Comment by jimktrains2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimktrains2 | Hacker News Reader

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> Google did not fail at starting an ISP. They decided that the ROI for doing individual residential home FTTH was not worth it, considering the cost per house passed.

~Kind of sounds like it failed.~ Apparently Google Fiber is starting to expand again. I still think it serves as a good case against why the current climate makes it near-impossible for a "plucky upstart [with vc funding]" to start a large, traditional ISP.

> Starting a small ISP based out of extreme dissatisfaction with huge, evil incumbents is something that I encourage any plucky upstart to do. ... Just don't try to do it with $20,000 and some good wishes, because something with much deeper pockets like Webpass will come along and obliterate you.

You can't be a plucky upstart while simultaneously having pockets deep enough to fend against the current major ISP players.

I'm not going to sit here and reply line-by-line to your post. The issue isn't that people want a free network. The issue is that people are fed up with the large ISPs and that the large ISPs have made it all-but-impossible to start an ISP.

You seem to think that VC-sized money is the only thing people need to enter the market. You're entirely wrong. Entrenched players have made it next-to-impossible to compete in terms of capital and regulatory hurdles.

Google is just a terrible example. On net, Google got incredibly preferential regulatory treatment. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-...

They just realized it makes no sense for them to be in a low ROI industry: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functio...

> The issue is that people are fed up with the large ISPs and that the large ISPs have made it all-but-impossible to start an ISP.

that's the thing, they haven't. Not in the service territory this new nonprofit is operating in. There's something like 14 different ISPs which overlap service area with them in their part of New York City, none of which are big nationwide Comcast or Centurylink sized entities.

What they're trying to do on a shoestring is on super hard mode, they've picked the single most competitive market in the entire USA to try to compete with independent, non-LEC, non-major-telco companies that do have a few million dollars to throw at their own facilities-based network infrastructure.

NYC, and potentially a few other urban areas, have the capability to run fiber easily.

I'm also just not sure why you're acting like this. You're being simply dismissive of the project. There are many successful meshnets.

You've yet to give a specific complaint about this project and have simply ranted about how they're just small, underfunded, and not a real ISP without ever actually substantiating any of that or specifically what they're doing wrong.

NYC is actually the textbook example of most expensive places to run new fiber, due to needs for nearly 100% underground, and extensive pre existing utilities. I'm going to guess you've never been involved with an outside plant fiber project.

With your knowledge of the subject, how would you suggest they overcome this challenge?

Do they need to run their own fiber - is there a way they could rent fiber space from an existing line? At least for a little while?

Don't be worried that a new player has entered the space; be worried that the existing ones haven't improved the space. The total market space can be increased by creating new connections, and someone has to do it.

There are about 10 fiber providers in the city. We've spoken to most of them. It's pretty much impossible for us to lay fiber, so we have to lease it. We'd like to eventually lease a fiber ring across the city so we can cut costs when connecting multiple buildings. If you don't have a ring then you have to pay for the run all the way back to a coloc.

That's a good start to having "your own" network, and then you can choose to have packets traverse your network or the peering networks. You could shift egress points around, based on cost and other factors as well. Each link you add can multiply your routing options.

Get large enough, and you can start carrying other traffic too, and eventually start buying/laying fiber. But you know this, it's probably part of your business plan.

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