
Forget Comcast. Here’s a DIY Approach to Internet Access - nreece
https://backchannel.com/forget-comcast-heres-the-diy-approach-to-internet-access-ef1e37bc09e1
======
cprecioso
I'm in currently in a rural village in Spain where there's a node sponsored by
city hall. When you read the article it sounds really ideal, but it isn't.
What started in this vivillage with the intention of connecting older people
with basic internet (Wikipedia, newspapers, Google...), has turned into a
unusable connection that the local electrician charges more than 3x what it
costs to install at your home. It is an absolute nightmare for configuring it,
rendering unintelligible for older people. Even if they somehow got to the
Internet, the local node has been hijacked by all the people that come for the
summer and are lured by the "free" connection which is then gobble, mostly by
torrenting pirated movies, leaving basically no bandwidth for the rest of the
town. I now don't recommend Guifi for anyone in this area, as it has become a
costly, unusable, sham, "vaporware"-network here.

~~~
technofiend
Can you take over management of the node? It's not hard to add bandwidth
management to throttle the pirates.

~~~
snewk
that would be against the terms of use. from the article:

 _You have the freedom to use the network for any purpose as long as you don’t
harm the operation of the network itself, the rights of other users, or the
principles of neutrality that allow contents and services to flow without
deliberate interference.

You have the right to understand the network and its components, and to share
knowledge of its mechanisms and principles.

You have the right to offer services and content to the network on your own
terms.

You have the right to join the network, and the obligation to extend this set
of rights to anyone according to these same terms._

~~~
johnm1019
If any of the other users are part owners (shareholders) of any copyrighted
material being downloaded illegally, then those downloading it are accessing
the network against the ToS. Surely by "rights of other users" they mean to
include the right to not "have my property stolen."

~~~
loup-vaillant
"The rights of other users" most probably refer to the rights mentioned in
this chart. Not copyright.

It is unlikely anyone in the network has the rights to the copyrighted
material being exchanged. There may be some exceptions, but you'd have to dig
for them, in an extremely invasive and non-neutral way.

Also, copyright infringement is nothing like property theft, mostly because
copy & paste doesn't have the same effects as _cut_ & paste. Stop using this
broken analogy, it only hurts the debate.

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Artlav
Am i the only one who gets irked by having to read half an article of "how you
should feel about this" crap to get an answer to the "WTF is this and how it
works" question, which should have taken one line at the start?

Anyway, i find the title odd, because at the end of things it's still plugged
into the Telefonica/Comcast/Whatever. So, what's the point?

This basically describes a community/small-business ISP, nothing special.

~~~
kilburn
Obviously the article is not targeted to a technical audience. A quick
summary:

\- guifi.net (you can visit the website for more info) is a non-profit
foundation to support the development of an open, user-owned network.

\- Users, alone or by groups buy networking gear (nodes) that connects them to
other nodes.

\- The result is a mesh network between all those nodes. Guifi.net develops
and mantains (free-software based) software to manage the network. They have a
website that centralizes information, manages the private IP space, and
provides firmwares for the supported gear.

\- The network may be used for any purpose. If you want to build a VPN between
two physical locations that both have guifi.net connevtivity you don't need to
go to public internet. Aside from maintaining the networking gear, there are
no fees either.

\- Getting internet connectivity is possible. You "just" need someone giving
you an "exit gateway. This can be a friend with guifi.net connectivity AND a
traditional telefonica/comcast connection. You can also buy internet access
directly from the carriers at the CatNIX peering center (the foundation has
laid out fiber connecting to that exchange). I don't know the fees.

It is a cool project, but I can see how users can get unhappy if they pay for
a node under the premise of "free connectivity" only to find themselves on a
(quite large) private mesh network.

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tcamp
This seems similar to starry
([https://starry.com/internet](https://starry.com/internet)). They are rolling
out their wifi routers now and looking forward to their internet service that
uses millimeter waves.

This is by the same guy who did the Aero startup. The large broadcasting
companies were completely threatened by it.

Interested to see what happens with Guifi.net and Starry.

~~~
woah
What is similar? The only similarity I can see is that they are both in the
telecommunications space.

One is an ISP, run as a cooperative, the other is a company trying to parlay
hardware innovation into a monopoly.

~~~
tcamp
To be clear, I'm not affiliated with Starry or Guifi. Just interested in the
disruption of current ISP models.

You are correct about business model, access and governance. Yet the
similarities go beyond just being in the same industry.

Similarities include:

1\. Both compete with & fill an ISP last mile void. a. Guifi - Access to the
internet b. Starry - Access to the Gigabit internet

2\. Both are the acting as ISPs for their users.

3\. While not the same, there are architectural similarities. Wireless,
communication nodes, etc.

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grahamburger
I've spent most of the last 15 years building and maintaining wireless ISP
networks like this one. I've known several people (in the US) who have started
an ISP like this in their garage and built it up to a few hundred costumers -
enough to pay themselves a decent living salary. I'm also working on a startup
in this space. Happy to answer questions.

