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Comment by tnuc | Hacker News Reader

I live in New York and the only provider is spectrum. Yesterday I (and all my neighbors) got a letter from Optimum, offering better prices and higher bandwidth. After calling Optimum I got told that Optimum doesn't service my area.

Is this a new type of turf war?

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Speaking as an ISP: I would guess more of a fuckup in a database merge for a direct mail campaign. They know what zip codes are their turf and where they have right-of-way, and don't want to waste money on USPS bulk mail targeting people they can't serve. As an example Seattle is a patchwork quilt of either Wave or Comcast cablemodem service areas, it would be pretty rare to see a Comcast solicitation in areas where the cable plant is entirely owned by Wave. Or vice versa.

You've posted about ISP related things in the past. How viable do you think it would be to start a WISP in rural New York State? I'm mostly interested in last mile rural stuff (I don't like cities), but from the looks of the rest of this thread it would probably be more profitable to start a WISP in NYC itself.

It really depends specifically where, how much competition exists and what type of last mile tech that competition uses. How big the market is in population and small to medium businesses.

There are a large number of ISPs that use licensed PTP gear on rooftops in NYC already, in combination with their fiber networks.

If you have a specific area in mind for a rural part of the state, send me an email address and I'll contact you to see what might be possible.

Thanks! I'm interested in this topic, but I have no idea what I'm doing.

lylecubed AT gmail

There are a couple in my area:

http://www.clarityconnect.com/ https://www.lightlink.com/

Are those both mesh networks?

No, though it might look like a mesh in a physical or logical diagram, they use point to multipoint FCC part 15 (unlicensed band) radio systems. Sector antennas, omnis, horns with systems such as the ubnt rocket AC radios, cambium pmp450, mikrotik 802.11ac based, etc.

And various types of PTP links for node-to-node links.

I don't think it's perfect even in Seattle. My building is served exclusively by Wave and Comcast won't do hookups, but I still get their junk mail.

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