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["Alex M (Coyo)" <coyo AT darkdna.net>]

On 04/12/2013 07:42 PM, Alex M (Coyo) wrote:

On 04/12/2013 12:42 PM, Peter Green wrote:

I think it sounds so unrealistic you're either a genius yet to be, or a nutter! ;-)

Peter

Most likely both.

However, I'm very confident that I can make this happen.

I wouldn't bet your 401.k against my success, I'll tell ya that.

Okay, I have an updated version of the proposal document.

I'll just include it inline this time.

--

Introduction

Hey guys!

I thought I'd hit you guys with a quick-and-dirty interest poll to get a rough idea of other target markets (possible subscribers) for my shiny new ISP, called Ferorum, Inc.

Summary

Ferorum is a Latin word that roughly translates to "untamed" depending on context. It captures the spirit of the venture quite well.

I have most of the network plans complete, and I am currently in negotiations with the Secretary of State for the State of Texas for right-of-way, easement, and telecommunications utility permits and privileges.

Eventually, however, I will want to expand my core and access networks to other states, so I figured I'd poll you guys to see what you guys thought of this.

How does 20-800 gigabit full-duplex (synchronous) FTTH/FTTP broadband Internet sound to you?

In comparison, Comcast's alleged maximum of 105 Mb/s download and 20 Mb/s upload is not even available in the vast majority of Comcast's footprint, and tends to be disgustingly oversubscribed. This is not to mention their policy of blatant abuses of monopolistic power and privacy abuses.

The incumbent ISPs are incompetent, greedy and myopic, and all of the phone and cable companies betray their own paying customers as a general rule.

Why Ferorum?

In contrast, Ferorum is owned and controlled by customers and employees. Our customer service is fiercely determined to be the absolute best, and our shorter term goals include being the best company to work for, having the best customer service, having the most technically-advanced network and donating to Internet freedom and anti-censorship charities such as the FSF, FreePress, the Internet Defense League and the EFF.

Subscribers to Ferorum become members and part-owners upon pre-payment of one month's subscription and first installment of any customer premises equipment. Ferorum is a charitable half customer-owned, half worker-owned not-for-profit cooperative corporation.

Ferorum seeks to not only offer ridiculously overkill broadband Internet services to residential subscribers, but is also intended for businesses ranging anywhere from start-ups and family-owned proprietorships to multinational corporate enterprises.

Institutions such as schools, universities, churches, and libraries are all eligible for free service and membership, with the ability to apply for additional bandwidth and specialized services should they need or want it.

Disclaimer

Please note that this document is a WORK IN PROGRESS and is constantly being revised and expanded. Please do not assume any specific detail is a hard and fast set-in-stone policy, as all policies and proposed network plans are subject to approval and revision by prepaid subscriber-members.

Internet

The initial bandwidth will be provided in increments of 1,000 Mb/s full duplex, with eventual expansion to a virtually unlimited number of 1GigE lines to every device. If you are an enterprise subscriber, we may request that We install several large nodes on your premises (such as the Emerson containerized infrastructure, Calix ODC-3000 enclosure cabinet, or ASTModular containerized datacenter) in order to better serve you and more easily deliver reliable high capacity Internet access.

Stringent quality control and latency regulation along with smart strategic peering agreements will keep latency well below 6 milliseconds, and jitter well below 3 milliseconds for extremely reliable real-time HD video group chats, even when concurrent video group chats are in progress within the same household or workplace..

We absolutely flatly refuse to throttle or interfere with our subscriber-owners' traffic, and make no distinction between residential and business class lines. We also flatly refuse to perform deep packet inspection, traffic interception, and other forms of unlawful warrant-less wiretapping, call and text interception, email interception, unnecessary anti-piracy measures against our own paying subscriber-owners or any other form of privacy invasion or malicious subscriber betrayal.

Quality and capacity of each subscriber's broadband service is assured with multiple point-to-point dedicated seamless end-to-end Active Ethernet to each room, computer and console in the subscriber's home or office.

To provide the end-to-end Internet as it was intended to be, you are preallocated 32 IPv4 addresses per subscriber, statically assigned, and you get a native dual stack IPv6 /64 network prefix statically assigned to you as well. SLAAC + DHCPv6 are both enabled by default, and your customer account management portal can be used to customize IP address mapping rules.

In order to provide fiber Ethernet services directly to each room, desktop and console in your home, Calix 836GE “Residential Services Gateway” ONTs are provisioned to each point inside your home or office, providing bandwidth and connectivity directly to where you need it the most. Calix MDU, business and mobile back-haul ONTs are also available to meet your unique needs, whatever they may be.

