This is fucking awesome
Right?
I’m shocked this is going through. I gotta imagine at least Tennessee will block it. They’re super pro-big isp.
How long until the cities’ PDs start busting down peoples doors for this?
Why would they? This is a legitimate business
So no Internet when it rains?
Sorry but this idea strikes me as it’s just not gonna work.Like I don’t even get it - NYC probably has many competing internet providers.
What stops working when it rains?
It’s all wireless isn’t it
Yeah but that doesn’t stop working when it rains
???
Okay I read the explanation on their faq page but I’m still kinda confused on how this works. Don’t they need like satellites for internet access? What exactly is this in simple terms? Like it seems good, I just want to understand it
You don’t need satellites, just some connection on a datacenter (like but internet in bulk, maybe they have some special deal and is free or very cheap). But this is the boring part, the fun part is that you can connect to the hubs (light blue dots in the map) with a router with an antenna or you can connect to another router (red dots). The network is like a living being that keeps expanding. Then to go out to the Internet, the packets are jumping as they can between neighbors (they have a way to know the path) until they reach the datacenter. It looks like you only have to pay for the initial equipment (plus some donations to maintain the network), but it will probably end up costing you some of your time maintaining the network, learning and helping other people in the network.
I think I get it now! Thank you for explaining!
Can they start building affordable housing and go around the manipulated housing market?
“I am the CLT Commander!”
That only part of the issue. An affordable home today can quickly raise in value, gentrification, the secondary real estate market, tax appraisal, these are all still problems.
That is for sharing! I’m up to see what I can do on the UWS (signed up) but maybe that’s too far
Cue lawsuits from ISPs in 3, 2, 1…
Time to go cyberpunk. Hidden routers using stolen electricity.
There’s a bunch of LoRaWAN and Meshtastic out here too. Join the movement!
Reminds me of the time I shared my Internet with my friend who was in another apartment. We just created a Wi-Fi bridge with dd-wrt. That was 15 years ago.
Does anyone know what other cities are building similar networks? Or how to get started doing it in your city?
I reached out to the NYC mesh folks and they are going to walk me through it. It seems like a lot of work. But the more people who can get to help. The stronger it becomes.
I think European has a head start on this. Not sure which US cities are doing it
I’ve heard rumors (or not rumors) of several cities across the US than outright ban community ISPs. I don’t know the truth of it, but I’m sure someone here can enlighten us on it and/or have trustworthy sources of info.
I think it was states banning the cities doing it. Like Tennessee, being bribed lobbied by AT&T and others doing so
https://www.pcmag.com/news/tennessee-sues-fcc-for-axing-municipal-broadband-ban
KPUD in Kitsap County, WA does something similar: https://www.kpud.org/fiber-internet/free-public-wi-fi/
They also have very affordable public fiber.
I am old enough and geek enough to be bothered by the use of the word “WiFi” instead of the Internet or just network.
It’s only WiFi if you connect the wireless router at the end.
WiFi is a specific protocol, IEEE 802.11 (with a lower case letter at the end for the version). There have long been hobbyist and commercial methods for using it with point-to-point links. There are some other wireless methods for this, like LoRa/Meshtastc, but they tend to be slower and less developed. Everyone prefers using WiFi.
So, yes, they are using WiFi in a point-to-point way. The antenna is directional to give it (potentially) several miles of range.
Setup some multi km Wi-Fi bridges before, that was fun.
So a professional cantenna?
Usually a dish these days rather than waveguide, but yes.
For a municipal wireless network, I’m not too bothered with how OP describes it if it’s accessed through Wi-Fi.
It would seem a lot of people think Wi-Fi is internet. I’ve heard someone call it “Wi-Fi with exclamation mark” when without internet access.
