
Aereo Founder’s New Startup Wants to Bring You Wi-Fi–And Cut Out the Providers - pdq
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/aereo-founder-prepares-for-battle-with-new-wireless-startup/
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otoburb
Quoting from a slightly older Fierce Wireless article that delves into some of
the details of Starry's fixed wireless millimeter spectrum play as outlined by
CEO Chet Kanojia:

 _" [Cellular carriers] have more money than God, so I'm not sure that's a
good area for us anyways." Then you start looking at spectrum at 24 GHz and
above, and there are plenty of challenges, but the 37 GHz range might be the
sweet spot for Starry.

To be clear, "we're really smart people, but we're not that good," he said.
"We took a tremendous short cut, which we think is the right strategic short
cut." The company didn't develop its own radios; it's using 802.11ac MIMO
radios off the shelf, having figured out a way to convert them to a higher
frequency band without causing distortion, he said._

[1] [http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/att-verizon-
other-c...](http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/att-verizon-other-
cellular-carriers-dont-need-worry-about-starrys-disruptiv/2016-01-28)

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opendomain
Is sounds like they are developing along the similar lines I have.

My first product was free television (Free.Tv) and I recently open sourced my
patent on free wireless at [http://Free-Fi.org](http://Free-Fi.org)

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sathackr
Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984755)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981220)

tl;dr: consensus is, barring some wild, unknown innovation, the technology
claimed does not seem to be a good fit with the mission stated.

my option: investor bait

~~~
joezydeco
Yet, Google has announced they're playing with millimeter-wave networking from
aerial drones and that was much better received for some reason....

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11009109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11009109)

~~~
sathackr
Google is not promising gigabit speeds that will displace landline providers,
and the article linked acknowledges the challenges with the technology that
are yet to be overcome.

It doesn't blow sunshine in my face and tell me everything is golden.

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charlieflowers
I like the way this guy thinks. Takes on the fat cats who are abusing their
unfairly advantaged business positions to squeeze more money than they deserve
out of us.

If he keeps doing this and getting squashed, it could lead to a successful
career in politics :)

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rayiner
It's deeply ironic to paint Aereo as taking on those with "unfairly advantaged
business positions." Aereo's whole business model was getting other peoples'
content _for free_ because of a loophole in the broadcasting laws. It's great
to build a business delivering content other people create that you don't have
to pay for, but _that 's_ the definition of "unfairly advantaged business
position."

~~~
cujo
I never felt that situation was clearly resolved in my mind. The essentially
ran a subscription dvr service. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around how
it's illegal for a business to do that, but just fine for me to do it myself.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not talking about the law so much as the moralizing. Aereo was a middle-
man. The _only_ reason anyone ever paid them money was to get access to
content that Aereo didn't create or even pay for. When that content became
unavailable, Aereo collapsed because the _entire value of their service_ was
derived from other peoples' content.

Whether or not their "subscription DVR service" fit within the legal loophole
they were trying to take advantage of doesn't change the fact that it's pretty
rich to build a service like that and then go around saying that the people
whose content you're distributing -- the people who create the content that is
the sole basis for the existence of your business -- are "fat cats" with
"unfairly advantaged business positions."

~~~
charlieflowers
Nah. They were providing "dvr as a service" at a reasonable price. The "fat
cats" are the cable monopolies that lobby to protect their unfair positions
while drastically overcharging and providing poor customer value.

Aereo made it easy to take advantage of something that is already free (and
free by law). That was going to cut into the fat cats margins, so the fat cats
got them shut down.

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Bouncingsoul1
Remembering the heated discussion in my neighborhood about installing some
extra mobile towers, I can already see the protests when they hear "high-
frequency millimeter waves","Starry Beams".

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elcapitan
How is another provider "cutting out the providers"?

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switzer
I think that the value is "adding another provider" to the market, where in
many places there is only one or two choices for internet, from entrenched
providers with low levels of service.

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vinceguidry
> Aereo, now Chet Kanojia is taking on the country’s biggest Internet
> providers with a new start-up called Starry.

Excuse me while I piss myself laughing at the thought that the major ISPs
would be worried about a wireless broadband startup. I tried Clearwire for six
months. Even when it works well, wireless is no substitute for even copper
wire, much less fiber. Bandwidth is lower, they have to throttle because of
it. The physics just doesn't work to give anywhere close to the same
experience as copper without doing something drastic like mesh, and that's got
its own problems.

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mandelken
Is there a fundamental problem with mesh? Why couldn't that work in
combination with something like maidsafe?

Just thinking out loud here.

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vinceguidry
The main issue with mesh is the property rights. It's too much of a headache
to put mesh devices everywhere. So your market is going to be extremely
limited.

