
Philly Wisper - heydenberk
https://phillywisper.net/
======
greggyb
I love to see this, but it's a hard sell. Philly is one of the lucky cities
with reasonable competition already, one of which is Verizon's Fios - decently
built out through the city. A lot of new construction homes have both Comcast*
and Fios pre-wired into the home, so installation is trivial and competition
is, delightfully, fierce.

25M wireless connections at $50 are a hard sell against 1G fiber at $80.

I don't mean to be a debbie-downer about this, because I think promoting
connectivity is a huge boon to society.

* Fun fact, the new Comcast building looks like a middle finger facing west - literally flipping off the rest of the country. Seems appropriate.

~~~
PhillyWisper
25 Mbps is the minimum speed we provide. Our customers typically see a good
bit more. And for context, a Netflix HD stream only requires 5 Mbps.

Also, our $50 a month is actually $50. There are no extra service, rental
fees, franchise frees, or taxes. It's a single flat rate price.

We also do require or even offer annual contracts.

In other words, we make getting Internet service easy and hassle free.

Finally, we implement Network Neutrality and will never sell or share our
customer's personal data or browsing history (short of a valid warrant).

~~~
ebg13
But Fios in Philly is $40 a month (and then $55) for 100Mbps with no
installation fees or contracts, so it will take your customers more than three
years to break even for probably worse speeds. The net neutrality promise is
nice, but do you have other selling points?

~~~
komali2
I, for one, would happily pay the price to know my money isn't subsidizing
lobbying to legalize the cable-fication of the internet.

~~~
ebg13
I would too!

But we have no way of knowing that Verizon and Comcast aren't their backend.
For all anyone knows, giving them money _is_ giving Verizon/Comcast money.

~~~
PhillyWisper
We use two back end carriers and about to add a 3rd. We do not use Comcast or
Verizon. Of the ones we do use, you may have heard of one of the carriers,
probably not the other. The 3rd, very unlikely. And no, I'm not going to name
them.

------
PhillyWisper
Wow! Never expected we would end up on HN.

Happy to answer any questions.

Mark

ps: Some press and a review.

[https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/04/29/wisper-internet-
se...](https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/04/29/wisper-internet-service-
philadelphia/)

[https://dangerouslyawesome.com/2016/05/what-its-like-to-
have...](https://dangerouslyawesome.com/2016/05/what-its-like-to-have-an-
internet-provider-that-actually-cares/)

~~~
JimiofEden
Any plans to service the areas outside of Philly? (I moved out 3-4 years ago,
but am starting to miss it quite a bit.)

Either way, by even introducing competition like this, you're doing something
fantastic. Kudos!

~~~
PhillyWisper
Thanks!

We're focused on covering much more of Philadelphia before we start looking to
expand elsewhere.

------
dsr_
That sounds really nice; I wish them all the best luck.

"PhillyWisper Residential service plans are designed for personal use for 8
hours a day for general internet use including streaming, web surfing, e-mail
access, and all other possible online activities. Residential customers are
not allowed to host public servers of any kind, use static (public) IPv4 IP
addresses, or consume more bandwidth than required to support typical
residential Internet activities. PhillyWisper may disconnect or limit the
bandwidth for residential customers who use residential service for activities
deemed atypical at PhillyWisper’s discretion.Connection speeds for Residential
service plans will fluctuate based on network demand."

That's not so friendly. IN fact, it's rather badly defined.

No mention of IPv6.

~~~
radcon
> Residential customers are not allowed to . . . consume more bandwidth than
> required to support typical residential Internet activities. PhillyWisper
> may disconnect or limit the bandwidth for residential customers who use
> residential service for activities deemed atypical at PhillyWisper’s
> discretion.

This worries me much more than any privacy issues (which could easily be
alleviated with a $5/mo. VPN).

Are we supposed to read their minds to determine what "typical" behavior we're
allowed to engage in? Or should we just live in constant fear of our internet
being arbitrarily disconnected?

------
Klathmon
Wow I can't believe I'm seeing this on HN!

I worked with the co-founder Mark Steckel, and he is about as good as they
get. He takes privacy and security VERY seriously (he's the only person I know
that actually uses PGP!) and he's one of those guys who has forgotten more
about networking than I'll ever know in my lifetime.

He literally answered a call one time while on the roof of a building either
setting up or tweaking service for someone!

I don't live in the Philly area any more, but if you do I'd be willing to bet
my reputation that you'll love the ISP if you get them.

~~~
youdontknowtho
"East Kensington start-up"...I thought that was code for "crack house" or
"junky graveyard".

I kid, I kid. Best of luck to them. That area could really use some success
stories.

~~~
JimiofEden
About 10-20 years ago, you'd be completely correct.

But that area has underwent some of the craziest transformations I've seen in
a long time recently. Not exactly gentrified, but certainly more accepting of
literally everyone.

~~~
peterwwillis
Nobody pays a mil-plus for a building of 3-story condos on a former crack
block unless it's gentrified. Northeast Philly is the new Williamsburg.

