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=1f722ec0c2e0491d86b9c04c6a9000a6 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=1f72...
- BryantD 2y ago
  The article documents delivery, and a little searching told me that Washtenaw Fiber Properties is still in business at https://washftth.com/ https://washftth.com/ and serving customers.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Should have stolen billions instead, could have become a titan of industry
- paxys 2y ago
  Amateur operation. Large ISPs have squandered billions.
pluto_modadic 2y ago
I hope more community ISPs happen <3
- vvpan 2y ago
  Comcast and others have been using the corruption of our representatives to push for bans of community ISPs. https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/07/16-u-s-states-still-ban-community-owned-broadband-networks-because-att-and-comcast-told-them-to/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/07/16-u-s-states-still-ban-...
  - linsomniac 2y ago
    Indeed, our community had to fight that, IIRC, we had to vote to overturn those bans, but did eventually get it through. They also did a bunch of advertising saying "We have so many problems like traffic, shouldn't the money be spent there instead?", but the money that was used to build the network was NOT money the city could use for anything else, it was a bond specifically for FTTH initiative. Buncha jerks. I was in one of the earlier roll-outs and the change was amazing! It actually did happen during the pandemic, and at one point we had 4 people doing video calls from the house and Xfinity's fastest service couldn't keep up (because of outbound bandwidth limits), but the asymmetrical gigabit fiber wasn't breaking a sweat. Now 3+ years later, CenturyLink (q.com) is finally starting to come through and lay down fiber. Those tools should have been laying it 20 years ago.
  - Sylamore 2y ago
    When I worked for a certain large telco, we used to get emails from our "CEO of {State Name}" asking us to support their lobbying efforts to shut down community ISP initiatives by donating to their PAC and contacting our legislators trying to make it look like there was grassroots support. These state level CEOs were strictly lobbyists. Considering the company I worked for didn't even serve the community I lived in but multiple startups wanted to provide us fiber service but ran into all the road blocks my telco and others pushed, I was less than thrilled knowing the company i worked for was actively trying to block providing better internet to older neighborhoods.
whalesalad 2y ago
I admire that the homepage for the ISP - https://washftth.com/ https://washftth.com/ - is literally the default Debian Apache/httpd welcome page with new content inserted. The #CD214F color is the giveaway.
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  Eww, I am not buying internet from no company that doesn't have a flashy hero banner, 20mb of JavaScript libraries and a Cloudflare captcha. Websites like these tend to win subscribers. My ISP was the same when I subscribed.
Nick-W 2y ago
Hey! I did this too - CenturyLink wanted an insane amount of money to bring fiber to our place, now we service hundreds and we're growing into a major contender in Boulder County - https://ayva.network https://ayva.network
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  How did you get the capital and find the time to do this? Is it your full-time gig? I've always fantasized about doing this in my mountain community but it seems spooky
  - snihalani 2y ago
    how can I do this for my city?
    - internetter 2y ago
      Do you have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around?
      - Nick-W 2y ago
        This. It's insanely expensive, I'm unpaid and I've sunk about half a million into the network so far and 3+ years of work. We now have enough revenue to keep the lights on if I no longer support the company, but just barely so, and assumes zero growth and minimal support hours. I did this because it genuinely helps our community and the impact is directly visible and notable, but the economics are basically impossible, especially as a startup.
        idiotsecant 2y ago
        Do you operate it as a nonprofit? Seems like you could be at least seeing some tax benefits probably
  - m463 2y ago
    This is yak shaving taken to factorio extremes, now shaving everyone's yak.
Animats 2y ago
Sonic started as a little local ISP in Santa Rosa, CA.[1] Now it's huge in Northern California. I have 1GB Sonic bidirectional fiber with unlimited data and could get 10GB if I wanted. The head of Sonic points out that long-haul prices have decreased over the years, and there's no real need for usage limits. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_(ISP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_(ISP)
- enmyj 2y ago
  I have missed Sonic every day since moving from Oakland to SF
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  > The head of Sonic points out that long-haul prices have decreased over the years, and there's no real need for usage limits. Well, aside from increasing your margins...
