
NYC Mesh Begins Broadband Expansion in Brooklyn - ris
https://www.nycmesh.net/pressreleases/Release19-06-13
======
tomstockmail
Anyone working on a Chicago based one? Chicago is quite flat with many taller-
than-other buildings scattered throughout that could act as access points.

There's
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ChicagoMeshnet](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChicagoMeshnet)
that gets some posts but it doesn't seem that anyone is active on it.

~~~
overthemoon
Chiming in to agree. I was disappointed when I found out the sub wasn't very
active when I checked a while back, I'll pop in again.

~~~
A2017U1
reddit is not a good place for anyone pushing for decentralization, they'll
come for you real quick the moment one government decides you are detrimental
to society

"too big to protect" is coming

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rmason
People may find it hard to believe but Detroit is the leader in mesh networks.
They've assisted other cities all over the world in setting them up. I've met
these folks and the amount of good they do for the money spent is
unbelievable.

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

~~~
newaccoutnas
Maybe not too hard to believe if you think that one of the main drivers for
mesh is the lack of available traditional infrastructure

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alexkavon
Damn they're growing fast. Last September I tried to setup it up but there was
no service because the trees in Tompkins Square Park. Will have to give
another looksie.

~~~
BrianNYC
We have 2 new hubs near Tompkins, one on Ave A and another on 7th St

~~~
cr0sh
Has there been any work or thoughts on what to do for long distance city-to-
city hops? Like say you wanted to connect the NY Mesh to Boston (not sure if
they have one, just an example)?

I live in Phoenix - I don't think we have anything, or if we do, they are all
small projects, nothing widespread. We are fairly flat, and there are probably
mountains and buildings that could be used for APs (getting permission might
be tough, though - because most of them are already used for comms systems -
not sure how easy or difficult it would be to piggyback on to a mast).

But we are a good distance away from other metro areas in the state itself
(Tuscon and Flagstaff mainly), and connection to say, Los Angeles or San Diego
(or even Palm Springs) seems like a virtual impossibility to me.

I'm just curious if anyone has considered how to bridge these long-distance
spans in a low cost manner?

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untog
I love this project, and I dream of participating in it in my building that is
wired for Optimum and Optimum only. It would be a great way to break out of
that monopoly.

But I do wonder, how will the rollout of 5G affect projects like this? It's a
non-profit so I'll always favor it as a community project, but once Verizon
comes knocking with a home 5G router capable of fantastic speeds it'll tempt
many, I'm sure.

~~~
cjbprime
My cell service on LTE in the US is about as fast as my cable modem. But I
can't just cancel my cable internet and tether instead, because every telco
performs severe rate-limiting once you use up a bandwidth quota -- there's no
truly unlimited data option.

So perhaps you're assuming that 5G will result in unlimited data and the
obsolescence of cable internet as a result, but that's not obvious, at least
to me.

~~~
somepig
Fun Fact: Some carrier throttling works by throttling packets with an
unexpected TTL. Android has a default TTL of 64.

You most certainly shouldn't set the default TTL of a tethered device to 65,
because then your carrier may fail apply proper limits to that traffic.

~~~
a012
Here in Asia, if my data plan is reached quota, I'll be charged by bandwidth:
$x/MB and it's much more expensive than the normal data plans. So I still have
full throughput but pay significantly more for it.

------
40acres
I'll have to research how this program is funded later, I haven't lived in NY
for a few years now but between Lower Manhattan and this section of Brooklyn
it seems like richer neighborhoods are getting access first. Do the two
supernodes need to be within a certain distance of each other?

~~~
BrianNYC
Supernodes are connected by fiber so they can be any distance apart.

The two main areas we have connected are the Lower East Side and Chinatown in
Manhattan (mixed income) and in Brooklyn our main hub is in a low-income
housing association building, definitely not a "richer neighborhood". It is a
priority of ours to get to the neighborhoods that need us the most.

------
Element_
For anyone investigating setting up a local mesh network in their community
checkout the Althea project: [https://althea.net/](https://althea.net/)

~~~
Filligree
I was interested, until I saw 'blockchain'. Supporting anything that energy-
hungry is just flat out.

~~~
colatkinson
In fairness, it appears to use proof-of-stake[1] which has issues of its own,
but doesn't use the TWh of electricity that proof-of-work does.

[1]: [https://althea.net/whitepaper#blockchain-
overview](https://althea.net/whitepaper#blockchain-overview)

------
fitzroy
Shout out to the lonely node on Smith and Douglass! Howdy neighbor.

