35 ms·

Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. I would think dense wireless

Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. I would think dense wireless networks in urban areas could work. I'm not an expert, and would be interested in hearing from one, but I imagine that wireless networks could benefit from algorithmic advances in a way that might be more difficult in traditional copper/fiber networks. If you gave me (someone with very little wireless experience but used to be a cable guy) carte blanche, here's what I would investigate: Several routers in an urban area which require minimal installation and can be mass-produced and immediately interchanged - think roof access, and could be turned on and off remotely, maybe battery operated, flowing to relatively few fiber hubs. Infrastructure advantages: Network algorithms have come a long way, and the ability to dynamically add or scale nodes as needed could have great performance/cost balances that aren't possible with fixed nodes. And upgrades do not require new lines, just more and better routers. If a router dies, replace, and send the old one to a shop somewhere inexpensive. No midnight service restoration pay. Customer advantages: I connect to wifi the same way I do right now. Zero home installation (google Comcast horror stories if you need imagery). If I were to start, I would do it in an urban area with a landowner that had a monopoly. Hyde Park, Chicago is like that. There are basically two landowners: University of Chicago and Mac Apartments. You have to make one community love you to pieces before branching out, and that would require a lot of cooperation. Of course a danger here is if Mac suddenly decides that they hate you and removes access privileges. But if that worked, and you got more funding to expand, imagine the word of mouth: "Here's how installation works: it's a wifi network and you connect to it". A la "it's a folder, and it syncs" dropbox. Presumably something like this has been tried before, but that's true of many things that end up working (like search engines or social networks).

thundara 13y ago
> I would think dense wireless networks in urban areas could work You've basically described mesh networks. There are a number in cities across America, but are normally run by enthusiasts. The trouble is, in dense urban environments, there's a lot of noise to overcome, and if you don't work around that, your network will fall apart. Especially a problem with the coming 802.11ac routers which will crowd up the 5 GHz band that is current the target for backbone links in the wireless networks.
- VikingIV 13y ago
  Let's take that rooftop box example. Would this operate better if it weren't on any 802.11 frequency, but another with less noise... a point-to-multipoint box which can communicate with a proprietary gateway in each domicile (or open source device design for enthusiasts), which could also provide routing?
  - gametheoretic 13y ago
    >a proprietary gateway in each domicile (or open source device design for enthusiasts), which could also provide routing? Why not bypass this and go straight to the device? Imagine paying for internet and not being limited to your house. Then you can expand your "work somewhere which is not your home and not your office" options beyond just Starbucks, et al. Plus the more different you are from the current business model, the better; you have a greater variety of ways to sell yourself, e.g. "This Internet Option, for the on-the-go professional who doesn't have time for wires!" or "Comcast wants you to have a modem. Lol, ok, Grandpa. Eyeroll.gif" or even "Gee Honey, you were right about This Internet Option. I never realized how much more alive - and sexy, and free - I feel using my laptop on the backyard swing!" Also you could compete on price (dramatically so!) with mobile carriers, if your network of boxes is, say, at least city-wide. Home, work, and between. (Sorry about that. I was having fun.)
  - thundara 13y ago
    > Would this operate better if it weren't on any 802.11 frequency, but another with less noise Well, there main unlicensed bands used by hardware today are 2.4 (Full up), 5.8 (Filling), and 24.1 GHz (Relatively clear). If you want to get into other frequencies, you're going to need to license them ($$$). If you want to work with the frequencies already available, you're going to need to plan a little, since different frequencies have different speeds and penetrance. Wirless meshs are neat in some aspects, a more guerilla approach to internet for sure, but you're definitely going to have an easier time dealing with bandwidth and noise if you just roll out your service over insulated wires.
simoncion 13y ago
> Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. That reasonable way is for municipalities to gather some courage and run their own open-access fiber. Until municipalities realize that the monopolies that they've granted their "local" cable companies are now working fiercely against the interests of their citizenry, real change in this space won't happen. To anyone who's thinking of trotting out the old "The US is too spread out to make that feasible!" canard: NYC, SFO, and SJC have slower, poorer, more expensive per bps residential broadband options than Chattanooga, TN does. Make sure to carefully examine the population densities and regions surrounding each of those metro areas before making your argument. :)
- cbhl 13y ago
  "Decision-making power in the US is too spread out to make that feasible!" If you wanted to run a fiber-optic line between SFO and SJC, you'd probably have to ask at least three or four different county governments, never mind the state, federal, or municipal governments. Take a look, for example, at the mess that is keeping Caltrain funded every year.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    That problem is mere politics and provides no fundamental technological barriers.
    - eseehausen 13y ago
      You're right, but that makes it sound more, not less, difficult to accomplish.
anon4 13y ago
WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box. Start small in a part of the city populated by mostly young people - like university students. Buy ad time on the Discovery Channel. Run your cables through the air between buildings and over trees - it will fail with every storm, but it's cheap to replace. Hopefully you'll get big enough fast enough to put some proper cabling before regulation catches up with you.
- X4 13y ago
  >> WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box. hahahaha :D OK, dear anon4, do you have idea what the fastest connection to the stock market today is, no? Hint, it's "wireless". High Frequency Trading set an arms race to have the best and fastest connection to the trade-market. Every nanosecond counts. TL;DR? Wireless is faster than Cable. Yup.
  - anon4 13y ago
    What I mean is that I currently get my internet via a LAN cable that goes into my router box. I have a tower PC hooked via a cable to it and a laptop that connects via WiFi. The tower can achieve the full 5 megabytes/sec I pay for, while WiFi maxes out at about 1½ mbytes/sec. It's slow.
    - Shivetya 13y ago
      It sounds as if either your laptop's wifi card is old or your router is. 5mb is nothing, 802.11n can easily handle that (its about 20) and dual band connections can push it a bit higher. Where WiFi at home is breaking down is some cable companies are offering 30, 50, or more down. Then there is Fiber which just blows past what most people will get out of home WiFi networks.
      - will_work4tears 13y ago
        "802.11n can easily handle that (its about 20)" Is that all? I haven't benchmarked mine, but it claims 300Mbps, and I've never noticed any speedup on my video streaming by switching to ethernet (my internet speed is ~28Mbps). It's possible I just wouldn't notice an ~8Mbps speed up though.
expertentipp 13y ago
Maybe drone routers providing floating/adhoc networks:)
speleding 13y ago
> Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies... I'm nowhere near a socialist, but government intervention is a perfectly reasonable way to deal with natural monopolies. How do you think Northern European and Asian countries pulled so far ahead of the US on this?
- josu 13y ago
  Disclaimer: This is an observation, unsupported by facts, and please take it as such. I'm pretty sure that the ISP sector is not constrained in any way by a natural monopoly. Take a look at the Internet in Romania wikipedia article[0]. In my view telecom companies have grown to disproportionate sizes, almost everywhere in the world, and this has given them enough power to buy the lawmakers. A lot of legislation has been passed to protect them, state laws, national laws and even international laws. So no, I think that the telecom sector has been intervened enough since its creation, what the consumer needs is to completely deregulate it, and to let the free market work its magic. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania
  - lotyrin 13y ago
    So just anyone can dig wherever they want whenever they want, laying redundant fiber and tearing up the streets?
    - josu 13y ago
      Somehow I doubt that that would be the most efficient way to do it. But maybe a couple or three companies could lay redundant fiber, while another two used existing infrastructures with new implementations, and maybe a couple more could offer satellite connections. I don't know, this is just pure speculation. What I know for sure is that the reason to protect companies that exploit "natural monopolies" is to protect the consumer. And right now, the protection of these companies is hurting the consumer, more than helping him. Yeah, in an ideal situation the state would be able to provide "free" internet at a really low cost. But that solution overlooks this huge problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgJ644LPL6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgJ644LPL6g
afuchs 13y ago
A few unlicensed wireless systems exist, namely, Ubiquti's AirMax (http://www.ubnt.com/ http://www.ubnt.com/) and Cambium's ePMP (http://http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/ http://http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/). The problem is that these systems are often set up by people with no knowledge of how radio or the Internet works. Imagine a residential DSL connection being resold to fifty people while being made even worse by radio interference and propagation issues. It is possible to build an ISP while bypassing a local monopoly, but few have the requisite knowledge.

