Cue lawsuits from ISPs in 3, 2, 1...
this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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I’m shocked this is going through. I gotta imagine at least Tennessee will block it. They’re super pro-big isp.
Okay, going off the title to start with you're building a WiFi network, that's very cool (I'm guessing it's a mesh network), but will you connect it to the Internet too?
That'd be more of a headline if so, then just building a WiFi network.
I hope they are aware of https://freifunk.net/ and don't start from scratch completely. They've been doing that kinda stuff for over a decade and have developed a modified OpenWRT version and maintain lists of compatible routers
NYC Mesh has been around for more than a decade. I assume they talked to other similar projects when building it.
Ah nice! :D Yeeeah just thought it'd be a shame to not utilize existing work that has been done on OpenWRT. But then again, it's highly unlikely that actors from similar groups haven't met at hacker conferences, GitHub repos, etc.
I see freifunk networks more rarely nowadays. They also are notoriously slow. Usually the mobile phone network is faster, even in Germany.
Yeeah it kind of fizzled out, that's true. In larger cities it used to be useful sometimes because of abysmal cell coverage and shady public WiFi. That has improved a lot since then, so yeah nowadays it can't hold a candle to 4G/5G mobile data.
I am old enough and geek enough to be bothered by the use of the word "WiFi" instead of the Internet or just network.
It's only WiFi if you connect the wireless router at the end.
Edit: just noticed mention of the "antenna at the roof" on the page, but I still don't think it's WiFi, "WiFi" is a name of the technology that allows wireless access by multiple devices. I think it's rather radio communication between the router and the access point. They basically use radio waves instead of the cable, it was often used in rural areas in my country, where putting cables would be too expensive.
But.. It is P2P WiFi...
WiFi is a specific protocol, IEEE 802.11 (with a lower case letter at the end for the version). There have long been hobbyist and commercial methods for using it with point-to-point links. There are some other wireless methods for this, like LoRa/Meshtastc, but they tend to be slower and less developed. Everyone prefers using WiFi.
So, yes, they are using WiFi in a point-to-point way. The antenna is directional to give it (potentially) several miles of range.
It would seem a lot of people think Wi-Fi is internet. I've heard someone call it "Wi-Fi with exclamation mark" when without internet access.
My eldest when her internet want working confidently told me her computer couldn't connect to the globe
Same here and when people refer to the PC tower as the CPU
That I cut a bit of slack for, because prior to the minicomputer let alone the microcomputer, the CPU would likely have been a large component like the whole system is for a desktop PC.
Language is so weird these days...
Everything is "app" nowaways
A .exe install on windows is "app"
A reddit account is "app"
Buying a phone plan and inserting a sim card into a phone is "activation" of a phone
Lol
Its a windows program or software
Reddit is not an "app", its a platform.
You're not "activating" your phone, your phone is already usable, all you did was purchase a voice/data plan and inserted a sim card. "Activation" is a apple internet lock thing, totally separate.
You don't know what the word "application" is lol
I'm old enough and nerd enough to be slightly peeved that "community built" isn't hyphenated ("community-built").
For a municipal wireless network, I'm not too bothered with how OP describes it if it's accessed through Wi-Fi.
Does anyone know what other cities are building similar networks? Or how to get started doing it in your city?
KPUD in Kitsap County, WA does something similar: https://www.kpud.org/fiber-internet/free-public-wi-fi/
They also have very affordable public fiber.
I think European has a head start on this. Not sure which US cities are doing it
I wish I had that near me, but unfortunately I don't live in New York (United States), I live in New York (United States).
ARGH PLACENAMES
The domain has a c in it
I hadn't gotten the idea from the domain name but admittedly the comment wasn't very good regardless
in reality though I did get excited seeing this only to be disappointed that it's only in new york city and I live in upstate new york
I'm so down for this, especially in condominiums. The challenge is navigating the regulators since they're often staffed with loyalists to the big ISPs.
Way way long ago I remember when I lived in Portland that they tried this, it was a pilot program. Idk if it's true or propaganda but it didn't work out because it was slow down because of how much porn people where downloading, so they didn't expand it and just stoped doing it.
Packet shaping.
I heard about some city (NYC??) that has public wifi access points with the terminal thing that acts like a touch screen computer for people to browse the internet. And people were allegedly watching porn on it, like in public on a busy street. So they disabled the touchscreen computer thing and only left the wifi access point on.
wow that's alotta porn to slow down a 10Gb connection
Reminds me of the time I shared my Internet with my friend who was in another apartment. We just created a Wi-Fi bridge with dd-wrt. That was 15 years ago.
Anyone remember ricochet wireless? That was awesome. It can happen again! Why not?
I was just thinking about ricochet while perusing the thread. Ricochet was new when I was starting in IT and I can still remember connecting a ricochet modem to a company laptop and then pulling up our novell netware file share over our vpn. It was jaw dropping to see it at the time. Amazing how far we've come since then.
Reminds me of Wireless Seattle, that must be what, 25 years ago?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Wireless almost had it right.
This is what I thought of. I remember they beamed a signal across a lake successfully. I also got into making a cantenna because of them. Used it a lot working security in places that didn't have wifi.
inb4 they sell it to a telecom and the politicians get a top manager or consultant job at that company
This seems like a bad idea.
What sort of protections are in place against nefarious actors that gain access to this network? Do they do anything to isolate each connected device from each other so that two devices on the network cannot connect to each other, such as making use of subnets? Are users connections throttled, and if so, to what degree? Are certain websites blocked to prevent potential malicious actors from intercepting sensitive data more easily, such as bank sites?
I mean, the idea is a well intentioned one, but I can easily see this going very wrong very quickly.
As a service provider, you're not legally responsible for what others do on your network.
If your bank credentials can be intercepted that way, then the bank had poor security. They're not responsible for that anymore than any other ISP.
Yet somehow ISPs are expected to police piracy.
You really think this would even have live long enough to write an article about it if it wasnt built properly?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYC_Mesh
This is not a new concept, its been around since 2014 so they will just have copied a lot from existing projects like the german freifunk which i participate in (exists since 2003).