~~~
sman393
"Northeast Philly is the new Williamsburg"

That's a bit of a stretch...

------
compliance_data
I have been a customer for 3 years and have been ecstatic with their service.
I think there have been maybe 2 outages in 3 years, and within minutes Mark
e-mailed everyone detailing what happened, why, what he was doing to fix it,
and when he expected to have maintenance finished. Observed speeds are
typically higher than SLAs and as long as Mark is in business I don't plan to
use anyone else.

When he came to install equipment I got the opportunity to go up on my roof
and "help" (I know v little about networking) but it made for a really fun
afternoon.

~~~
jefflombardjr
What's the latency and speed like beyond the advertised speeds? That would be
my biggest hold back and was why I didn't sign up for Clear a couple years
back.

~~~
compliance_data
For speed I regularly clock ~80 mbps down ~25 mbps up. This is pretty
consistent (had a "slow" night on Sunday of ~60mbps when I checked).

Latency I haven't really paid much attention: I usually only check when it
feels like something is wrong as a sanity check.

------
ibdf
I look forward to see this business growing as it gives an alternative other
than comcast and verizon which both have poor customer service. However, in
Philly, 25 Mbps for $50 is expensive. In comparison I have been paying $70 a
month for 100mbps with Verizon. Perhaps price will go down as customer base
increases. I would also like to know more about the reliability of the service
in bad weather.

~~~
war1025
I'm assuming it's using a similar technology as my mom's internet uses (hers
has an antenna pointing at the local water tower). I can't think of a time
that she's had weather related outages.

------
stuart78
At first this struck me as expensive, in the sense that per Gbps, I get a much
better price from Comcast. And then I remembered all of the externalities that
come along with that price: data caps, potential monitoring, bad customer
support and whatever else I'm forgetting.

How much is avoiding those actually worth to me? Probably pretty close to the
price difference, actually, and if those things are really important to me I
should be willing to walk the walk and pay for them.

I won't, because I don't live in Philadelphia, but I hope to have real viable
alternatives where I do live.

~~~
apeace
Don't forget to read their customer agreement:

> Residential customers are not allowed to . . . consume more bandwidth than
> required to support typical residential Internet activities. PhillyWisper
> may disconnect or limit the bandwidth for residential customers who use
> residential service for activities deemed atypical at PhillyWisper’s
> discretion.

That sounds to me like exactly what Comcast does. Torrent too many files of
open data? No internet for you.

~~~
Wheaties466
ISPs have to put this in there to protect themselves. Most small ISPs don't
care what you do or how much bandwidth you consume unless you are degrading
the performance of their other customers.

Source: I used to work at a small WISP similar to philly wisper.

~~~
apeace
Sorry I caught this so late, but no, ISPs do not have to use language like
this to protect themselves. They can also provide the bandwidth the customer
is paying for 100% of the time (or give the customer's money back), like my
company does:
[https://www.pilotfiber.com/legal](https://www.pilotfiber.com/legal)

------
sgt
Wireless has become much better and robust in recent years, but I've honestly
never been exposed to a wireless solution that was completely without issues.
That's why I'll always prefer cables (as in fiber).

Not knowing much about Philadelphia, surely a city like that offers fiber to
most houses in 2019, and it's probably not going to cost more than
$50-100/month for an entry level package? I could be wrong.

~~~
derg
Philly resident here, I pay no contract $79.99 for Fios gigabit.

Verizon here also offers a 100mbps option (I think it's that at least) for
$39.99 I believe, so this is a bit expensive.

~~~
covercash
Those prices are only for the first year, I recently learned that when my
$39.99 100/100 plan jumped to $55, and the customer service rep said it will
jump to $65 the third year.

------
AstroJetson
It would be a nice if they would put their tower(s) locations and their range
circle on the site. That would at least give a running start if they can get a
signal to the destination.

I'd rather not need to sign up to find this information out.

~~~
PhillyWisper
You don't actually need to sign up to tell if you are in range.

Just check out the "Available now" section in the zip code drop down on the
sign-up form.

~~~
AstroJetson
Ok, that wasn't intuitive from the form, it looked like you wanted a ton of
info before I got to the zipcode. Maybe a hint on that page to look. Thanks!

------
myvoiceismypass
I’ve had this for a year now & I love it. My speeds are typically twice what
is advertised. FWIW, I used to have att gigabit for comparison.

------
sjs382
I _think_ that a lot of major cities have something like this... It just tends
to not be advertised broadly. For instance, New Orleans (not exactly a tech
hub) has at least 2 companies like this[0] and I've only accidentally found
out about them. I wish I could try one of these, but I'm outside of their
coverage area.

"WISP <city>" seems to be the search term if you're looking for something like
this in your city.

