
Getting Fiber to My Town [video] - janvdberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg
======
philjohn
Also worth mentioning a huge success story in the UK along similar lines -
B4RN [https://b4rn.org.uk/](https://b4rn.org.uk/)

Their secret sauce was getting farmers to dig trenches for fibre conduits
across their farmland, in return for getting the service.

------
xur17
Just watched most of the video, and holy crap, this is super cool. Jared got
frustrated by the (very slow) internet options available to him, and started
his own isp to solve the problem for him and his neighbors.

------
jordan801
This is inspiring. Its amazing that he was able to bust this out for his
community. Its mind blowing the amount of perserverance.

I really want to break free from my job and build something of my own. Like
this. Really inspiring to see someone that had a metaphorical mountain between
them and a goal, push through. I cant imagine anything I will be doing, will
be nearly as problem ridden as this project.

Shows what confronting one problem at a time, and not giving up, can result
in.

------
noisy_boy
I basically don't know much about the nitty gritty of network engineering but
this was very satisfying to watch. Especially the anecdote he shared of a
customer going "holly, molly" after he started using this service. Very nice.

------
rmason
A few years back I knew a guy who built a network for a few neighbors South of
Ann Arbor. I was on some discussion group and just coincidentally CmdrTaco was
complaining about his poor internet access South of Ann Arbor. Chimed in to
provide an introduction to my friend and together they expanded the network.

Wish East Lansing had all the independent efforts that Ann Arbor does. Been
trying to get fiber here for ten years, none of the local providers will come
out to the suburbs ;<(.

~~~
jaredmauch
Hah. My kid goes to school with CmdrTacos kid. His old house was not very
accessible.

Lightspeed - I forget who bought them maybe MEC.

Try them

------
walrus01
For people who don't know who Jared Mauch is, he's a senior network engineer
at Akamai.

[https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q=jared+mauch+akama...](https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q=jared+mauch+akamai)

So this is not a case of somebody who had more enthusiasm than experience
attempting to do a rural broadband project. This sort of thing does crop up
commonly in attempts at rural WISP projects, where somebody who's never had
'enable' on the routers of any ASN decides to build their own ISP.

In this case it's somebody with the great depth and breadth of knowledge to do
it, dissatisfied with their local status quo for residential last mile
service, deciding to implement it themselves.

~~~
justaj
How much of this presentation could be applicable outside of the US? As in:
How much of this is general knowledge that you can apply if you're trying to
achieve the same goal and happen to be situated outside of the US?

~~~
iptrans
It's pretty accurate across borders. Local regulations and permitting rules
will differ and costs will vary according to local labor costs.

Souce: done that, been there in multiple countries

Hit me up via email if you need help. Email in profile.

------
ckdarby
@jaredmauch Would you still have considered doing this today with Starlink now
happening?

I stopped the video once the interviewer portion started but how does someone
justify $125-150k investment to become an ISP? I'd maybe consider this if I
owned a large chunk of land out there and planned to sell it and then sell the
internet subscriptions to individuals who build there.

~~~
jaredmauch
yes, because i have fiber and starlink is going to be great for people who are
1 home per square mile or less in Montana etc..

I'm also in a position to offer much higher speeds when I need to upgrade.
Projections put that out after month 60 when I need more bandwidth.

------
treesknees
What happens when Jared sells his home or has to move? Everyone has fiber
wired into his basement for connectivity. Would the new homeowner be obligated
to continue running this?

Personally if I were a neighbor I'd still sign up with this risk given the ISP
options available, but would still be a concern. Your Internet service and
home value depend on this guy keeping things running "forever".

~~~
toomuchtodo
Most likely, the equipment would move to a community owned and maintained
equipment enclosure/shed. This is a worn path for coops and other endeavors
like this where residents go in to buy a DSL DSLAM and pull fiber to it, with
the "last mile" being copper runs.

~~~
jaredmauch
It's pretty easy, I just sell myself an easement on the property for $1 before
I sell to someone else. I can also just move the electronics somewhere else.
The nice thing about fiber is the range, I can be within 25dB of here and it
will still work. With average loss of 0.5dB/km that gives you a decent range

------
whatever1
Ignorant questions:

1) He showed that he can achieve 700ish Mbit/s at his place. Does it mean that
the 20 subscribers of his service are sharing this? If he wants to increase
the overall throughput does he have to place more fiber cables?

2) Did he use any sort of repeaters to deal with the attenuation of the
signal?

~~~
jjeaff
I have read that you can put hundreds of people on a single gigabit backhaul
and give gigabit to all of them and you will rarely run into problems.

~~~
jaredmauch
can confirm the shape of this assertion. Having a 10G even if rate-limited to
something just over 1G gives the burst. When my son got a new laptop pre-
school starting we could see those updates and game downloads on the graph,
the other homes were just noise.

------
janvdberg
This is a presentation by Jared Mauch of how he managed to dig and build his
own fiber network in his town without help of big telcos.

