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Comment on US | Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP

God bless em.

Fiber of course is preferable, but requires a lot of knowledge and up front investment to lay. In Philadelphia there’s a WISP - wireless internet service provider - that has their equipment up on a tower and can service a particular neighborhood: phillywisper.net

I was ready to use them but our apartment building had made a fucking exclusive agreement with Comcast. If we lived in a normal house at that same address we could have got FIOS or PhillyWisper.

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bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I thought they stopped with that shit

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- LesserAbe@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Oh good to know. We moved before the date on that document though.
  
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Glitterbomb@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Have you checked with the WISP to see if the exclusivity contract does in fact stop you from getting their service?

I worked for a WISP that laughed at those contracts and stuck an antenna on a windowsill. The exclusivity is for the DMARC and wiring going to your unit. If the WISP doesn’t need it then theres nothing in their way. It’s like sticking one of those cell sites in your house, who’s going to stop you?

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- LesserAbe@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I did check with them, unfortunately it didn’t work, I think because our window wasn’t in their line of sight. Guy said he’d talked to other people in my building before.
  
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  - Glitterbomb@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, line of sight can be a real killer for that type of signal. Is the object that is blocking the view just another building? You could make friends in that building and get them to sign up. Then that building that was in the way is now what they want line of sight to!
    
    WISPs won’t really go down this road explaining all of that to a customer. It sounds unprofessional and unreliable, and on the flip side the buildings that realize they’re an important relay start to charge higher rent for that antenna on the roof…so this angle is rarely discussed. But it’s essentially how they grow their network.
    
    I’ve sat on a roof before looking at a building a block down the road thinking damn that building needs to just go away. After the job I’d go to the marketing team and tell them how great it would be to get in that building. They would decend on that building like vultures. Your WISP may have even targeted that building and got in there because you checked!
    
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