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

(arstechnica.com)
1135 points carride | 4 comments | 10 Aug 22 13:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mrb ◴[10 Aug 22 18:30 UTC] No.32416469[source]▶
"I have at least two homes where I have to build a half-mile to get to one house," Mauch said, noting that it will cost "over $30,000 for each of those homes to get served."

That's over $11 per feet. That sounds about right. I paid $18 per feet to have a private fiber optic line of 1000 feet installed at one of my houses (in the US), going down a very long driveway, with 3 patch panels, 2 at each end and one in the middle at a gate. That was just for my LAN, not internet access. I needed the link to hook up intercoms and security cameras. I absolutely wanted 100% reliability of the network link, so wireless solutions wouldn't have been adequate. The previous homeowner had buried a cat5e line in the first 500 feet, with a cat5e repeater (underground), but its electronics failed after a couple years and its exact location couldn't be found. And he had not even put the cable in conduit.

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system2 ◴[11 Aug 22 00:45 UTC] No.32420279[source]▶
> I paid $18 per feet to have a private fiber optic line of 1000 feet installed

Are you saying you paid $18,000 for fiber optic installation at your house?

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1. mrb ◴[11 Aug 22 05:48 UTC] No.32422025[source]▶
Yes
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2. system2 ◴[11 Aug 22 19:27 UTC] No.32430568[source]▶
Wasn't Cat6 or Cat7 enough? Do you think it was worth spending that much for fiber at home?

Also, do you have any problems with the connectivity or damages? If it is damaged, can you fix it yourself?

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3. mrb ◴[11 Aug 22 22:12 UTC] No.32432455[source]▶
Not only cat6 or cat7 wouldn't have worked at a length of 1000 feet (one would need repeaters, which can and did fail, see my initial post), but it wouldn't have saved much money. The bulk of the cost was in the labor to hand-dig a trench through rocky soil while avoiding multiple buried utilities. Also, cat6 and cat7 would have been slower at 1 Gbps (10 Gbps is impossible at 1000 feet with repeaters). My fiber cable has 12 strands of singlemode fiber and each can achieve 100 Gbps with the right SFP transceiver (1200 Gbps total). Of course I don't need that much bandwidth, but it's a plus to have this potential.

There is basically no reason whatsoever to stick with cat6 or cat7 at such lengths. Fiber beats copper in weight, speed, and reliability.

The whole project was worth it. This allowed me to install video intercoms at two gates, and many security cameras, which is what buyers want at such a property (it's a multi-million dollar estate, and I might want to sell it next year).

If the line were to be damaged somehow, I would need to call my contractors to splice and repair it. But I don't expect it to happen. In fact the line shouldn't need any maintenance over the next 20+ years. Heavy-duty conduit. Heavy-duty weather-proof enclosures for the patch panels. Etc. It's all the same stuff built by the same contractors who build fiber infra for ISPs.

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4. system2 ◴[12 Aug 22 06:38 UTC] No.32435279{3}[source]▶
Thank you.