5 ms·

The real snag in net neutrality, and "saving the internet" in general is not in getting a bunch of pop-up isps. The real crux of the problem has always been in

The real snag in net neutrality, and "saving the internet" in general is not in getting a bunch of pop-up isps. The real crux of the problem has always been in peering relationships. It's not that hard to start a wISP. It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP. Right up until your local customer wants to access Google, or Netflix, or something in Japan or Europe, or anything that isn't one of your local customers. Then you have to find peers who respect NN. And you have to build some connection to those peers. Peering is expensive. A little ISP running out of a local data center has to find some other little ISP nearby and they have to build a connection between their data centers. Building a worldwide network of such ISPs is very expensive. Sooner or later, the two little guys combine with each other, then with two others. And then you get exactly what we had in the '90s, which leads to what we had in the '00s. Unless you get very luck and get some superpower that builds out the infrastructure without losing sight of all that is good and right in the world, you end up where we are today. Oh, and you have to get the masses to understand the issues and penalize cheaters. Good luck with that.

gwright 9y ago
I'm not sure small ISPs are a viable business model like it was in 10-20 years ago, but if you want to build a small regional ISP, I don't think peering relationships are going to be the problem, you can simply purchase transit bandwidth from the big guys. To do that cost effectively you do need to be renting rack space at a carrier hotel though. The really hard part is the layer-2 last-mile infrastructure to end users. For the most part this means dealing with the local incumbent telco (leasing copper/fiber/DSL/ATM backhaul) or building your own wireless infrastructure. Except in rare circumstance I think the regulatory environment is going make it infeasible to build out your own physical infrastructure to compete with the telco or with the local cable franchise. Google Fiber was an attempt to roll out a new last-mile infrastructure and it hasn't faired well. It isn't going to be easy to disrupt the last-mile infrastructure market.
- iamnotlarry 9y ago
  I visited a location this week where there were 2-4 houses per mile along country roads. The residents had a choice of ISPs. The house I visited had dialtone from a VOIP service. Yes, it costs money to build out last-mile infrastructure. But even in very low density areas, it can pay off. Recurring revenues of $50-100/month per customer can in fact pay for the initial investment. Especially if the investment was a wifi tower. It's the kind of thing one motivated local can pull off. Building a worldwide network of peers who all respect NN is much much more difficult. Even if you could set up some organization like EFF to define some "Bill of Rights" and then certify conformant ISPs with a cool logo of approval, customers will not choose ISPs based on that logo. Average American consumers will not demand NN. So your local ISP--even a well-intentioned one--will do as you suggest: "Simply purchase transit bandwidth from the big guys." There ends NN.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - amorphid 9y ago
    A relative of mine lives in a rural area of Washington State, USA. He has fiber internet through ToledoTel... http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/ http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/ ...it's expensive, but he has it. Every time I hear someone say we can't have blazing fast Internet in San Francisco, it's never phrased as a question like "would you be willing to pay $MONTHLY_PRICE for 1gps fiber?" So far, I've only heard "Building fiber in San Francisco isn't possible because of $UNAMBITIOUS_EXCUSE."
    - gwright 9y ago
      It looks like ToledoTel is a "Local Exchange Carrier" (LEC). These entities have existed for a long time and are effectively the local incumbent telco and are quite common in more rural areas. Purchasing IP connectivity from ToledoTel is the same thing as purchasing IP connectivity from Verizon -- they are both the incumbent telco in their respective geographic areas.
      - 9y ago
- karlshea 9y ago
  I'm don't think that's true. US Internet[0] here in Minneapolis is privately-funded and they've been slowly building out an in-ground FTTP network. It's cheap (50Mb/$35, 100Mb/$45, 1Gb/$70, no contract), reliable, and fast. They buy transit from a couple of different providers[1] and are co-located in an exchange downtown (MICE/Cologix) that's got the usual suspects like Google and Netflix. I think the key is that they are growing responsibly and not trying to be everything to everyone but are just offering a pipe. Granted, this is a dense area so it's a lot different than trying to get fiber to a rural area, but so far that's what all the other fiber providers have been concentrating on. They're certainly doing better than CenturyLink's pathetic rollout, and CenturyLink can just use poles instead of burying fiber. [0] http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-areas http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-areas [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/7ju5ew/now_that_net_neutrality_is_dead_how_will_usi/dracs8p/?context=0 https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/7ju5ew/now_tha..., https://www.peeringdb.com/net/3996 https://www.peeringdb.com/net/3996
  - gwright 9y ago
    Dense urban areas are a special case and in these locations it may be possible to roll out your own fiber but the details are going to be very geographically specific (regulatory framework, conduit availability and ownership, etc.).
    - karlshea 9y ago
      Sure, that's all true, but dense urban areas let you cover the most people the quickest. And it doesn't explain why CenturyLink's rollout has been a disaster (although with USI undercutting them on price maybe they just gave up).
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The US Internet model of "growing responsibly" in response to demand works. That model is also illegal in nearly every U.S. city. Municipalities require you to cover every neighborhood within some usually comically short time frame like 5 years. Indeed, US Internet has come under fire for this: http://www.citypages.com/news/us-internet-appears-to-be-redlining-powderhorn-park-with-fiber-expansion/425154074 http://www.citypages.com/news/us-internet-appears-to-be-redl....
zeep 9y ago
> It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP. Can't they throttle your connection like they would do to any other peasant customers?
notliketherest 9y ago
"get the masses to understand the issue and penalize cheaters" Oh God forbid we had to do this...