[0] [http://southwan.com/coverage/](http://southwan.com/coverage/) &
[http://skycom1.com/about-us/](http://skycom1.com/about-us/) &
[https://www.nolabroadband.com/our-
services/residential/](https://www.nolabroadband.com/our-
services/residential/)

~~~
grahamburger
A few other ways to find WISPs in the U.S.:

[http://www.wispa.org/Directories/Find-a-
WISP](http://www.wispa.org/Directories/Find-a-WISP)

[https://broadbandnow.com/](https://broadbandnow.com/)

BroadbandNow uses data reported by ISPs to the FCC. Disclaimer: I do have a
relationship with BroadbandNow, they sponsor a website that I run.

------
grahamburger
Very cool! Always great to see fellow WISP folks on HN! For those curious
about the industry: there are something like 500 wireless ISPs (WISPs) in the
U.S. and many more outside of the U.S.
[http://www.wispa.org](http://www.wispa.org) is the de-facto standard
organization in the U.S. and runs a few conferences throughout the year. The
largest WISP in the U.S. today is Rise Broadband
([https://www.risebroadband.com/](https://www.risebroadband.com/)) - most are
considerably smaller. I worked at Rise for about 10 years and have spent
basically my whole career working for Wireless ISPs in the U.S.

------
youdontknowtho
Philly tried to have a community mesh net years ago. It really didn't work
out. Hopefully this fares better.

~~~
Famicoman
There have been at least 3 attempts. The current one is still lacking much of
a community.

------
i_am_proteus
> we’ll just need clear line of sight from your roof to our towers

I don't know what the real estate market is like in the parts of Phila.
they're operating in, but in an area with lots of new construction, this could
be an interesting issue when a proposed new structure would block existing
customers.

~~~
Jolter
This happens regularly for regular cell towers. Even major operators can get
hit. It can usually be solved within days even if not advertised in advance,
but that's for those major operators who can afford to put up a lot of towers
or micros.

------
amelius
> we’ll just need clear line of sight from your roof to our towers.

Wouldn't it make sense to also implement mesh networking locally, so you
wouldn't need a line-of-sight connection to every subscriber?

~~~
mikey_p
I've used a similar provider, Stephouse in Portland, OR and they would
routinely install repeaters throughout the city to help cover deadspots, areas
shaded by tall buildings, hills, etc. I assume the same would be available in
Philly with the advantage that Philly is quite flat by comparison.

~~~
amelius
Do these repeaters also require line-of-sight to the consumer, or do they use
a different means of communication?

(Also this sounds a lot like an ordinary provider and not like the
independence as claimed on the website. A mesh networking solution would
achieve independence through peer-to-peer connectivity.)

~~~
grahamburger
Mesh networks at this scale are pretty complicated and messy. Also they tend
to be pretty low capacity. It's an order of magnitude (or maybe two) more
difficult to build and manage a high-capacity robust mesh network than to
build a pure line of sight hub-and-spoke style network. (I've done both.)

------
pard68
I pay 90/month for 150. Seems like a major compromise

------
dwighttk
What are they using? I had Clear using WiMax for a few years and it was _good
enough_ until they shut down. I was tired of all the cable shenanigans.

~~~
ak217
I had Clear WiMax in a big metro for a few years and it was awful. Miserly
speeds, lots of interference and congestion.

Modern wireless ISPs use a mesh of point-to-point directional radios operating
on WiFi frequencies (see [https://mikrotik.com/products/group/wireless-
systems](https://mikrotik.com/products/group/wireless-systems) and
[https://www.ui.com/products/#airfiber](https://www.ui.com/products/#airfiber)
for some popular products). These radios are much higher performance than
WiMax (10 Gbit links are possible over short distances, 1 Gbit is normal over
several miles) and suffer less interference because of directional antennas.

WISPs have been staging a quiet revolution across areas that don't see much
competition. In San Francisco, known for atrocious bureaucracy preventing ISP
competition, traditional fiber providers have been struggling to expand
service for decades. Meanwhile, a local WISP called MonkeyBrains has quietly
covered almost all of San Francisco and much of Oakland and Berkeley in their
mesh, and is continuing to expand.

~~~
dwighttk
yeah, I was in Durham, NC and was pretty close to the tower. I don't think
there was much congestion.

------
jzig
I would give anything for this in Baltimore.

------
0x54D5
I work out of Indyhall. Philly's most popular coworking space. I'm using
Philly Whisper right now.

We only use it because Comcast couldn't keep our connection working. We're
literally on Market street two blocks from Independence Hall. Within 5 blocks
is the Philadelphia Mint. Numerous Federal courts, etc. And we still can't get
a reliable connection.

Philly Whisper still goes down occasionally. We've had it go down twice in the
past 60 days. They are super responsive but at the end of the day the internet
going down for hours is still money lost.

I have FIOS at home and I've only ever seen it go down at night and it's
because of a router update.

Disclaimer: I used to work for Comcast. Would not recommend.