~~~
timgilbert
I believe that's one of the LinkNYC kiosks on Smith St. I wasn't aware they
were part of this mesh, although the nycmesh site says they've "become
unreliable":

[https://docs.nycmesh.net/installs/linknyc/](https://docs.nycmesh.net/installs/linknyc/)

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syntaxing
Is there anything equivalent in SF?! I love the idea of this and would love to
get something similar!

~~~
thirtyseven
Not SF technically but check out People's Open Network in Oakland:
[https://peoplesopen.net/](https://peoplesopen.net/)

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et2o
It'd be really helpful if they could come up with some sort of packet of
information for renters to give their building owners.

~~~
hfvndsubvdu
Does
[https://docs.nycmesh.net/organization/outreach/](https://docs.nycmesh.net/organization/outreach/)
have what you’re looking for?

~~~
et2o
Yes that is exactly it. Didn't see that, thank you.

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NotSammyHagar
How does dhcp work in this environment? I assume something like shorter term
assignments. That way if you shift DHCP every day without extensive logging
you have a good expectation of privacy. We need this in Seattle.

~~~
NotAnEconomist
Seattle used to have one:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Wireless](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Wireless)

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Endy
Man, I wish they would just expand over the Hudson by a few miles.

~~~
jkilpatr
Well build a link yourself, that's half the point of a community ISP.

Use the method described here to determine line of sight to an existing node.

[https://youtu.be/3eq1Xs-Ahkc?t=126](https://youtu.be/3eq1Xs-Ahkc?t=126)

Then reach out and coordinate. All in all it shouldn't take more than a few
hours of actual effort, but probably a few weeks of IRL time.

------
techsin101
What's the ping

~~~
jkilpatr
Each wireless point-to-point hop will add about 10ms.

~~~
dboreham
Try with 1500 byte packets.

~~~
jkilpatr

      root@OpenWrt:~# ping -s1500 1.1.1.1
      PING 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1): 1500 data bytes
      1508 bytes from 1.1.1.1: seq=0 ttl=61 time=8.467 ms
      1508 bytes from 1.1.1.1: seq=1 ttl=61 time=5.832 ms
      1508 bytes from 1.1.1.1: seq=2 ttl=61 time=6.458 ms

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slater
Does NYC not have something like SF's monkeybrains.net? This seems sorta-kinda
like it, but not?

~~~
syntaxing
Have you used monkeybrains before? I'm trying to find a good ISP in SF and
would appreciate any advice!

~~~
slater
Writing this via MB as I, err, write. No complaints here, either! :)

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tmoney9999
How's the bandwidth?

~~~
jkilpatr
100mbps isn't unreasonable to expect out of the gear, but I don't know what
they get in practice considering the high RF noise environment.

~~~
foxhop
Just for context, 100mbps is fast. That's like local wired LAN speeds from 15
years ago.

~~~
Nullabillity
100Mbps was fast 15 years ago. These days it's the bare minimum. And remember
that you'll be sharing this capacity with all your neighbors who sign up, and
since it's wireless you can't just expand the capacity by adding more cables.

And, as jkilpatr mentioned[0], the latency will make it pretty much useless
for a lot of applications (such as real-time multiplayer games, or anything
that creates a lot of short-lived TCP connections such as web browsing).

The _only_ way to build out decent Internet infrastructure is to dig. Even if
they come from the best intentions then these WISP efforts ultimately just end
up poisoning the well.

Then again, maybe it'd be a good thing to keep connectivity at a point just
before garbage like Stadia becomes viable.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20320949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20320949)

~~~
darkpuma
No way, 100Mbps is fast today for _most_ people.

This 8K youtube video is 5m38s long and 850MiB large:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1La4QzGeaaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1La4QzGeaaQ)

Do the math on that and you need 21Mbps to stream that video without
buffering, assuming a uniform bitrate:
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=850MiB+%2F+(5+minutes+...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=850MiB+%2F+\(5+minutes+%2B+38+seconds\)+to+Mbps)

100Mbps down is _fast_ for _most_ people. What do you think the average user
is doing that needs more than 100Mbps down?

~~~
sgt
How is that an 8K video? It seems like it's only available on YouTube as 1080p
(60fps). It was shot originally in 8K sure, but it does not look particularly
impressive on my 4K monitor.

~~~
darkpuma
Check it with `youtube-dl -F`, a 8K stream is available, but may not be
presented to you in the browser UI:

    
    
        format code  extension  resolution note
        272          webm       7680x4320  4320p60 32524k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 850.48MiB
    

If you want, you can download it for yourself like this (the +251 part adds an
opus @160k audio stream):

    
    
      youtube-dl -f 272+251 https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=1La4QzGeaaQ
    

Incidentally some videos also have VERY low bitrate encodes that also aren't
shown to most users by default. This particular video goes down to 256x144,
but sometimes you see _even smaller_ , particularly with a reduced framerate.

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CupofChineseTea
This is interesting.

