Had to help a friend fight their HOA to install a Starlink dish on their condo balcony because their building has a captive agreement with Xfinity/Comcast for internet services, thought this was worth sharing with others. Both dish and antenna (wifi, 5G) form factor equipment qualifies for exemption.
duxup•5h ago
I hate those kinda agreements.
At the same time I also loathe how dishes hanging off balconies look.
Gotta be a good middle ground somehow.
toomuchtodo•5h ago
In my humble opinion, the middle ground is "anyone can drag connectivity to the building meet up room and residents can pick their provider with a cross connect" but that doesn't create the same profitability as "you can only pick who we have signed an agreement with." This is an interim solution while they fight their building to have the local city muni fiber provider bring service, which (based on pricing and service) will likely be the long term provider compared to for profit offerings.
For aesthetics, buildings could provision some space on their roof for dish and antenna gear colocation (unsure what a healthy unit:pad/mount ratio would be for this) with conduit to the meet up room for cross connect to units, but I find this rarely to be a consideration. Probably easier to have a condo or living space built next to a datacenter for some of us.
(strong coop/muni internet provider advocate, built a hosting provider in a previous life, know people in the NANOG/IX space, etc, etc)
toomuchtodo•5h ago
duxup•5h ago
At the same time I also loathe how dishes hanging off balconies look.
Gotta be a good middle ground somehow.
toomuchtodo•5h ago
For aesthetics, buildings could provision some space on their roof for dish and antenna gear colocation (unsure what a healthy unit:pad/mount ratio would be for this) with conduit to the meet up room for cross connect to units, but I find this rarely to be a consideration. Probably easier to have a condo or living space built next to a datacenter for some of us.
(strong coop/muni internet provider advocate, built a hosting provider in a previous life, know people in the NANOG/IX space, etc, etc)