- scubbo 2y ago
  Self-quoting[0]: > Sonic has the best customer service of any company ever encountered, and it's not even close. The few times I've had to contact them for assistance, I've been very quickly connected with someone clearly _very_ technical who was able to grok my problem immediately and give clear, cogent, respectful debugging advice and perspective. I do not exaggerate when I say I would gladly pay double their current rate just for the peace of mind of knowing that I can depend on them if I ever need their support again. Not that I often do, because their baseline connectivity/speed is also great. > > ...yes, I know I look like a shill/bot. I don't care. They're genuinely just that good, and I will happily advocate for them until that ever changes. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42252183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42252183
  - gazook89 2y ago
    This has been my experience with our local ISP in Minneapolis as well. Granted, I’ve only ever reached out to them maybe 3 times over 6 years, but each time they’ve been exceptional. No more than two phone rings before a person in our metro area answered, they got me to right person who provided actual good believable information and the situation was fixed. The first time I ever reached out to them, by email, I wasn’t even a customer— I was calling to ask when they would resurface a sidewalk that they had torn up for an install in my neighborhood. The director of operations emailed me back, not with an exact date but with a pretty detailed reason for the delay that was clearly written just for this situation, not a form letter, and then he followed up when the work was scheduled.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
arresin 2y ago
> 1Gbps [symmetrical] with unlimited data for $79 a month. This costs $500 in Australia in the inner city.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Sounds like a business line or something specialist. What's the average civilian internet like?
  - immibis 2y ago
    Australia had a uniquely fucked up fiber rollout (the National Broadband Network or NBN). I don't know if it's still fucked.
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  > This costs $500 in Australia in the inner city. I'd pay that. I am stuck with 2mb ADSL living in the centre of a major city in Scotland.
  - dijksterhuis 2y ago
    Really? I'm on 74/18 down/up in Dundee. https://www.speedtest.net/result/17623286611 https://www.speedtest.net/result/17623286611 (tbf when I was more central dundee it was closer to 20/10).
  - dan-robertson 2y ago
    I had thought that Scotland (at least on the west coast) had a natural advantage from transatlantic cables landing there (meaning there is some good backbone infrastructure too) but I think I was just wrong and they mostly terminate around the Bristol Channel.
- MonortYp 2y ago
  You can’t get symmetrical 1Gbps residential connections, but I imagine the EE plans cost more than $500/m. I’m on Leaptel 1000/400 for $166/m and it’s fantastic. Fingers crossed they offer the nbn multi gig speeds later this year.
dboreham 2y ago
Reformed ISP owner here: don't do this. There's a reason the cableco/telco doesn't want to serve these customers.
- ale42 2y ago
  What reason? Do you have an experience to share?
- shmerl 2y ago
  The reason being greed.
pavelevst 2y ago
In Russia we get 500-1000mbps (for real) for about 5-10$ monthly, every home has few ISP options with free installation
- krupan 2y ago
  I believe that in Russia you wrestle bears and that the only liquid anyone drinks is vodka, but this I simply cannot believe :)
- sneak 2y ago
  My home in Las Vegas is 2000Mbps down and 100Mbps up, and it's $200/month. $50/month of that is an add-on for "unlimited" usage, but Cox still writes me letters and threatens to cancel my service if I upload more than 2-3TB in a calendar month, despite having paid well over $3000 in "unlimited" add-on upcharges. Internet pricing is a scam in the USA.
  - martinald 2y ago
    I assume you are on DOCSIS coax internet? The problem is upstream on DOCSIS is (very) constrained and if you hammer it causes huge problems for everyone on the segment (TCP ACKs start getting lost/slow, everyones ping rises massively and huge packetloss starts occurring). Obviously no excuse to claim it is unlimited, but if the major US cable companies speeded up moving to true FTTH it would really save them a lot of trouble in the long run.
    - sneak 2y ago
      There’s no need for them to move to FTTH; 99.9% of homes don’t need more than 10-20Mbps upstream. I was on 1000/40 for most of my history with them ($100+$50) now I have 2000/100 ($150+$50). I would be fine with 40Mbps upstream unlimited; the issue is not the throttling but the threats resulting from bait-and-switch.
      - martinald 2y ago
