I'd like to actually be able to justify 10gig service. Ideally, running something on it that appeals to other potential customers of the municipal broadband, to attract new customers to it.
The easy one is to set up a Linux mirror server. In the past I've run a mirror server for ~a decade, so that shouldn't be a huge deal. I like the idea of running a Tor exit node, but worry about the liability of that. Some sort of a block storage for backup service came to mind while reading that Cloudflare Utah post yesterday.
I run production Linux boxes and networks as my day job. But I don't have machine space at my house, so I'm limited in the number of servers I can put in place.
Clever ideas to attract other locals to the Municipal Broadband service?
https://farm.openzim.org/about
Or you can run your own internet archiving node with something like ArchiveBox.io or Webrecorder.io and feed it your entire browsing history (including viewed YouTube videos, streamed music, all git repos looked at, etc.).
Alternatively run an IPFS or Bittorrent node, or a Tor snowflake relay, which is a lot less risky than running an exit node: https://snowflake.torproject.org/
I'm very public about it:
https://twitter.com/AnachronistJohn/status/12343139528652144...
I do hope someone reports me, because if they do, then I'll know who they are. So far, I've cost one scammer close to $2,000 before their links died completely.
Most people want conferencing that doesn't suck, so that they can Zoom/FaceTime/LTE-over-WiFi/Landline-over-VoIP without having Netflix interrupt their call. But I have that solved on a 50mbit down / 5mbit up connection by using an anti-bufferbloat NAT shaper (Eero SQM, or IQrouter, or homebuilt can all do this).
So if you said "this fiber internet ensures that your calls will stop being interrupted by netflix", that might be a great selling point for people who've experienced this problem on their current Internet, without having to discuss bufferbloat in any significant detail.
(Note that you can still have fairness issues with the wireless router, independent of bufferbloat upstream of it — the above-listed devices apply their fairness stuff not only to the WAN uplink but also to the WiFi downlinks — so 10gbit fiber isn't a complete solution, but it's certainly 95% of the way there.)
Anything for specific providers like FB, Youtube, Netflix, Prime,Play Store, Apple , Disney + etc or general CDN providers like CloudFlare, MaxCDN etc can change end user experience enough for them to buy in.
It also has the added benefit of saving municipality upstream peering requirements and perhaps money.
Alternatively you can provide application services like OwnCloud, Jitsi for equivalent cloud products, it will be cheaper/faster etc. and target schools/community services, it may help them save on their IT bill as well.
Final idea discord, game servers, streaming servers etc can generate network effect driven interest. i.e. If i want to play with my school friends and few of them are on your servers on the municipal broadband already it is strong incentive for me to get one.
Depending on those ToS, offering services to others could expose you to legal problems.
There are also guard nodes and intermediary nodes, which don't cause third party traffic to exit from your house.
> I run production Linux boxes and networks as my day job. But I don't have machine space at my house, so I'm limited in the number of servers I can put in place.
A single virtual machine host can saturate 10G and allows an arbitrary number of virtual machines, limited primarily by memory and storage. Linux KVM is good enough for Google and AWS and it's free. Get some Socket G34 or LGA2011 workstation with 8+ memory slots, fill it with cheap registered DDR3 and you'll be all set.
But realistically, the biggest benefit of 10G to ordinary people isn't being able to transfer 2500TB a month, it's being able to transfer 25GB in 25 seconds instead of hours.
There are people who upload 5GB to YouTube every day. With garbage upload speeds like 10Mbps, that takes more than an hour and a half. With 10Gbps, not only would it only take five seconds, you don't even need to upload it to YouTube because you can host it yourself.
If that's the aim, imho it's really difficult. Assuming your neighbourhood isn't made up 99% nerds&geeks, I'd assume most private users are pretty happy if they can watch movies in 4k, download their games on Steam and/or update their gaming console "fast enough". Downloading 50GB already takes only ~30m on my 400MBit/s, and wouldn't feel much different to 1Gb/s. Latency for gaming/video conferencing also isn't an issue these days. Maybe for big families or shared housing (student dorm) this would make sense.
If you wanted to sell me, you'd get me with (1.) reliable and (2.) affordable. Maybe a no-BS pricing scheme instead of "25 US$/month the 24 months and after that 70US$/month" (which virtually every ISP in Germany does, which means I need to waste my time with stupid ISP hopping every other year if I don't want to feel like being ripped off). I just know that - for my usage - there is no practical difference between 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s. At least none that's worth paying more. Sorry, not that useful, but maybe some valuable feedback? :)
On the business end, this is much more interesting. No need to worry about hitting bandwidth limits when video conferencing with customers is pretty nice (we sometimes have that issue and work around it with multiple connections). Also a perk: Faster access to cloud-stored data, or the ability to put data on-premise and still allowing sufficiently fast external access. Of course it must be reliable. But then, your day job is networking, I think you know that kind of business better than I do :)
//edit: Ooooh, post a "Ask HN" and bask in the envy of the internet people =) /s No, seriously, I think promoting offerings like this is a good thing to do, and asking for advice on HN is a good idea. I'd love to see (or maybe even run) a local, no-BS ISP in our municipality.
Consider adding torrents.
You could also check out running a folding@home node. Though that seems to require a fairly beefy server.
Having a Linux mirror within 100 miles has been handy for me in the past though, so if you can spare the storage that would be a good idea.
What I really like is that everyone in the house can go crazy and it doesn't affect me working.
5G wireless everywhere approaching does not feel practical to me. I do not subscribe to conspiracies about direct health detriments (indirect more concerning - people lusting for 4k videos of everything while sitting in a bathroom stall, or in a public place alone instead of natural resolution of the eyes gazing upon real life).
Perhaps high resolution IoT data upload could occupy your infinite bandwidth somehow? This would only be local.
Red flag to me seems to be constant upgrading of "data throughput". Surely data transmission is good, but at some point is it a waste of effort when we can all only take in so much? Youtube audio and 480p video satisfies my curosity...
Your function would be similar to a TOR relay and you could do that too of course.
Maybe even hosting a Jitsi or Matrix server could be interesting.
Run a Tor relay instead.
> But I don't have machine space at my house, so I'm limited in the number of servers I can put in place.
Also you probably want them to be noiseless and with low energy usage. For example: 10x Raspberry Pi 4 cluster could make use of 10 gigabit and sounds like a fun project.
Game servers Voice servers IRC Mirrors for software or datasets Custom download to usb service for those in rural areas.
As others have mentioned you could also actually run (personal) servers at home as well.
* Games, with higher bandwidth (audio, video conferencing)
* Live auto-video conferencing the easy P2P way.
* Have a media library of your own and access it while out. This can include private video memories, not just photos. However you could also store and forward images of legitimately purchased HD content* (Assuming you support the private use format shifting doctrines).
* If you're teaching a class from home that video-call could be self hosted, rather than routed through a data center half a country away.
Tor node? Seedbox? I'd be hesitant to have either of those at my house or anything with my name on it, though.
Do it. It's the best thing you can do. Thank you in advance.
You can also run a Lightning Network node!
reddit.com/r/vainglorygame