←back to thread

Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

(arstechnica.com)
1135 points carride | 9 comments | 10 Aug 22 13:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.455s | source | bottom
Show context
samwhiteUK ◴[10 Aug 22 13:45 UTC] No.32411821[source]▶
I'm going to put my hand up and say I have absolutely no idea how an ISP works. He runs cables to each house in the area... now where does the other end go?
replies(8): >>32411847 #>>32412399 #>>32412468 #>>32412493 #>>32413311 #>>32414510 #>>32414816 #>>32420345 #
the_only_law ◴[10 Aug 22 13:47 UTC] No.32411847[source]▶
Not sure if it’s what the person in question did, but there’s a whole guide that pops up on here occasionally regarding building a wireless ISP.

https://startyourownisp.com/

replies(2): >>32412013 #>>32412060 #
kevmo314 ◴[10 Aug 22 13:59 UTC] No.32412060[source]▶
From https://startyourownisp.com/posts/fiber-provider/, doesn't this site basically say connect to another ISP?
replies(1): >>32412223 #
1. moffkalast ◴[10 Aug 22 14:08 UTC] No.32412223[source]▶
Well there three tiers of ISPs, each one buying service from the one above them. It's ISPs all the way down, and the higher up you go the more expensive the hardware to run it gets.
replies(3): >>32412417 #>>32412438 #>>32412531 #
2. Macha ◴[10 Aug 22 14:19 UTC] No.32412417[source]▶
At the T1 level it's more completely a mesh type setup, but even lower tier ISPs might set up peering agreements to bypass their main higher tier ISP where it makes sense for cost or service quality reasons. Or refuse to to extract more money as in the comcast vs level1 disputes over netflix traffic a while back
replies(1): >>32419565 #
3. ◴[10 Aug 22 14:20 UTC] No.32412438[source]▶
4. MerelyMortal ◴[10 Aug 22 14:26 UTC] No.32412531[source]▶
I feel like this could be made into an ISP Tycoon game.
replies(2): >>32413211 #>>32413770 #
5. haunter ◴[10 Aug 22 15:04 UTC] No.32413211[source]▶
It actually does exist lol! Made by Cisco as an e-learning tool

Gameplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foa34qoRzjs

https://web.archive.org/web/20150317144142/https://cisco.edu...

replies(1): >>32414599 #
6. cptcobalt ◴[10 Aug 22 15:37 UTC] No.32413770[source]▶
Dang, as someone that enjoys Tycoons, Tactics, and Management Simulators, this really sounds fun.
7. RockRobotRock ◴[10 Aug 22 16:26 UTC] No.32414599{3}[source]▶
Oh god, it seems to essentially be packet tracer under the hood. It's a great tool, but I HATED using it in school.
replies(1): >>32418473 #
8. jethro_tell ◴[10 Aug 22 21:07 UTC] No.32418473{4}[source]▶
gns3 perhaps? I haven't had that setup for a while but I loved it. I had my whole small ISP in it at some point to work as a test/lab env for testing things out. It's a trick to get going but was kinda fun. I took a copy of that when I left and every now and then I fire it up and mess around with my old dsl/dialup ISP from back in the day.
9. carlhjerpe ◴[10 Aug 22 23:06 UTC] No.32419565[source]▶
Who is T1, T2 and T3? I really don't see it. Seems like that tiering has aged about as well as the OSI model.