gwright 9y ago

I'm not sure small ISPs are a viable business model like it was in 10-20 years ago, but if you want to build a small regional ISP, I don't think peering relationships are going to be the problem, you can simply purchase transit bandwidth from the big guys. To do that cost effectively you do need to be renting rack space at a carrier hotel though. The really hard part is the layer-2 last-mile infrastructure to end users. For the most part this means dealing with the local incumbent telco (leasing copper/fiber/DSL/ATM backhaul) or building your own wireless infrastructure. Except in rare circumstance I think the regulatory environment is going make it infeasible to build out your own physical infrastructure to compete with the telco or with the local cable franchise. Google Fiber was an attempt to roll out a new last-mile infrastructure and it hasn't faired well. It isn't going to be easy to disrupt the last-mile infrastructure market.

iamnotlarry 9y ago
I visited a location this week where there were 2-4 houses per mile along country roads. The residents had a choice of ISPs. The house I visited had dialtone from a VOIP service. Yes, it costs money to build out last-mile infrastructure. But even in very low density areas, it can pay off. Recurring revenues of $50-100/month per customer can in fact pay for the initial investment. Especially if the investment was a wifi tower. It's the kind of thing one motivated local can pull off. Building a worldwide network of peers who all respect NN is much much more difficult. Even if you could set up some organization like EFF to define some "Bill of Rights" and then certify conformant ISPs with a cool logo of approval, customers will not choose ISPs based on that logo. Average American consumers will not demand NN. So your local ISP--even a well-intentioned one--will do as you suggest: "Simply purchase transit bandwidth from the big guys." There ends NN.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- amorphid 9y ago
  A relative of mine lives in a rural area of Washington State, USA. He has fiber internet through ToledoTel... http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/ http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/ ...it's expensive, but he has it. Every time I hear someone say we can't have blazing fast Internet in San Francisco, it's never phrased as a question like "would you be willing to pay $MONTHLY_PRICE for 1gps fiber?" So far, I've only heard "Building fiber in San Francisco isn't possible because of $UNAMBITIOUS_EXCUSE."
  - gwright 9y ago
    It looks like ToledoTel is a "Local Exchange Carrier" (LEC). These entities have existed for a long time and are effectively the local incumbent telco and are quite common in more rural areas. Purchasing IP connectivity from ToledoTel is the same thing as purchasing IP connectivity from Verizon -- they are both the incumbent telco in their respective geographic areas.
    - 9y ago
karlshea 9y ago
I'm don't think that's true. US Internet[0] here in Minneapolis is privately-funded and they've been slowly building out an in-ground FTTP network. It's cheap (50Mb/$35, 100Mb/$45, 1Gb/$70, no contract), reliable, and fast. They buy transit from a couple of different providers[1] and are co-located in an exchange downtown (MICE/Cologix) that's got the usual suspects like Google and Netflix. I think the key is that they are growing responsibly and not trying to be everything to everyone but are just offering a pipe. Granted, this is a dense area so it's a lot different than trying to get fiber to a rural area, but so far that's what all the other fiber providers have been concentrating on. They're certainly doing better than CenturyLink's pathetic rollout, and CenturyLink can just use poles instead of burying fiber. [0] http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-areas http://fiber.usinternet.com/coverage-areas [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/7ju5ew/now_that_net_neutrality_is_dead_how_will_usi/dracs8p/?context=0 https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/7ju5ew/now_tha..., https://www.peeringdb.com/net/3996 https://www.peeringdb.com/net/3996
- gwright 9y ago
  Dense urban areas are a special case and in these locations it may be possible to roll out your own fiber but the details are going to be very geographically specific (regulatory framework, conduit availability and ownership, etc.).
  - karlshea 9y ago
    Sure, that's all true, but dense urban areas let you cover the most people the quickest. And it doesn't explain why CenturyLink's rollout has been a disaster (although with USI undercutting them on price maybe they just gave up).
- rayiner 9y ago
  The US Internet model of "growing responsibly" in response to demand works. That model is also illegal in nearly every U.S. city. Municipalities require you to cover every neighborhood within some usually comically short time frame like 5 years. Indeed, US Internet has come under fire for this: http://www.citypages.com/news/us-internet-appears-to-be-redlining-powderhorn-park-with-fiber-expansion/425154074 http://www.citypages.com/news/us-internet-appears-to-be-redl....

zeep 9y ago

> It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP. Can't they throttle your connection like they would do to any other peasant customers?

notliketherest 9y ago

"get the masses to understand the issue and penalize cheaters" Oh God forbid we had to do this...