4 ms·

I wish there was a way to achieve that same outcome in my internet backwater of San Francisco. Nearby blocks have symmetrical GB fibre from Sonic but we only h

I wish there was a way to achieve that same outcome in my internet backwater of San Francisco. Nearby blocks have symmetrical GB fibre from Sonic but we only have shity 30MB up from Comcast.

fragmede 7mo ago
What speed can you get from Monkeybrains?
- laurencerowe 7mo ago
  I believe they only offer up to 100mbps. Having 1Gb down from Comcast is definitely useful at times. I just wish I could get more than 30Mb up.
direwolf20 7mo ago
Sounds like you do know a way: Buy a spool of fiber and lay one from your house to the nearby block. Make it public knowledge that you're doing this and sharing internet with your neighbours (even if you're not). The incumbent will quickly upgrade your area.
- inemesitaffia 7mo ago
  ROW?
  - direwolf20 7mo ago
    It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially if nobody notices.
- franga2000 7mo ago
  A few years ago I learned that the only thing keeping me on 20/2 ADLS was a few 100 meters of already built but empty cable channel. I easily could buy that much fibre, borrow a fibre splicer and cable puller, patch it up to a relative in one of the already wired buildings and share their gigabit link with my entire apartment building. Half of my building was on the ISP that owned the empty channel, so moving to a competitor would've directly hurt their bottom line. Except that opening the manholes is a crime, using the ISP's channels would be at least a civil cause of action, laying such infra requires a municipal permit... The ISP was not worried about such "competition". Now try doing this in the US, the land of endless red tape, NIMBYs and HOAs. And without having an already dug cable channel. Sure, that's going to scare the probably multi-billion-$ incumbent ISP...
  - direwolf20 7mo ago
    People are too afraid of breaking the law. Look at every multi billion dollar company - all of them got where they are by breaking the law. How's it going to look in front of a jury when the government says "this man illegally brought cheap and fast internet to a neighbourhood?" The companies don't even have narratives that nice. Even YC startups are encouraged to break the laws. The key is knowing which laws you can break, how much you can break them, and what's likely to happen if you're caught. When an illegal good thing is caught, the response is usually to slap on the wrist and legalise it. A lot of current ISPs did start out illegally too. Don't splice into other people's fibers though. That's a much worse crime of property damage.
    - franga2000 7mo ago
      You can break the law if you have money. That's it. You won't be in front of a jury for "setting up fast internet". You'll get caught climbing into a manhole with electrician tools and charged with terrorism. The jury will be fed a story of how you had expensive specialized equipment on you, so this was a well-funded professional attempt at sabotaging critical infrastructure. You'll have a shitty public defender who will only realise that fiber in this case is about internet not clothing because he first read the file in the taxi to the courthouse. You'll take a plea deal because you can't afford a trial. The system doesn't work how you think it does, at least not for the people on the ground.
      - direwolf20 7mo ago
        You'll have money because you'll be selling fast internet to people. If YCombinator startups can make it work, so can you. Wear a hi-vis vest.
  - sophrosyne42 7mo ago
    This, more than anything, is the cause of limited space utilities monopolies. Companies have to license use of the backing infrastructure, and most often municipalities only give these easements to a tiny number of players. It's a textbook government granted monopoly.
petra 7mo ago
Is there a possibility to create a wireless point-to-point link ?
- ExoticPearTree 7mo ago
  Yes. You can actually buy pairs of antennas (basically an AP pair) that do just that. The only downside is that the signal quality varies based on weather. If you want something more or less weather proof, you can get microwave P2P links that run in licensed bands and you don't get any signal interference from similar nearby antennas. Both WiFi and Microwave equipment act just like bridges and you can connect them to a switch or router.
  - laurencerowe 7mo ago
    We have an ISP (Monkeybrains) that offers this in SF but it’s only up to 100 Mbps each way. I recently tried AT&T fixed wireless which runs over the mobile network but it seems too congested to offer high speeds so ended up back with Comcast.