        I disagree - video conferencing and screensharing with a couple of calls at once will quickly eat up 10-20mbit/sec. 50-100mbit/sec I would agree is enough. Regardless you're missing the point. DOCSIS has maybe 100-200mbit/sec of upstream shared between hundreds of homes - this will vary depending on config, and keep in mind a lot of that will be used for TCP ACKs from the downstream. So you probably have say 50-100mbit/sec "real" upstream available, or less than 1mbit/sec per subscriber. If you hammered 40mbit/sec hard you are using nearly the entire 'usable' upstream of your entire cable modem segment. DOCSIS is just massively inferior to FTTH for this reason.
nodesocket 2y ago
Would love to see more about the power and networking equipment and vendors involved for serving as an ISP. Obviously needs to be highly available and redundant at nearly all levels. Ubiquiti has made huge leaps and bounds in the last year in terms of software and hardware. Realistically Ubiquiti Network could be used at the enterprise ISP level. - 48 port 25G SFP28 switch with hot-swap power (https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/ecs-aggregation https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/e...) - Gateway / router with 25G SFP28 WAN and LAN with hot-swap power (https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-enterprise-scale/products/efg https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-enterpris...)
pavelevst 2y ago
Btw why not starlink?
- umbra07 2y ago
  > Under the contract terms, Mauch will provide 100Mbps symmetrical Internet with unlimited data for $55 a month and 1Gbps with unlimited data for $79 a month. Mauch said his installation fees are typically $199. Unlike many larger ISPs, Mauch provides simple bills that contain a single line item for Internet service and no extra fees. For one, Starlink won't get anywhere close to 1gbps
- db48x 2y ago
  Starlink is amazing, but not as amazing as an actual fiber running to your house. If you can get actual fiber then you should. The primary reason is that it has very high headroom for future expansion. You might be getting 1Gbps today, but any individual fiber can actually carry 100Tbps (or 100,000 gigabits per second) using commercial equipment. The speed record is higher still, so there is plenty of scope for further upgrades in the future. Do keep in mind, however, that residential service is usually provided by GPON or XGPON. Instead of a single fiber running from every single customer to the ISP, optical splitters are used so that up to 128 customers can share a single fiber. The fiber is run at 50Gbps or 100Gbps or whatever, and the individual customers share that using TDMA. That does somewhat limit the available headroom. Speaking just for myself, I would be entirely satisfied by a 1Tbps slice of that 100Tbps of available bandwidth.
primitivesuave 2y ago
This ISP was actually part of a detailed study in my college class on networking. The founder created a singular example of an "open-source ISP" [1], and I am pretty sure you can find his guidance online somewhere if you were inclined to build your own. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg
snake42 2y ago
NYC has a collective that provides internet for free/donation based if you pay ~$160-290 for the equipment to get you connected. I forget what they provide in terms of speed, but its not insignificant. https://map.nycmesh.net/ https://map.nycmesh.net/
Havoc 2y ago
Impressed that he got cell towers to backhaul over it. Wouldn’t have expected that. Says a lot about how shit the competition is if they’d rather take a chance on a startup
- timewizard 2y ago
  He could be their backup ISP.
xp84 2y ago
Impressive that he managed to sneak in there, usually the incumbents do everything they can to block anyone from competing, hence the absurd amount of lobbying they do against municipal ISPs, which Comcast and friends are so scared of that they've successfully enacted many state-level bans of the entire concept. (Quick but AI-sourced summary: https://chatgpt.com/share/68004134-f9b0-8008-9b77-f43d1750c50a https://chatgpt.com/share/68004134-f9b0-8008-9b77-f43d1750c5... )
- immibis 2y ago
  By the equally lazy and possibly bullshit method of "ask ChatGPT a follow-up question in your conversation" I learned that these laws are only about municipalities - private businesses are not restricted this way from deploying networks, even within a municipal region.
  - xp84 2y ago
    I agree, though you can bet the Comcasts will just as sneakily and shadily legally maneuver to block private competitors too.
throw0101b 2y ago
He gave a presentation at NLNOG 2020, "Getting Fiber To My Town": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg * Slides: https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf * 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24424910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24424910 * He posted some replies in that discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jaredmauch https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jaredmauch Involves trenchers. Also, at NANOG, "Starting a Telephone Company in 2019, or How I Built Fiber to my Neighbors": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe6uTwOyJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe6uTwOyJo