🤦
My eldest when her internet want working confidently told me her computer couldn’t connect to the globe
Language is so weird these days…
Everything is “app” nowaways
A .exe install on windows is “app”
A reddit account is “app”
Buying a phone plan and inserting a sim card into a phone is “activation” of a phone
Lol
Its a windows program or software
Reddit is not an “app”, its a platform.
You’re not “activating” your phone, your phone is already usable, all you did was purchase a voice/data plan and inserted a sim card. “Activation” is a apple internet lock thing, totally separate.
You don’t know what the word “application” is lol
I noticed the gradual shift from program to app over time since the iPhone took the world by storm, but then again it was never incorrect. Applications are synonymous with programs so an executable on your windows desktop is an app as much as it is a program.
I’ve never come across anyone referring to a Reddit account as an app but I can definitely see someone who interacts with Reddit exclusively using the Reddit app referring to both the platform and a means of accessing as the same thing both out of a conscious choice for convenience or ignorance and actually they’d be right either way except in the latter case only accidentally since it you say “I really love using that app Reddit to look at memes and talk to people” despite not actually knowing the app isn’t the platform, your sentence would still be correct.
The activating thing, I jimmycrackcrack declare that I will allow it. Look it’s a sneaky hardware manufacturer and provider term to imply the device doesn’t work until you give them money but then, as a piece of language with utility, well… your phone doesn’t work without a sim, at least in the common understanding of what “work” means here. Since a phone of any stripe, dumb or smart is pretty useless without a sim card, getting that message across to consumers that you have to do something to make it functional, to “activate” it is necessary. You could choose to frame it as unlocking but then again if you’re selling these things you probably don’t want people thinking you locked them up and then sold them the keys and in fact, the manufacturers kinda didn’t, it’s the service provider that doesn’t provide service to a functioning device until they’re given money, who are doing that and given they’re a business, that’s sorta how they have to operate.
I’m old enough and nerd enough to be slightly peeved that “community built” isn’t hyphenated (“community-built”).
But… It is P2P WiFi…
Same here and when people refer to the PC tower as the CPU
I didn’t know that’s even a thing.
It was a thing moreso in the '90s.
I was using computers in the '90s. Guess it just wasn’t ubiquitous.
That I cut a bit of slack for, because prior to the minicomputer let alone the microcomputer, the CPU would likely have been a large component like the whole system is for a desktop PC.
Okay, going off the title to start with you’re building a WiFi network, that’s very cool (I’m guessing it’s a mesh network), but will you connect it to the Internet too?
That’d be more of a headline if so, then just building a WiFi network.
My friend has been using NYCmesh for a couple years now. He has nothing. It positive things to say about it.
I think that goes without saying, no? What’s the point of a network with no internet?
Many many good reasons. Intranets are a thing pretty much everwhere.
Mostly for documents and resource sharing. Perhaps its a way to connect locally to a library and its resources without the vileness and enshittification of web2.0 getting in the way?
I wish I were in an area with people I’d like to share an intranet with.
I wish I were in an area with people I’d like to share an intranet with.
Anyone remember ricochet wireless? That was awesome. It can happen again! Why not?
I was just thinking about ricochet while perusing the thread. Ricochet was new when I was starting in IT and I can still remember connecting a ricochet modem to a company laptop and then pulling up our novell netware file share over our vpn. It was jaw dropping to see it at the time. Amazing how far we’ve come since then.
Reminds me of Wireless Seattle, that must be what, 25 years ago?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Wireless almost had it right.
Way way long ago I remember when I lived in Portland that they tried this, it was a pilot program. Idk if it’s true or propaganda but it didn’t work out because it was slow down because of how much porn people where downloading, so they didn’t expand it and just stoped doing it.
I heard about some city (NYC??) that has public wifi access points with the terminal thing that acts like a touch screen computer for people to browse the internet. And people were allegedly watching porn on it, like in public on a busy street. So they disabled the touchscreen computer thing and only left the wifi access point on.
Packet shaping.
wow that’s alotta porn to slow down a 10Gb connection