thundara 13y ago

> I would think dense wireless networks in urban areas could work You've basically described mesh networks. There are a number in cities across America, but are normally run by enthusiasts. The trouble is, in dense urban environments, there's a lot of noise to overcome, and if you don't work around that, your network will fall apart. Especially a problem with the coming 802.11ac routers which will crowd up the 5 GHz band that is current the target for backbone links in the wireless networks.

VikingIV 13y ago
Let's take that rooftop box example. Would this operate better if it weren't on any 802.11 frequency, but another with less noise... a point-to-multipoint box which can communicate with a proprietary gateway in each domicile (or open source device design for enthusiasts), which could also provide routing?
- gametheoretic 13y ago
  >a proprietary gateway in each domicile (or open source device design for enthusiasts), which could also provide routing? Why not bypass this and go straight to the device? Imagine paying for internet and not being limited to your house. Then you can expand your "work somewhere which is not your home and not your office" options beyond just Starbucks, et al. Plus the more different you are from the current business model, the better; you have a greater variety of ways to sell yourself, e.g. "This Internet Option, for the on-the-go professional who doesn't have time for wires!" or "Comcast wants you to have a modem. Lol, ok, Grandpa. Eyeroll.gif" or even "Gee Honey, you were right about This Internet Option. I never realized how much more alive - and sexy, and free - I feel using my laptop on the backyard swing!" Also you could compete on price (dramatically so!) with mobile carriers, if your network of boxes is, say, at least city-wide. Home, work, and between. (Sorry about that. I was having fun.)
- thundara 13y ago
  > Would this operate better if it weren't on any 802.11 frequency, but another with less noise Well, there main unlicensed bands used by hardware today are 2.4 (Full up), 5.8 (Filling), and 24.1 GHz (Relatively clear). If you want to get into other frequencies, you're going to need to license them ($$$). If you want to work with the frequencies already available, you're going to need to plan a little, since different frequencies have different speeds and penetrance. Wirless meshs are neat in some aspects, a more guerilla approach to internet for sure, but you're definitely going to have an easier time dealing with bandwidth and noise if you just roll out your service over insulated wires.