immibis 2y ago
Every time someone complains about their ISP I encourage them to think about starting their own. If you're a nerd it doesn't seem impossible at all - in fact it's happened many many times before. Obviously, a lot of people need stable jobs and the like, but if even a small percentage of people end up taking some steps, that's great.
keepamovin 2y ago
The ultimate sysadmin flex.
vivzkestrel 2y ago
instead of spending 1000s of dollars buying all the equipment in USA, mauch should buy everything from india for less than half the price
yalok 2y ago
Around 8 years ago I saw an AT&T truck on our street, and the guys installing some fiber into our street conduits. I was ecstatic & started checking AT&T website periodically to see when the service will be enabled. Guess what? It's still not enabled. AT&T only did it because there was a risk that Google Fiber will do it in our city. Unfortunately, IIUC, Google never could overcome local regulations and abandoned the project. So, AT&T didn't care to light up their fiber (that was already in the ground & ready to go!!!). Comcast doesn't offer any cable in my location neither. I've been seriously tempted to do it myself too, but doubt I'll ever have time for that - mostly to overcome the local bureaucracy to get all the permits... Huge respect to Jared!
- yalok 2y ago
  oh, ~4 years ago I talked to Sonic guys at length (great company, btw!) - they were too far north from us, and their estimation was to make it viable for them, they'd need to have around 200 of my neighbors commit to switching to Sonic at once if they lay out the fiber in our location.
  - e40 2y ago
    Having switched from Comcast it is well worth it.
wuming2 2y ago
I read about “future proofing” and “expansion” possibilities of one’s fiber connection. And related user equipment. My story is in the opposite direction. We and everyone else in the neighborhood had symmetrical 1 Gbps installed about 15 years ago. We all paid the ISP for the top tier of full capacity. During Covid decided to take inventory of our actual bandwidth needs. Anything that can be deferred doesn’t count. Gone from instant bandwidth requirements are all cloud backups, OTA OS upgrades and apps updates. They need to complete overnight. Overlapping is not a requirement. Videos are automatically played at 480p or less on iPhones, 720p or less on iPads and 1080p or less on HDTV. We purposely didn’t buy 4K TV because at our viewing distance has no benefits whatsoever. Aggregate peak bandwidth required here is 25 Mbps at a stretch. That is also enough for my wife to work from home. We don’t deal with large datasets or raw videos over the internet. So we found ourselves with one cable connected TV and the usual assortment of mobile devices connected to one WiFi 4 1x1 hotspot. At 70 Mbps we never noticed any loss of quality in our digital lifestyle. After about ten years we replaced the hotspot with one capable of WiFi 5. An overkill but needed the extra port. Eventually convinced the ISP to lower our subscription to the lowest available tier of 200 Mbps. We don’t notice any difference. We could afford the extra bandwidth. But don’t see the benefits of it.
- wuming2 2y ago
  Thinking about when I had to upgrade my elderly parents from ADSL to FTTC, because of old apparatuses being scheduled for decommissioning, often wondering why regulators went down this path. Forcing CPEs replacement when, especially for tens of millions of elderly users, enabling ADSL2+ Annex M would have been sufficient. Most FTTC apparatuses are backward compatible with ADSL2+ and only transmission power auto backdown is necessary. To prevent degradation of neighboring VDSL signals. My parents have now 150/30 Mbps. Totally unaware of it.
- miyuru 2y ago
  I did some thinking on this as well and came to the conclusion that 50mbps is enough for a single person. extra bandwidth if good to have just in case and will save time on large downloads.
AngryData 2y ago
Telecomms told my area for decades that it was unprofitable to give internet access. We didn't even have DSL. Small local wireless networks filled the gap, but barely because this area is covered in tall trees and no significant high points. 2 years ago a fiber co-op started, covered nearly everything in a 60 mile radius with direct-to-home fiber, and are making bank and continuously expanding.
Suppafly 2y ago
A guy in my city did something like this, except he started back in the dialup internet days and then transitioned to fiber over the years. I don't think it was specifically to take on comcast, more just to be in the ISP business in general. Family Video eventually invested in the company and quite a lot of people in the area have it now as it's basically the only fiber to home option in the area.
anon6362 2y ago
I'm about to switch from Spectrum to GVEC, a regional ISP and utility co-op started by farmers. It's about as good as Google Fiber but much more widely-available here, and doesn't give more money to a megacorp.