I wish there was a way to achieve that same outcome in my internet backwater of San Francisco. Nearby blocks have symmetrical GB fibre from Sonic but we only have shity 30MB up from Comcast.

fragmede 7mo ago

What speed can you get from Monkeybrains?

laurencerowe 7mo ago
I believe they only offer up to 100mbps. Having 1Gb down from Comcast is definitely useful at times. I just wish I could get more than 30Mb up.

direwolf20 7mo ago

Sounds like you do know a way: Buy a spool of fiber and lay one from your house to the nearby block. Make it public knowledge that you're doing this and sharing internet with your neighbours (even if you're not). The incumbent will quickly upgrade your area.

inemesitaffia 7mo ago
ROW?
- direwolf20 7mo ago
  It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially if nobody notices.
franga2000 7mo ago
A few years ago I learned that the only thing keeping me on 20/2 ADLS was a few 100 meters of already built but empty cable channel. I easily could buy that much fibre, borrow a fibre splicer and cable puller, patch it up to a relative in one of the already wired buildings and share their gigabit link with my entire apartment building. Half of my building was on the ISP that owned the empty channel, so moving to a competitor would've directly hurt their bottom line. Except that opening the manholes is a crime, using the ISP's channels would be at least a civil cause of action, laying such infra requires a municipal permit... The ISP was not worried about such "competition". Now try doing this in the US, the land of endless red tape, NIMBYs and HOAs. And without having an already dug cable channel. Sure, that's going to scare the probably multi-billion-$ incumbent ISP...
- direwolf20 7mo ago
  People are too afraid of breaking the law. Look at every multi billion dollar company - all of them got where they are by breaking the law. How's it going to look in front of a jury when the government says "this man illegally brought cheap and fast internet to a neighbourhood?" The companies don't even have narratives that nice. Even YC startups are encouraged to break the laws. The key is knowing which laws you can break, how much you can break them, and what's likely to happen if you're caught. When an illegal good thing is caught, the response is usually to slap on the wrist and legalise it. A lot of current ISPs did start out illegally too. Don't splice into other people's fibers though. That's a much worse crime of property damage.
  - franga2000 7mo ago
    You can break the law if you have money. That's it. You won't be in front of a jury for "setting up fast internet". You'll get caught climbing into a manhole with electrician tools and charged with terrorism. The jury will be fed a story of how you had expensive specialized equipment on you, so this was a well-funded professional attempt at sabotaging critical infrastructure. You'll have a shitty public defender who will only realise that fiber in this case is about internet not clothing because he first read the file in the taxi to the courthouse. You'll take a plea deal because you can't afford a trial. The system doesn't work how you think it does, at least not for the people on the ground.
    - direwolf20 7mo ago
      You'll have money because you'll be selling fast internet to people. If YCombinator startups can make it work, so can you. Wear a hi-vis vest.
- sophrosyne42 7mo ago
  This, more than anything, is the cause of limited space utilities monopolies. Companies have to license use of the backing infrastructure, and most often municipalities only give these easements to a tiny number of players. It's a textbook government granted monopoly.

petra 7mo ago

Is there a possibility to create a wireless point-to-point link ?

ExoticPearTree 7mo ago
Yes. You can actually buy pairs of antennas (basically an AP pair) that do just that. The only downside is that the signal quality varies based on weather. If you want something more or less weather proof, you can get microwave P2P links that run in licensed bands and you don't get any signal interference from similar nearby antennas. Both WiFi and Microwave equipment act just like bridges and you can connect them to a switch or router.
- laurencerowe 7mo ago
  We have an ISP (Monkeybrains) that offers this in SF but it’s only up to 100 Mbps each way. I recently tried AT&T fixed wireless which runs over the mobile network but it seems too congested to offer high speeds so ended up back with Comcast.