Jared Mauch - Getting Fiber To My Town (NLNOG Live! September 2020)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it whenever community or DIY fiber ISPs come up, as a first-hand account of how an individual built one.
What it is
Jared Mauch tells how he got fed up with poor internet options in rural Michigan and built his own fiber network to his town. The talk was given at NLNOG Live in September 2020.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2020 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends throw0101a · 2020-09 · on “Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM””
> Or else cover the cost of the run as an installation fee. The community of Ammon, ID, built their own municipal fibre network because of this: > It all began about seven years ago when the city government, suffering from horrible upload speeds, wanted a dedicated 100Mbps circuit between City Hall and the Public Works building, less than a mile apart. Qwest (now CenturyLink) didn't want the project, while Cable One offered to do it for a start-up fee of $80,000 plus $1,000 a month, Patterson said. * [LINK] * [LINK] At this year's (virtual) NLNOG there was presentation from a fellow who was fed up with slow Internet options in his rural Michigan county and so setup his own ISP by having fibr
Recommends inetknght · 2020-11 · on “A tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: US broadband providers”
I found this comment deep in an unrelated thread [0] a couple months ago. It describes someone who created his own ISP for his neighborhood using fiber and links to a good video [1] about it. It's worth using youtube-dl to archive it. [0] [LINK] [1] [this video]
Recommends markandrewj · 2022-08 · on “Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes”
There is a good interview on YouTube with Jared Mauch. I think it may have already been posted on Hacker News previously, but I have included the link below for anyone interested. [this video]
Cites primitivesuave · 2025-04 · on “Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast expands to hundreds of homes (2022)”
This ISP was actually part of a detailed study in my college class on networking. The founder created a singular example of an "open-source ISP" [1], and I am pretty sure you can find his guidance online somewhere if you were inclined to build your own. 1. [this video]
Cites throw0101b · 2025-04 · on “Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast expands to hundreds of homes (2022)”
He gave a presentation at NLNOG 2020, "Getting Fiber To My Town": * [this video] * Slides: [LINK] * 2020: [LINK] * He posted some replies in that discussion: [LINK] Involves trenchers. Also, at NANOG, "Starting a Telephone Company in 2019, or How I Built Fiber to my Neighbors": * [LINK]
Cites throw0101b · 2025-07 · on “Two guys hated using Comcast, so they built their own fiber ISP”
A presentation from 2020 NLNOG by Jared Mauch who did something similar in Michigan community: * [this video] 2020 NANOG: * [LINK]