577 points by voxadam 2y ago

[dead]

1970-01-01 2y ago

To get maximum effect, he now needs to write a book. Eventually, someone will come along and make the book into a movie. Soon after, that movie will be shown via Comcast!

autoexec 2y ago
Once all the work has been done and this guy is making money I suspect comcast or another ISP will buy his network and the rights to the movie, then jack up the prices considerably so these people will be paying even more to watch it on the ISP owned streaming service

bhelkey 2y ago

This article is dated 2022. Can you append (2022) to the title?

jihadjihad 2y ago
Agreed, and this was discussed at the time here (it was a front page submission 3 years ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493
- dang 2y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32411493 - Aug 2022 (427 comments)
  - keepamovin 2y ago
    It would be funny if there were actual macros in HN and we could have our own replacements like %PASTLINKS=32411493% And someone forgot to turn them off for all users and they were discovered ... HACKED! haha
dang 2y ago
Added. Thanks!

bentt 2y ago

I really wonder how the availability of Starlink affects these sorts of projects.

anonfordays 2y ago
This. How is local fiber not the easiest solution to the problem though?
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  Easements and access.
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  Laying fiber is expensive and time consuming. Satellite is - once you've got the infra up in the air - very straightforward, with the downside that your satellite ISP is likely owned/operated by an unregulated billionaire nutcase that will turn off your access if he doesn't like you any more (c.f. Ukraine front line). It's hard to do that with regulated fiber backhaul, but not impossible. I've seen a few wireless ISPs mentioned here before, which can be a nice hub/spoke model - run fast fiber to a community, but distribute via wireless (note, not WiFi) to homes and businesses within range. I'd definitely love to see more community-run ISPs in the World, it's how the Internet should work, really.
  - qwerpy 2y ago
    > owned/operated by an unregulated billionaire nutcase that will turn off your access if he doesn't like you any more (c.f. Ukraine front line) Is this actually true? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain... > In 2022, Elon Musk denied a Ukrainian request to extend Starlink's coverage up to Russian-occupied Crimea during a counterattack on a Crimean port, from which Russia had been launching attacks against Ukrainian civilians; doing so would have violated US sanctions on Russia. This event was widely reported in 2023, erroneously characterizing it as Musk "turning off" Starlink coverage in Crimea.

gosub100 2y ago

Let's hope he actually delivers. This company took $9MM of government grants and squandered it: https://mynews4.com/on-your-side/ask-joe/ask-joe-usda-cuts-ties-with-uprise-pulls-27-million-in-federal-funding# https://mynews4.com/on-your-side/ask-joe/ask-joe-usda-cuts-t...

sergers 2y ago
you could review their coverage map and they taking 2025 signups. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=1f722ec0c2e0491d86b9c04c6a9000a6 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=1f72...
BryantD 2y ago
The article documents delivery, and a little searching told me that Washtenaw Fiber Properties is still in business at https://washftth.com/ https://washftth.com/ and serving customers.
bee_rider 2y ago
Should have stolen billions instead, could have become a titan of industry
paxys 2y ago
Amateur operation. Large ISPs have squandered billions.

pluto_modadic 2y ago

I hope more community ISPs happen <3

vvpan 2y ago
Comcast and others have been using the corruption of our representatives to push for bans of community ISPs. https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/07/16-u-s-states-still-ban-community-owned-broadband-networks-because-att-and-comcast-told-them-to/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/07/16-u-s-states-still-ban-...
- linsomniac 2y ago
  Indeed, our community had to fight that, IIRC, we had to vote to overturn those bans, but did eventually get it through. They also did a bunch of advertising saying "We have so many problems like traffic, shouldn't the money be spent there instead?", but the money that was used to build the network was NOT money the city could use for anything else, it was a bond specifically for FTTH initiative. Buncha jerks. I was in one of the earlier roll-outs and the change was amazing! It actually did happen during the pandemic, and at one point we had 4 people doing video calls from the house and Xfinity's fastest service couldn't keep up (because of outbound bandwidth limits), but the asymmetrical gigabit fiber wasn't breaking a sweat. Now 3+ years later, CenturyLink (q.com) is finally starting to come through and lay down fiber. Those tools should have been laying it 20 years ago.
- Sylamore 2y ago
  When I worked for a certain large telco, we used to get emails from our "CEO of {State Name}" asking us to support their lobbying efforts to shut down community ISP initiatives by donating to their PAC and contacting our legislators trying to make it look like there was grassroots support. These state level CEOs were strictly lobbyists. Considering the company I worked for didn't even serve the community I lived in but multiple startups wanted to provide us fiber service but ran into all the road blocks my telco and others pushed, I was less than thrilled knowing the company i worked for was actively trying to block providing better internet to older neighborhoods.

whalesalad 2y ago

I admire that the homepage for the ISP - https://washftth.com/ https://washftth.com/ - is literally the default Debian Apache/httpd welcome page with new content inserted. The #CD214F color is the giveaway.

doublerabbit 2y ago
Eww, I am not buying internet from no company that doesn't have a flashy hero banner, 20mb of JavaScript libraries and a Cloudflare captcha. Websites like these tend to win subscribers. My ISP was the same when I subscribed.

Nick-W 2y ago

Hey! I did this too - CenturyLink wanted an insane amount of money to bring fiber to our place, now we service hundreds and we're growing into a major contender in Boulder County - https://ayva.network https://ayva.network

idiotsecant 2y ago
How did you get the capital and find the time to do this? Is it your full-time gig? I've always fantasized about doing this in my mountain community but it seems spooky
- snihalani 2y ago
  how can I do this for my city?
  - internetter 2y ago
    Do you have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around?
    - Nick-W 2y ago
      This. It's insanely expensive, I'm unpaid and I've sunk about half a million into the network so far and 3+ years of work. We now have enough revenue to keep the lights on if I no longer support the company, but just barely so, and assumes zero growth and minimal support hours. I did this because it genuinely helps our community and the impact is directly visible and notable, but the economics are basically impossible, especially as a startup.
      - idiotsecant 2y ago
        Do you operate it as a nonprofit? Seems like you could be at least seeing some tax benefits probably
- m463 2y ago
  This is yak shaving taken to factorio extremes, now shaving everyone's yak.