He shares his lessons learned (if you feel inclined to build your own) and
details his expenses (it's not cheap, but not impossible either). It's a very
informative and fun talk!

~~~
hn_check
Mr. Mauch is replying through this thread and I don't think many have noticed.

Great initiative and project, with a wonderful outcome. This is great HN
material.

~~~
jaredmauch
yeah, i had to recover my HN account, i forgot i made one

------
iptrans
@jaredmauch Can you share more details on becoming a telco? Did it have other
upsides/downsides than easier access to the public right of way? Does being a
CLEC have benefits not extended to a BIAS (Broadband Internet Access Provider)
as defined by the FCC?

------
gonesilent
I'm attempting the same thing in red bluff California. Forced to start my own
ISP because the other service options suck. Got on a zayo ila site and now
it's time to learn how to dig fiber.

------
xyst
Interesting, he was able to subsidize nearly 67% of the $126,710 through the
17 pre-orders he received. Probably could have built the entire project with
zero out of pocket expenses if it was a more dense area (or at least had a
higher signup rate than 30%).

Although, now that it is built what’s the process for hooking up new
subscribers? Wouldn’t he have to hire more contractors to bore out lines and
hook up the fiber to each home? The cost of acquiring a customer would appear
to be astronomical.

~~~
iptrans
According to the presentation:

\- Costs exceeded $126k by far. More like $150k in direct costs plus all the
free labor Jared put in. This project has taken literally years of his life
and all his spare time lately.

\- Pre-orders were more than 17. 17 is the number of subscribers already
hooked up.

\- Take rate wasn't 30%, it was 70% along the route.

\- Customers were, at least partially, pre-installed, so not all will require
new construction. Jared also does a lot of the work himself without
contractors. He also owns/has access to a chain trencher and a directional
bore.

\- customer acquisition costs do not traditionally factor in the cost of
building drops. These are usually accounted for separately. Obviously
construction costs time and/or money.

------
flas9sd
in the video Jared said he's 25 years in the industry. This being nlnog, I
guess in networking, one layer above the physical? good mechanical engineering
skills also helped with building an diy conduit blower for the fibre cables.

The thing I most wonder about if you start to be a service provider and need
to provide ongoing connectivity - you need a backup plan for when you're out
of town.

~~~
cnst
And he didn't actually reply to the question on how much of his own time he
has spent doing all of this.

It's impressive, but, at the same time, I'd imagine it's way too stressful to
run by yourself in a small town like that. Without really that much payout,
money-wise.

~~~
jaredmauch
too much time.. the payback is actually reasonable (under 4 years)

~~~
cnst
Are you saying you're going to recoup the value of your time in under 4 years,
or would you just recoup the initial non-time investment in under 4 years?

It may sound like you might be spending something around 20 hours per week on
this, if not more. If you bill your own time to your new ISP at market rate,
when will you recoup the investment? Is that still 4 years?

To put some math into perspective, (20 hours/week * 4 weeks/month * 100
USD/hour) / 50 USD/month/customer = 160 customers -- that's how many customers
you need to cover just your time alone, without considering any other
expenses. The math should definitely work out given an adequate intake, but I
think it's also easy to get lost in the community and tech part of it,
forgetting the business case. Especially if you live in the middle of nowhere,
without that many neighbours to sign up.

~~~
iptrans
Even if Jared is spending 20 hours per week on this project now, that will not
be the case after construction is finished.

As such your calculation does not hold and 160 customers will not be needed to
recoup costs, cash or non-cash. There need only be enough customers to cover
running expenses, administration costs and once off investment costs over
time.

------
notJim
It took over a year for my mom to get cable at her house. Never occurred to me
to start my own ISP instead.

~~~
coronadisaster
it took him like 10 years to get his fiber ISP going and still can't get cable

------
tantalor
Skip the first 40 seconds.

------
grahamburger
There are some Facebook groups around with folks doing this kind of thing. The
one I follow is "WISPs turned FISPs" with lots of folks building FTTH networks
on small scales. (not sure how to link directly to a FB group.)

Also shameless plug for my website startyourownisp.com which has a similar
theme.

~~~
jaredmauch
I mentioned these groups in the slides. You can find those slides on the NLNOG
website.

[https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf](https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf)

~~~
buildbuildbuild
Where did you end up running the fiber to, and how did you find out about this
nearest connection point? Thank you for sharing your experience, very
inspiring.

~~~
jaredmauch
I had to build it 2 miles north to a fiber rich intersection. Even with it
there it doesn't mean anyone will sell to you. I kept getting results a mile
east or west of where I was going. Things like fiber locator or infrarpedia
can help you figure out who is there.

------
anthony_barker
really interesting video... loved it.

------
iptrans
@jaredmauch How much of the route did you bore with that Ditch Witch JT820
drill?

Did you personally run the machine or did you have a contractor do it for you?

What's your view on the JT820? Any problems? Or did all go well?

~~~
jaredmauch
I ran short distances (like my private road, or driveway crossings/private
property runs under trees) with it. It has a reach of around 150-200' and is
not suitable for a large project like mine that was 12-14k feet.

