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Comment by DroidX86 | Hacker News Reader

First things first: ISPs

I feel you. I started a small ISP in Montana a few years ago. We're getting into laying our own duct and fiber.

Once I get the machine running, I want to focus on providing tools and information to others looking to do the same thing.

I've been running a Slack channel called ISP School for about a year now to bring together other interested people. Email me at matt@tsi.io if anybody wants an invitation.

is TSI a CLEC?

Nope. We argued that we were providing data services under the FCC definition of utility. The only real person who got in our way was the city attorney. He said that internet didn't qualify as Montana Code (circa 1950) only mentioned telephone and telegraph.

So we registered with the PSC as a telegraph provider...

I mean you have telephony via IP, and I'm sure there's an RFC to telegraphy via IP. So it's not wrong to say you're providing telegraphy. You're just choosing a very ... deep and expensive tech stack to do so.

Awesome. Do you actually have to sell telegram services?

Legally, I don't think so. But we did build a little Raspberry Pi based machine with a telegraph key. It needs some more work, but there are people who are legitimately wanting to buy the service.

There are people that want to buy telegraph service?

Surprisingly yes. I think it falls into two categories: nostalgia and hipster.

I was going to ask about the telegraph part of the name...hah. very interesting!

that's easy -- de-privatize the last mile access networks. run (copious strand count) fiber to everything, lease at standard pricing for every entrant, with operations & maintenance (and plant depreciation) built in.

done.

I think the hardest thing about a municipal network like that is having a government organization competent in managing it. Streets are still mostly functional with potholes, but a network certainly isn't.

We're operating on a brand new municipal network right now and it's not awesome. In an effort to be fair to all parties, no one is actually in charge. The network operator is separate from the construction contractor who is separate from the bandwidth providers. It's extremely frustrating.

Where I live, the local government runs the last-mile powerline stuff. It appears to be as competent at it as any other place I've lived.

Even monopolies don't want to built networks in rural america. I can't imagine multiple competitors doing it.

It was the monopoly power of AT&T that got them phone lines in the first place.

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