Animats 2y ago

Sonic started as a little local ISP in Santa Rosa, CA.[1] Now it's huge in Northern California. I have 1GB Sonic bidirectional fiber with unlimited data and could get 10GB if I wanted. The head of Sonic points out that long-haul prices have decreased over the years, and there's no real need for usage limits. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_(ISP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_(ISP)

enmyj 2y ago
I have missed Sonic every day since moving from Oakland to SF
onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
> The head of Sonic points out that long-haul prices have decreased over the years, and there's no real need for usage limits. Well, aside from increasing your margins...
scubbo 2y ago
Self-quoting[0]: > Sonic has the best customer service of any company ever encountered, and it's not even close. The few times I've had to contact them for assistance, I've been very quickly connected with someone clearly _very_ technical who was able to grok my problem immediately and give clear, cogent, respectful debugging advice and perspective. I do not exaggerate when I say I would gladly pay double their current rate just for the peace of mind of knowing that I can depend on them if I ever need their support again. Not that I often do, because their baseline connectivity/speed is also great. > > ...yes, I know I look like a shill/bot. I don't care. They're genuinely just that good, and I will happily advocate for them until that ever changes. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42252183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42252183
- gazook89 2y ago
  This has been my experience with our local ISP in Minneapolis as well. Granted, I’ve only ever reached out to them maybe 3 times over 6 years, but each time they’ve been exceptional. No more than two phone rings before a person in our metro area answered, they got me to right person who provided actual good believable information and the situation was fixed. The first time I ever reached out to them, by email, I wasn’t even a customer— I was calling to ask when they would resurface a sidewalk that they had torn up for an install in my neighborhood. The director of operations emailed me back, not with an exact date but with a pretty detailed reason for the delay that was clearly written just for this situation, not a form letter, and then he followed up when the work was scheduled.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

arresin 2y ago

> 1Gbps [symmetrical] with unlimited data for $79 a month. This costs $500 in Australia in the inner city.

HPsquared 2y ago
Sounds like a business line or something specialist. What's the average civilian internet like?
- immibis 2y ago
  Australia had a uniquely fucked up fiber rollout (the National Broadband Network or NBN). I don't know if it's still fucked.
doublerabbit 2y ago
> This costs $500 in Australia in the inner city. I'd pay that. I am stuck with 2mb ADSL living in the centre of a major city in Scotland.
- dijksterhuis 2y ago
  Really? I'm on 74/18 down/up in Dundee. https://www.speedtest.net/result/17623286611 https://www.speedtest.net/result/17623286611 (tbf when I was more central dundee it was closer to 20/10).
- dan-robertson 2y ago
  I had thought that Scotland (at least on the west coast) had a natural advantage from transatlantic cables landing there (meaning there is some good backbone infrastructure too) but I think I was just wrong and they mostly terminate around the Bristol Channel.
MonortYp 2y ago
You can’t get symmetrical 1Gbps residential connections, but I imagine the EE plans cost more than $500/m. I’m on Leaptel 1000/400 for $166/m and it’s fantastic. Fingers crossed they offer the nbn multi gig speeds later this year.

dboreham 2y ago

Reformed ISP owner here: don't do this. There's a reason the cableco/telco doesn't want to serve these customers.

ale42 2y ago
What reason? Do you have an experience to share?
shmerl 2y ago
The reason being greed.

pavelevst 2y ago

In Russia we get 500-1000mbps (for real) for about 5-10$ monthly, every home has few ISP options with free installation