simoncion 13y ago

> Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies is going to make a fortune. That reasonable way is for municipalities to gather some courage and run their own open-access fiber. Until municipalities realize that the monopolies that they've granted their "local" cable companies are now working fiercely against the interests of their citizenry, real change in this space won't happen. To anyone who's thinking of trotting out the old "The US is too spread out to make that feasible!" canard: NYC, SFO, and SJC have slower, poorer, more expensive per bps residential broadband options than Chattanooga, TN does. Make sure to carefully examine the population densities and regions surrounding each of those metro areas before making your argument. :)

cbhl 13y ago
"Decision-making power in the US is too spread out to make that feasible!" If you wanted to run a fiber-optic line between SFO and SJC, you'd probably have to ask at least three or four different county governments, never mind the state, federal, or municipal governments. Take a look, for example, at the mess that is keeping Caltrain funded every year.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  That problem is mere politics and provides no fundamental technological barriers.
  - eseehausen 13y ago
    You're right, but that makes it sound more, not less, difficult to accomplish.

anon4 13y ago

WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box. Start small in a part of the city populated by mostly young people - like university students. Buy ad time on the Discovery Channel. Run your cables through the air between buildings and over trees - it will fail with every storm, but it's cheap to replace. Hopefully you'll get big enough fast enough to put some proper cabling before regulation catches up with you.

X4 13y ago
>> WiFi is slow though, I just want a lan box. hahahaha :D OK, dear anon4, do you have idea what the fastest connection to the stock market today is, no? Hint, it's "wireless". High Frequency Trading set an arms race to have the best and fastest connection to the trade-market. Every nanosecond counts. TL;DR? Wireless is faster than Cable. Yup.
- anon4 13y ago
  What I mean is that I currently get my internet via a LAN cable that goes into my router box. I have a tower PC hooked via a cable to it and a laptop that connects via WiFi. The tower can achieve the full 5 megabytes/sec I pay for, while WiFi maxes out at about 1½ mbytes/sec. It's slow.
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    It sounds as if either your laptop's wifi card is old or your router is. 5mb is nothing, 802.11n can easily handle that (its about 20) and dual band connections can push it a bit higher. Where WiFi at home is breaking down is some cable companies are offering 30, 50, or more down. Then there is Fiber which just blows past what most people will get out of home WiFi networks.
    - will_work4tears 13y ago
      "802.11n can easily handle that (its about 20)" Is that all? I haven't benchmarked mine, but it claims 300Mbps, and I've never noticed any speedup on my video streaming by switching to ethernet (my internet speed is ~28Mbps). It's possible I just wouldn't notice an ~8Mbps speed up though.

expertentipp 13y ago

Maybe drone routers providing floating/adhoc networks:)

speleding 13y ago

> Anyone who comes up with a reasonable way of bypassing the natural local monopolies of cable companies... I'm nowhere near a socialist, but government intervention is a perfectly reasonable way to deal with natural monopolies. How do you think Northern European and Asian countries pulled so far ahead of the US on this?

josu 13y ago
Disclaimer: This is an observation, unsupported by facts, and please take it as such. I'm pretty sure that the ISP sector is not constrained in any way by a natural monopoly. Take a look at the Internet in Romania wikipedia article[0]. In my view telecom companies have grown to disproportionate sizes, almost everywhere in the world, and this has given them enough power to buy the lawmakers. A lot of legislation has been passed to protect them, state laws, national laws and even international laws. So no, I think that the telecom sector has been intervened enough since its creation, what the consumer needs is to completely deregulate it, and to let the free market work its magic. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania
- lotyrin 13y ago
  So just anyone can dig wherever they want whenever they want, laying redundant fiber and tearing up the streets?
  - josu 13y ago
    Somehow I doubt that that would be the most efficient way to do it. But maybe a couple or three companies could lay redundant fiber, while another two used existing infrastructures with new implementations, and maybe a couple more could offer satellite connections. I don't know, this is just pure speculation. What I know for sure is that the reason to protect companies that exploit "natural monopolies" is to protect the consumer. And right now, the protection of these companies is hurting the consumer, more than helping him. Yeah, in an ideal situation the state would be able to provide "free" internet at a really low cost. But that solution overlooks this huge problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgJ644LPL6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgJ644LPL6g

afuchs 13y ago

A few unlicensed wireless systems exist, namely, Ubiquti's AirMax (http://www.ubnt.com/ http://www.ubnt.com/) and Cambium's ePMP (http://http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/ http://http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/). The problem is that these systems are often set up by people with no knowledge of how radio or the Internet works. Imagine a residential DSL connection being resold to fifty people while being made even worse by radio interference and propagation issues. It is possible to build an ISP while bypassing a local monopoly, but few have the requisite knowledge.