To provide the absolute fastest and most responsive web surfing and Internet experience possible, over-provisioned PowerDNS resolvers and mirroring name servers are provided in each POP in a cohesive load-balanced pair of clusters. Competitors and incumbents often provide insufficient DNS speed and responsiveness, which results in a very noticeable speed bottleneck and dramatically degrades the subscribers' Internet experience. This will not occur with Ferorum.

Many unique and community-relevant services and datacenters are strategically and directly peered for reducing latency and jitter to the absolute technical minimum, and enhancing subscriber experience.

To ensure privacy and security for our subscriber-owners, we provide complementary managed VPN services, including support for the OpenVPN, IPsec and PPTP protocols. To further exaggerate our cultivated image as the “Untamable ISP, ” we provide rTorrent seedboxes, DirectConnect hubs, USENET binary servers, OwnCloud hosting and managed FTP/SCP services. We also flatly refuse to participate in anti-piracy measures coercively foisted upon service providers from the likes of the MPAA and RIAA or any equivalent industry association. We refuse to deploy RST-injection or BitTorrent interception devices within our access or core networks, and certainly refuse to deploy unlawful warrant-less wiretapping or deep packet inspection of any kind against our subscriber-owners.

For those with legacy equipment, we will happily offer various access protocols and services from the node or even specialized ONTs within your premises or buildings. These include but are not limited to VDSL2, DOCSIS 3, T1, T3, OC-3, ISDN and MoCA.

Phone

Don't pay exorbitant prices for phone lines or features you expect from any telephony provider. Enjoy 8 discrete lines right off the bat in POTS form or native SIP, Skype or AIX VoIP protocols.

The SIP server clusters located in every POP run resilient hardened Asterisk instances, and use advanced DNS forwarding and load balancing to ensure very fast, reliable, and clear-as-a-bell telephony. All of the expected SIP extras and features are present and available at no extra charge.

E911 emergency call routing fully supported with excellent standard-exceeding features and geolocation.

All of the standard features you usually have to pay extra for are available at no extra charge, including but not limited to 3-way calling, push-to-talk, unlimited SMS texting and call forwarding, phone conferencing, free unlimited number blocking and caller ID, free number migration (keep your old number), and many, many more. Global long distance is absolutely free, no matter where in the world you call.

Your private name and number is NEVER listed unless you specifically request it to be. Additional numbers, lines, forwarding and disposable numbers are available upon request.

TV

Over 12,000 channels are at your fingertips in pure HD, assuming the individual channels are available in HD. Local, educational, religious, governmental and college TV stations from all over the world are included, all at no extra charge.

Many channels and stations are exclusively carried only on Ferorum TV, and many channels and networks you are normally charged extra for are included at no extra charge, including TVTokyo, Funimation, Anime Network, HBO, Starz, Encore, MoviePlex and Cinemax.

Hulu+, Pandora, NetFlix, CrunchyRoll, Rhapsody, GameFly and OnLive are bundled at no extra charge.

The pure-digital HDTV signal is delivered to you in 100% pure IPTV via IP Multicast, and delivered on a dedicated 1 gigabit Ethernet link and a dedicated ONT specifically for each TV in your home. In addition, all on-demand and pay-per-view content is available at no extra charge. Pay-per-view content costs $0.00 to you, the cost being subsidized on our part.

Implementation

The most difficult part of starting a new extremely high capacity ISP is not funding, nor finding competent staff, or obtaining a critical mass of subscribers. The most difficult part is getting the right peering agreements.

For Ferorum, the planned initial peerings will be multiple 10GigE uplinks to FiberRing, Alpheus, Zayo, AirBand, nLayer, Layer3 and Atrato, with cross-connects to Corexchange, TelX, InterNap, Akamai, Equinix and AMS-IX.

Core Network

The core switching fabric will use TRILL to enable resilency, high capacity, and more flexible and elastic network topology. For central offices, larger node cabinets and greenfield datacenters, we will use Brocade switches for this Ethernet fabric.

For the routers at the network edge, the ones speaking MPLS and BGP, we'll use Juniper T-Series multi-chassis core routers combining multiple T4000 core routers. For the regional and long-haul links between central offices, we'll use Alcatel-Lucent's Light Managers, DWDM ROADMs that can be connected in parallel as bandwidth needs increase.

Access Network

For the access network, Calix equipment is used from the node down, starting with Calix E7-20 distribution platforms within the node cabinets, and usually ending with the Calix 836GE RSG ONT within each room of the subscriber's residence or workplace.

Every TV, computer, game console, and wireless access point (such as the Buffalo WZR-600DHP) in every subscriber's home has a dedicated point-to-point active Ethernet ONT provisioned not to the node, not to the curb, not to the exterior wall, not to the closet, but directly to the floor or desk immediately adjacent to every device that can use the speed and bandwidth.