krupan 2y ago
I believe that in Russia you wrestle bears and that the only liquid anyone drinks is vodka, but this I simply cannot believe :)
sneak 2y ago
My home in Las Vegas is 2000Mbps down and 100Mbps up, and it's $200/month. $50/month of that is an add-on for "unlimited" usage, but Cox still writes me letters and threatens to cancel my service if I upload more than 2-3TB in a calendar month, despite having paid well over $3000 in "unlimited" add-on upcharges. Internet pricing is a scam in the USA.
- martinald 2y ago
  I assume you are on DOCSIS coax internet? The problem is upstream on DOCSIS is (very) constrained and if you hammer it causes huge problems for everyone on the segment (TCP ACKs start getting lost/slow, everyones ping rises massively and huge packetloss starts occurring). Obviously no excuse to claim it is unlimited, but if the major US cable companies speeded up moving to true FTTH it would really save them a lot of trouble in the long run.
  - sneak 2y ago
    There’s no need for them to move to FTTH; 99.9% of homes don’t need more than 10-20Mbps upstream. I was on 1000/40 for most of my history with them ($100+$50) now I have 2000/100 ($150+$50). I would be fine with 40Mbps upstream unlimited; the issue is not the throttling but the threats resulting from bait-and-switch.
    - martinald 2y ago
      I disagree - video conferencing and screensharing with a couple of calls at once will quickly eat up 10-20mbit/sec. 50-100mbit/sec I would agree is enough. Regardless you're missing the point. DOCSIS has maybe 100-200mbit/sec of upstream shared between hundreds of homes - this will vary depending on config, and keep in mind a lot of that will be used for TCP ACKs from the downstream. So you probably have say 50-100mbit/sec "real" upstream available, or less than 1mbit/sec per subscriber. If you hammered 40mbit/sec hard you are using nearly the entire 'usable' upstream of your entire cable modem segment. DOCSIS is just massively inferior to FTTH for this reason.

nodesocket 2y ago

Would love to see more about the power and networking equipment and vendors involved for serving as an ISP. Obviously needs to be highly available and redundant at nearly all levels. Ubiquiti has made huge leaps and bounds in the last year in terms of software and hardware. Realistically Ubiquiti Network could be used at the enterprise ISP level. - 48 port 25G SFP28 switch with hot-swap power (https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/ecs-aggregation https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/e...) - Gateway / router with 25G SFP28 WAN and LAN with hot-swap power (https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-enterprise-scale/products/efg https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-enterpris...)

pavelevst 2y ago

Btw why not starlink?

umbra07 2y ago
> Under the contract terms, Mauch will provide 100Mbps symmetrical Internet with unlimited data for $55 a month and 1Gbps with unlimited data for $79 a month. Mauch said his installation fees are typically $199. Unlike many larger ISPs, Mauch provides simple bills that contain a single line item for Internet service and no extra fees. For one, Starlink won't get anywhere close to 1gbps
db48x 2y ago
Starlink is amazing, but not as amazing as an actual fiber running to your house. If you can get actual fiber then you should. The primary reason is that it has very high headroom for future expansion. You might be getting 1Gbps today, but any individual fiber can actually carry 100Tbps (or 100,000 gigabits per second) using commercial equipment. The speed record is higher still, so there is plenty of scope for further upgrades in the future. Do keep in mind, however, that residential service is usually provided by GPON or XGPON. Instead of a single fiber running from every single customer to the ISP, optical splitters are used so that up to 128 customers can share a single fiber. The fiber is run at 50Gbps or 100Gbps or whatever, and the individual customers share that using TDMA. That does somewhat limit the available headroom. Speaking just for myself, I would be entirely satisfied by a 1Tbps slice of that 100Tbps of available bandwidth.

primitivesuave 2y ago

This ISP was actually part of a detailed study in my college class on networking. The founder created a singular example of an "open-source ISP" [1], and I am pretty sure you can find his guidance online somewhere if you were inclined to build your own. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg

snake42 2y ago

NYC has a collective that provides internet for free/donation based if you pay ~$160-290 for the equipment to get you connected. I forget what they provide in terms of speed, but its not insignificant. https://map.nycmesh.net/ https://map.nycmesh.net/

Havoc 2y ago

Impressed that he got cell towers to backhaul over it. Wouldn’t have expected that. Says a lot about how shit the competition is if they’d rather take a chance on a startup

timewizard 2y ago
He could be their backup ISP.

xp84 2y ago

Impressive that he managed to sneak in there, usually the incumbents do everything they can to block anyone from competing, hence the absurd amount of lobbying they do against municipal ISPs, which Comcast and friends are so scared of that they've successfully enacted many state-level bans of the entire concept. (Quick but AI-sourced summary: https://chatgpt.com/share/68004134-f9b0-8008-9b77-f43d1750c50a https://chatgpt.com/share/68004134-f9b0-8008-9b77-f43d1750c5... )

immibis 2y ago
By the equally lazy and possibly bullshit method of "ask ChatGPT a follow-up question in your conversation" I learned that these laws are only about municipalities - private businesses are not restricted this way from deploying networks, even within a municipal region.
- xp84 2y ago
  I agree, though you can bet the Comcasts will just as sneakily and shadily legally maneuver to block private competitors too.