~~~
hoppa_liza
Does this line of service target solely the lack of connectivity, i.e. ISPs
will not service you, or other issues like a slow/congested networks?

My main point is figuring out where the other end of the line is, at the
original ISP, or beyond that. And please forgive my lack of vocabulary, I have
limited networks knowledge.

~~~
grahamburger
If I understand your question correctly I think you're asking what network
connectivity is 'upstream' from the wireless network, and how/if that compares
to purchasing a connection from the telco?

In my experience the way this works is that we buy a leased fiber connection -
say 1GBPS, usually terminated either in a regular datacenter or in a business
park somewhere. Sometimes you're buying that line from the same entity that is
also selling residential Internet access in nearby neighborhoods (IE
CenturyLink) but the business group you're dealing with is almost entirely
distinct from the residential Internet service group.

1GBPS will go further than you think - you can put 700-800 heavy usage
customers (cord cutters, college students, etc) on a 1GBPS link and never (or
very rarely) max it out. Selling higher speed plans doesn't really increase
the max throughput on the network either, except in fairly predictable
'bands'. That seems unintuitive, but most people don't really increase their
Internet usage depending on the speed of the connection (other than at a few
thresholds, IE going from <1mbps to something that allows cable-cutting) so
selling a faster connection just gets them their data faster and frees up your
capacity for the next request.

~~~
petra
What does a user mean in this case - a single person or a family ? And how
does this work in prime time, when 50%+ of the people are watching netflix
etc, at 4 Mbps average(1080p + 720p), with other video services even less
compressed ?

~~~
grahamburger
a single family (or a single connection to the network, anyway. One customer
from the ISP perspective.)

You would think that at least 50% of people would be watching Netflix at the
same time each night, but as of yet that doesn't seem to be the case. (At
least not on any of the networks that I've been familiar with, which are in
pretty tech-savvy areas like I mentioned, with heavy users.) It also helps
that you can get one of Netflix's caching servers (can't remember what they're
called) once you hit a certain threshold of traffic to their network.

The key though is that the more customers you aggregate the less traffic you
can plan for per customer. So for example if you have 100 customers you might
need to budget your network at 4-5mbps/customer to make it through peak times
without slowing every one down too bad, while if you have 1000 customer you
can get by with ~1.5 mbps per customer.

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rmason
Spent a Saturday a while back with Detroit's digital stewards. They are true
mesh network wizards and have gone all over the world helping communities set
up their own mesh networks. I am in awe of what these people have accomplished
with literally no money.

[https://www.alliedmedia.org/dctp/digitalstewards](https://www.alliedmedia.org/dctp/digitalstewards)

Something like 70% of Detroiters lack net access and this group is slowly
trying to change that. They could be better organized about asking for outside
help. If you've got an old router or want to just send them a buck it goes
towards putting more families on the Internet. They're also looking for
developers to write programs for specific community needs, most of them are
hardware people.

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neogodless
On the bright side, it illustrates the profit margins and excess bandwidth
that ISPs have. They are making plenty, and for a few thousand people to
"slice some off the top" for sharing isn't going to crush them.

But this may prove to not be scalable. It's almost certainly against most
terms of service for those that actually pay to connect to the internet. Of
course, I'd say "if everyone connected this way, where would the internet come
from?" but then they'd all be connected anyway...

~~~
wmf
Guifi probably started by "stealing" bandwidth from consumer ISP connections,
but it looks like they are now buying 36K EUR/year of wholesale transit:
[http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro/pubs/crowds-guifi-
en.pdf](http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro/pubs/crowds-guifi-en.pdf) (section
5.2)

~~~
calgoo
Guifi has a connection to the local Internet Exchange in barcelona (catnix)
which is managed by exo.cat (an association of people paying a bi-yearly fee
to support the expansion of the guifi network) as well as other connections
around barcelona and other cities / towns.

A lot of people shared their internet bandwidth which here in Spain was not
illegal or blocked by the ISPs if you where smart. There are also several
small ISPs that have been created that sells internet and telephone services
over the guifi network.

------
mempko
Remember when you could connect to the internet via an ISP some guy ran down
the street where he had a rack in his closet in the mid 90s? Those were some
kick ass times. The media companies just bought everything up in the dot-com
boom.

The sad thing is this isn't a NEW approach. Community approach is how the
internet spread before it got commercialized by the big companies. Spread via
universities and small mom and pop ISPs

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js2
Wilson, NC got tired of waiting for telecom companies to wire the town with
high speed affordable Internet — so it did it itself. Then the telecom
companies succesfully lobbied the state legislature to pass a law preventing
any other municipalities from doing the same.

------
lintiness
i don't get it. the first "node" has to get "online" somehow, how is this
accomplished?

