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posted by mrpg on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the yes-carrier dept.

San Francisco: Building Community Broadband to Protect Net Neutrality and Online Privacy

Like many cities around the country, San Francisco is considering an investment in community broadband infrastructure: high-speed fiber that would make Internet access cheaper and better for city residents. Community broadband can help alleviate a number of issues with Internet access that we see all over America today. Many Americans have no choice of provider for high-speed Internet, Congress eliminated user privacy protections in 2017, and the FCC decided to roll back net neutrality protections in December.

This week, San Francisco published the recommendations of a group of experts, including EFF's Kit Walsh, regarding how to protect the privacy and speech of those using community broadband.

This week, the Blue Ribbon Panel on Municipal Fiber released its third report, which tackles competition, security, privacy, net neutrality, and more. It recommends San Francisco's community broadband require net neutrality and privacy protections. Any ISP looking to use the city's infrastructure would have to adhere to certain standards. The model of community broadband that EFF favors is sometimes called "dark fiber" or "open access." In this model, the government invests in fiber infrastructure, then opens it up for private companies to compete as your ISP. This means the big incumbent ISPs can no longer block new competitors from offering you Internet service. San Francisco is pursuing the "open access" option, and is quite far along in its process.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:55PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:55PM (#643116)

    It actually would work quite well if enough people ran nodes. There is still the problem of the fiber lines connecting cities, unless those are turned into dumb pipes then mesh networks won't change a whole lot. The only feasible method I can imagine is to have caching nodes that reduce the demand on the actual internet connection. Sneakernet meets meshnet.

    Except for OP, screw that troll he can stand in line at the internet kitchen.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:18PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:18PM (#643132)

    When you grow up, kid, you will realize mesh networks will never work outside of your fantasy land. Here in the real world, nobody runs the nodes.

    Bart: Hey everybody! Let's all turn our desks backwards before Mrs. Krabappel comes in!
                  [everyone agrees vociferously]
    Bart: [laughs, looks around] Huh?
                  [he's the only one facing backwards]
    Edna: All right, backwards boy, back your butt down to detention.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:39PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:39PM (#643142)

      I get that reading comprehension isn't really your thing, but c'mon, 1st fucking sentence "It actually would work quite well if enough people ran nodes"

      What is wrong with you?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:51PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:51PM (#643146)

        MESH WILL NEVER WORK. NOBODY WILL EVER RUN THE NODES. STOP DREAMING.

        Why don't you vote for Hillary a few more times, cretin.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:57PM (#643189)

          Unless you made mesh the product - hyperlocal social media as a front for internet revolution? Write a halfway decent app, get your botnet to push the new hotness on the existing network until you get some momentum, and everyone wins in the end.

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:32PM (2 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:32PM (#643159) Journal

    Mesh networks are inherently high latency. This is true even if everybody and his dog and *his* guinea pig are running nodes. That's because there are so many hops. The only way to solve this is to increase the switching speed, and that has its own problems.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday February 24 2018, @11:01PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday February 24 2018, @11:01PM (#643209) Homepage

      And just imagine the havoc that all those torrenting freeloaders would inflict on the system.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday February 25 2018, @12:21AM

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday February 25 2018, @12:21AM (#643240) Journal

      Besides that, nobody has a good solution for load balancing what few gateways exist from the mesh to the Internet, so some poor sod ends up with a saturated link while others go unused. More gateways make it harder to manage, and few gateways make it easier for ISPs to detect AUP violations. If it were easy, whores would do it.

      --
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