throw0101b 2y ago

He gave a presentation at NLNOG 2020, "Getting Fiber To My Town": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg * Slides: https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf * 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24424910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24424910 * He posted some replies in that discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jaredmauch https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jaredmauch Involves trenchers. Also, at NANOG, "Starting a Telephone Company in 2019, or How I Built Fiber to my Neighbors": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe6uTwOyJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe6uTwOyJo

immibis 2y ago

Every time someone complains about their ISP I encourage them to think about starting their own. If you're a nerd it doesn't seem impossible at all - in fact it's happened many many times before. Obviously, a lot of people need stable jobs and the like, but if even a small percentage of people end up taking some steps, that's great.

keepamovin 2y ago

The ultimate sysadmin flex.

vivzkestrel 2y ago

instead of spending 1000s of dollars buying all the equipment in USA, mauch should buy everything from india for less than half the price

yalok 2y ago

Around 8 years ago I saw an AT&T truck on our street, and the guys installing some fiber into our street conduits. I was ecstatic & started checking AT&T website periodically to see when the service will be enabled. Guess what? It's still not enabled. AT&T only did it because there was a risk that Google Fiber will do it in our city. Unfortunately, IIUC, Google never could overcome local regulations and abandoned the project. So, AT&T didn't care to light up their fiber (that was already in the ground & ready to go!!!). Comcast doesn't offer any cable in my location neither. I've been seriously tempted to do it myself too, but doubt I'll ever have time for that - mostly to overcome the local bureaucracy to get all the permits... Huge respect to Jared!

yalok 2y ago
oh, ~4 years ago I talked to Sonic guys at length (great company, btw!) - they were too far north from us, and their estimation was to make it viable for them, they'd need to have around 200 of my neighbors commit to switching to Sonic at once if they lay out the fiber in our location.
- e40 2y ago
  Having switched from Comcast it is well worth it.

wuming2 2y ago

I read about “future proofing” and “expansion” possibilities of one’s fiber connection. And related user equipment. My story is in the opposite direction. We and everyone else in the neighborhood had symmetrical 1 Gbps installed about 15 years ago. We all paid the ISP for the top tier of full capacity. During Covid decided to take inventory of our actual bandwidth needs. Anything that can be deferred doesn’t count. Gone from instant bandwidth requirements are all cloud backups, OTA OS upgrades and apps updates. They need to complete overnight. Overlapping is not a requirement. Videos are automatically played at 480p or less on iPhones, 720p or less on iPads and 1080p or less on HDTV. We purposely didn’t buy 4K TV because at our viewing distance has no benefits whatsoever. Aggregate peak bandwidth required here is 25 Mbps at a stretch. That is also enough for my wife to work from home. We don’t deal with large datasets or raw videos over the internet. So we found ourselves with one cable connected TV and the usual assortment of mobile devices connected to one WiFi 4 1x1 hotspot. At 70 Mbps we never noticed any loss of quality in our digital lifestyle. After about ten years we replaced the hotspot with one capable of WiFi 5. An overkill but needed the extra port. Eventually convinced the ISP to lower our subscription to the lowest available tier of 200 Mbps. We don’t notice any difference. We could afford the extra bandwidth. But don’t see the benefits of it.

wuming2 2y ago
Thinking about when I had to upgrade my elderly parents from ADSL to FTTC, because of old apparatuses being scheduled for decommissioning, often wondering why regulators went down this path. Forcing CPEs replacement when, especially for tens of millions of elderly users, enabling ADSL2+ Annex M would have been sufficient. Most FTTC apparatuses are backward compatible with ADSL2+ and only transmission power auto backdown is necessary. To prevent degradation of neighboring VDSL signals. My parents have now 150/30 Mbps. Totally unaware of it.
miyuru 2y ago
I did some thinking on this as well and came to the conclusion that 50mbps is enough for a single person. extra bandwidth if good to have just in case and will save time on large downloads.

AngryData 2y ago

Telecomms told my area for decades that it was unprofitable to give internet access. We didn't even have DSL. Small local wireless networks filled the gap, but barely because this area is covered in tall trees and no significant high points. 2 years ago a fiber co-op started, covered nearly everything in a 60 mile radius with direct-to-home fiber, and are making bank and continuously expanding.

Suppafly 2y ago

A guy in my city did something like this, except he started back in the dialup internet days and then transitioned to fiber over the years. I don't think it was specifically to take on comcast, more just to be in the ISP business in general. Family Video eventually invested in the company and quite a lot of people in the area have it now as it's basically the only fiber to home option in the area.

anon6362 2y ago

I'm about to switch from Spectrum to GVEC, a regional ISP and utility co-op started by farmers. It's about as good as Google Fiber but much more widely-available here, and doesn't give more money to a megacorp.