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In the specific case of ISPs I think it's always because you won't make enough money to justify it as a big company, yet the task is too big and complicated to

In the specific case of ISPs I think it's always because you won't make enough money to justify it as a big company, yet the task is too big and complicated to do it as an individual nerd. The worst part appears to be the physical wiring. If your government has implemented loop unbundling, you're already set (probably need to do some bureaucracy and pay some affordable-at-a-stretch fees to get access to it). Otherwise, or if the loops are just crap, you have to figure out how to physically get a cable to everywhere, a task that is fundamentally laborious and legally fraught, not nerdy at all (unless lawyers are nerds) so nobody wants to do it. Wireless ISPs are about as popular because of this. Wireless service is always worse, but you only have to install plant (physical infrastructure) at the customer's house and one central location, not all the places leading up to the customer's house. This makes it a whole lot more amenable to individual-nerd or handful-of-nerds setup. I encourage everyone to at least think about how they would do it.

simoncion 1y ago
> ...you only have to install plant (physical infrastructure) at the customer's house and one central location, not all the places leading up to the customer's house. In a rural environment, yeah, sure. Based on what I'm seeing in San Francisco, in an urban environment, you're going to be negotiating for roof space for many transceivers on many separate roofs. (I do absolutely agree that even that annoying tasks is certainly way less work than dealing with a local or state government that wants it to be impossible to run fiber through or along streets and sidewalks.)
protocolture 1y ago
>Wireless service is always worse Look, wireless service is almost guaranteed to be worse, but that has more to do with dodgy operators. The technology is fantastic, and when engineered correctly largely undetectable. That said, in my time, I can count on one hand the number of installations where I was allowed to engineer the service correctly. And I can count on all the hands in a small city the number of times I have been called to rescue something extremely stupid, like shooting a link across a construction site.
- immibis 1y ago
  You can create a great wireless link. It still won't beat a great fiber link. I'm sure the best wireless links beat the worst fiber links, but...
  - protocolture 1y ago
    >You can create a great wireless link. It still won't beat a great fiber link. I'm sure the best wireless links beat the worst fiber links, but... When engineered correctly people tend to have absolutely no idea wireless is involved in their connection. Largely its a self inflicted branding issue. You see wireless being sold as "Fibre Extension" way too often for this reason. Theres also factors that fibre people never consider, like mean time to restore a service. Even if you have a team of 24/7 engineers ready to mobilise, a fibre break will often take a significantly longer time to restore than a wireless outage.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Look at it this way as well: The slowest practical fiber connection is 10Gbps, individually per fiber. The fastest practical wireless connection is about 2.5Gbps, shared between all users.
      - protocolture 1y ago
        Slowest practical fiber connection is 10 gig? There are still plenty of 1 gig optics in the world. Still plenty of FC8s too. And its weird that I can remember building a 10 gig path of siklus just a few years ago. Dodgy product in terms of failover, but delivered the goods.

simoncion 1y ago

> ...you only have to install plant (physical infrastructure) at the customer's house and one central location, not all the places leading up to the customer's house. In a rural environment, yeah, sure. Based on what I'm seeing in San Francisco, in an urban environment, you're going to be negotiating for roof space for many transceivers on many separate roofs. (I do absolutely agree that even that annoying tasks is certainly way less work than dealing with a local or state government that wants it to be impossible to run fiber through or along streets and sidewalks.)

protocolture 1y ago

>Wireless service is always worse Look, wireless service is almost guaranteed to be worse, but that has more to do with dodgy operators. The technology is fantastic, and when engineered correctly largely undetectable. That said, in my time, I can count on one hand the number of installations where I was allowed to engineer the service correctly. And I can count on all the hands in a small city the number of times I have been called to rescue something extremely stupid, like shooting a link across a construction site.

immibis 1y ago
You can create a great wireless link. It still won't beat a great fiber link. I'm sure the best wireless links beat the worst fiber links, but...
- protocolture 1y ago
  >You can create a great wireless link. It still won't beat a great fiber link. I'm sure the best wireless links beat the worst fiber links, but... When engineered correctly people tend to have absolutely no idea wireless is involved in their connection. Largely its a self inflicted branding issue. You see wireless being sold as "Fibre Extension" way too often for this reason. Theres also factors that fibre people never consider, like mean time to restore a service. Even if you have a team of 24/7 engineers ready to mobilise, a fibre break will often take a significantly longer time to restore than a wireless outage.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Look at it this way as well: The slowest practical fiber connection is 10Gbps, individually per fiber. The fastest practical wireless connection is about 2.5Gbps, shared between all users.
    - protocolture 1y ago
      Slowest practical fiber connection is 10 gig? There are still plenty of 1 gig optics in the world. Still plenty of FC8s too. And its weird that I can remember building a 10 gig path of siklus just a few years ago. Dodgy product in terms of failover, but delivered the goods.