It's OK to be optimistic about something different. It's also ok to discuss the reality, that's not necessarily negativity towards a project. Are we only supposed to discuss one side of the argument and ignore reality just because it makes us feel nice inside?
There are bazillion reasons that this is nothing more than a cute side project that will fall on its face when its time to scale in any meaningful way. Unless they have discovered a new technology they are not taking on ISPs by any meaningful way. Especially in NYC.
There is a difference between, just "connecting to the internet" and having a "reliable connectivity to the internet", the difference is a massive investment in infrastructure. Wifi p2p mesh networks don't work on magic. They are very unreliable and hard/impossible to scale to 100,000 users, let alone millions of users. In some places, wifi p2p connection hardware actually costs more money than a traditional wired network.
Mesh networks have been around for a while, technical and reliability aspect of this is well understood within the networking industry. There is a reason why it's not widely used, especially in cities. In remote areas, this kind of network makes sense, if you don't have a choice or an alternative.
Don't brush of educated criticisms from people within the industry. I own an ISP for 5+ years (mostly wired). I am not in US and I am not at all worried if this kind of network comes in my country/area. We are not worried because we have tried and deployed this kind of network in cities and they are extremely unreliable and costs real money.
I also don't understand the "Anti-authority" angle of the argument, unless I live in a different universe, they still have to get license/permit from the local government to do this business (non-profit or not), they still have to follow the same rules enforced by local and federal government when it comes to log/customer information sharing to LEO. So not sure how they are Anti-authority? Unless they mean anti-establishment?
There are bazillion reasons that this is nothing more than a cute side project that will fall on its face when its time to scale in any meaningful way. Unless they have discovered a new technology they are not taking on ISPs by any meaningful way. Especially in NYC.
There is a difference between, just "connecting to the internet" and having a "reliable connectivity to the internet", the difference is a massive investment in infrastructure. Wifi p2p mesh networks don't work on magic. They are very unreliable and hard/impossible to scale to 100,000 users, let alone millions of users. In some places, wifi p2p connection hardware actually costs more money than a traditional wired network.
Mesh networks have been around for a while, technical and reliability aspect of this is well understood within the networking industry. There is a reason why it's not widely used, especially in cities. In remote areas, this kind of network makes sense, if you don't have a choice or an alternative.
Don't brush of educated criticisms from people within the industry. I own an ISP for 5+ years (mostly wired). I am not in US and I am not at all worried if this kind of network comes in my country/area. We are not worried because we have tried and deployed this kind of network in cities and they are extremely unreliable and costs real money.
I also don't understand the "Anti-authority" angle of the argument, unless I live in a different universe, they still have to get license/permit from the local government to do this business (non-profit or not), they still have to follow the same rules enforced by local and federal government when it comes to log/customer information sharing to LEO. So not sure how they are Anti-authority? Unless they mean anti-establishment?