It's a great little drill, but I've also spent a fair amount on parts and
pieces to keep it running. Nothing too expensive (except the rubber tracks,
those are around $500 to replace, did one in 2019 and the other in 2020). I
purchased a new locate wand as well, which was over 5k which works better with
the beacon than the older one.

If you need to go a short distance it's a good tool, small enough i can move
it with a F250.

~~~
iptrans
Which locate wand did you get?

~~~
jaredmauch
I purchased a tk recon 2

------
jdashg
This is a 34 minute video with 500 views and no description, and no
transcript.

~~~
bbunix
An engineer vs a sales guy

~~~
jaredmauch
I had to be both.

------
jaredmauch
Here's the slides

[https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf](https://nlnog.net/static/live/nlnog_live_sep_2020_jared.pdf)

~~~
albertop
Depressing part: \- Permit filed for April 2019 \- Issued September 2019

~~~
jaredmauch
There are many parts that posed challenges. At the height of covid lockdowns -
talking to contractor about if they will start at all was a big decision.
Thankfully they were a family business and the work is outdoors in a rural
setting so lower risk.

~~~
wyclif
I asked this question in a thread on a different story, then when I saw this
thread I immediately thought you would be the perfect person to ask this
question:

Have you ever found a way to correlate or list rural areas in the USA that
already have high-speed FTTH? A lot of people here would be interested in that
information, since they plan to move out of big 1st, 2nd, or 3rd tier cities
and will be working from home indefinitely.

~~~
iptrans
Very few ISPs publish service area maps, never mind accurate coverage maps.
The only public data about broadband availability is based on FCC 477 forms,
which is notoriously inaccurate. It's so bad that the FCC recently had to walk
back claims of broadband coverage for 63 _million_ households. The FCC data is
so terrible that you can only use it to rule out coverage areas.

To get any kind of reliable data you'd have to manually try to collect
information scattered all over the web. Go over ISP websites, the list of muni
broadband networks, carrier portals,...

Even so, ISPs can and will readily deny service, even if they at first say
that there is coverage. The only way to make sure is to order service and see
if they deliver.

If you have the budget for it, you could consider using commercial services
like Fiberlocator, but they mainly cater for the commercial and wholesale
markets. I don't know if they cover FTTH. They may, if the network in question
also offers business service. They have an API, but that's probably not
included in the yearly subscription fee of just under four grand.

~~~
jaredmauch
our local area had to hire someone to drive all the roads and look for the
telltale signs of the utilities to get an accurate map. This was taking a
cross-section of a survey that went out to everyone and the FCC477 data that
is filed. The accuracy in the past has been at the census tract level, which
shows my area as served as someone in the census tract has service from
Comcast.

------
AtlasBarfed
5G home internet should make this a thing of the past, shouldn't it?

~~~
vasilia
Yes and no. If you are living near base station in a big city it will work.
But in the countryside where no good connection from ISP equipment to the base
station the bottleneck will be this link. Furthermore, 5G uses a higher
frequency than LTE, it could be not cost-effective to cover remote regions
with small number of users. Starlink could solve problems with cables, but
adds problems with RTT. Maybe one day all FAANG companies will open data
centres on Earth orbit.

~~~
singron
> Maybe one day all FAANG companies will open data centres on Earth orbit.

I know you are joking, but the weight, power, and heat dissipation all make
this impractical. They tried similar ideas with cargo containers and
underwater enclosures, which were a lot more practical than outer space, but
they didn't stick with it.

~~~
vasilia
I think the main problem is spare parts. A long time ago I was working in the
data centre. I don't remember any day when there was no problems with
hardware.

------
interrupt_
Here in my 3rd world country, fiber is getting pretty common. Small ISPs just
rent space on poles and lay the fiber to the extend that I can choose from 4
different fiber ISPs in my home.

It amazes me how difficult it seems to get the same in more developed places
like US/Canada.

~~~
sonicggg
How dense is your country though?

I feel that having fiber in big cities is a given nowadays. I don't think
telcos have any plan on supporting those smaller remote towns with fiber.
Maybe investment does not pay off in a reasonable amount of time.

Fiber may not be the only option though. Starlink should be becoming available
soon in North America. Only time will tell if that will work out though.
WiMax, for example, was a failed hard.

~~~
cactus2093
It's definitely not a given even in big cities. In San Francisco the only
places I've seen it offered are big apartment buildings with 50+ units. At
least from what I've seen, even in pretty dense parts of the cities if you're
in a small apartment building with like 10 units or you're in a duplex or
attached SFH you can't get fiber service.

The upside is we can still get gigabit service over cable lines through
comcast for a fairly reasonable price (although with terrible upload speeds,
data caps on the plan, and the need to fight with support every year to
prevent your price from going up, as with all comcast plans).

~~~
funkaster
If you’re in the sunset you’re in luck: pretty much everywhere in there has
Sonic coverage (iirc by renting at&t fiber, but could be wrong).

~~~
mikeyouse
Yep - I’m near 19th ave and I pay $60/month all in for 1gbps up/down fiber
with no caps from Sonic. Pretty tremendous.

