Wireless ISP Issues

Those who have followed here for a while might recall that back in 2017 we switched our internet service from Comcast to a local wireless service through a company called Common Networks. They set up their network as a mesh network, with a couple of different locations at that time with Internet access (the Alameda movie theatre on the east end of the island, and the Digital Realty data center just over the estuary from us in Oakland providing a primary connection for the west end). If a node went down, no problem – traffic was routed around it automatically.

Monkey Brains

Fast forward a few years, and they were struggling and ended up being bought by a San Francisco based outfit called Monkey Brains who operate wireless networks in SF, and a few other locations around the bay area.

They came along and ripped out the little PC that we had on site managing the routing, and replaced the dishes on the roof. There were lots of outages and a lot of our neighbors left and switched to AT&T fiber, which was just starting to offer service around Alameda at the time. We had not had any serious outages, so we stayed.

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