~~~
futuremeats
I share the confusion. Isn't the municipality just* acting as a reseller for
telefonica?

~~~
crispyambulance
Its a good question... in the article it states that Guifi was able to get a
"peering" connection.

Internet service providers have to connect to each other somehow and this is
done at IXP (internet exchange points:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point)
)-- basically a huge building where separate providers can come together and
exchange traffic.

I imagine that a peering connection in such a facility requires a heroic
amount of maneuvering around 800 lb gorilla companies, but it certainly is
possible if one has enough traffic and money.

~~~
calgoo
The Guifi network has a connection to the local internet exchange CATNIX. That
connection is paid for by the association exo.cat, which is supported by
members paying a bi-yearly fee.

Edit: grammar

~~~
devicenull
Peering doesn't get you to the internet at large though, it just gets you to
the people connected to the particular exchange (and they're not usually
willing to relay your traffic to other networks)

~~~
crispyambulance
Now I am really mixed up. How else would an independent ISP get to "the
internet at large"? Isn't that what a peering agreement is all about at an
IXP?

~~~
devicenull
They'd have to buy transit from a provider. Peering is connectivity between
two ISPs. Transit is connectivity between you and the rest of the internet.

~~~
crispyambulance
There are perhaps missing details, but Guifi seems to have "become" a provider
by having "enough" customers. They got a peering connection.

There's a threshold beyond which peering make more sense than transit...
([http://packetpushers.net/transit-vs-peering-makes-
sense/](http://packetpushers.net/transit-vs-peering-makes-sense/)).

------
newman314
Given the challenges I've had with Comcast this week, I'm wondering what it
would take to get a neighborhood mesh up and running (each home is still
segregated but with shared egress) for improved uptime and probably better
bandwidth.

~~~
callalex
Isn't that what DOCSIS is supposed to be?

------
manav
I've considered trying to get fiber for gigabit+ wired in my subdivision here
in the Bay Area (with HOA approval). We have fiber coming up to the main road
and have been wired for ATT/Comcast for a long time.

Since we already have ATT/Comcast I think they will be pain to deal with when
trying to run new fiber.

There are a few providers doing fixed wireless, but even that can only reach a
fraction of everyone in the community.

~~~
Spooky23
Who owns the conduit or pole? If the HOA does, it's not too bad.

~~~
manav
ATT leases space since they built out more recently. Comcast I have no idea,
it was probably built out long ago and they have some agreement. I did find an
interesting case of a HOA that is doing their own fiber via Paxio in Milpitas.
I will certainly contact them.

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erikb
What's different between them and other companies? Didn't really get it. There
are many small internet service providers who pretty much rent the
infrastructure from the big guys. You still have the same problems though.

~~~
woah
The internet consists of the backbone and the last mile. The backbone is
actually pretty diversified and competitive. Installing one cable that carries
millions of connections is a pretty good business model. There are uplinks all
over the country where you can connect to a data center and get huge
connections for a few hundred dollars and up. For example, Hurricane Electric
runs an uplink serving the northern Bay Area in Fremont, I believe.

The last mile is much more of a pain in the ass. You have to bring connections
to everyone's house and you are then installing one cable that carries one
connection. This is why there has been little competition and people are
generally unhappy with their ISPs.

Guifi is addressing the last mile market with a network built by a cooperative
non profit. They are in no way "renting infrastructure from the big guys".
They are reselling bandwidth in the way that a supermarket resells produce. If
the big guys had put last mile infrastructure into Catalonia, Guifi would not
have started.

~~~
erikb
Ah okay. Their value is basically freeing up the last mile. Yeah that makes
sense.

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jjellyy
if you live in San Francisco forget Comcast and just get MonkeyBrains !

~~~
mcpherrinm
As much as I want to love Monkeybrains.. 20mbps for $35 is way more expensive
than Comcast, and their weird coverage map is unclear where you can actually
get it. I tried to contact their customer support and didn't manage to get a
reply. At least comcast tells you you're getting screwed, and doesn't ghost
you.

~~~
terinjokes
Checking in from SoMa. 65 up and down for $35/month.

~~~
mcpherrinm
Perhaps they ought to update their advertising if they're actually faster than
what they claim.

Are you in a multitenant / shared installation? I've heard if there's enough
people in a building you can get vaguely higher but unspecified speeds.

~~~
MonkeyDan
Hey there,

Sorry you didn't get a reply. We respond to every inquiry, but sometimes the
responses end up in one's spam folder. We run our own mail servers and despite
our best efforts (DKIM, SPF, never being on any blacklists) some mail
providers bin us.

If you give us a call (415-974-1313) we can look up your address and give you
a better idea of what to expect, though we tend to under-promise and over-
deliver.

The website is a bit... dated, but we're working on a new one with a new
coverage map[0] and more details about our service in buildings that are
already on-net.

[0] A slightly better representation of coverage can be found on our outage
map at [https://monkeybrains.net/map/](https://monkeybrains.net/map/)

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austinkurpuis
This man is a hero.

