MonkeyBrains uses the revenue from its large business customers to subsidize the free bandwidth it provides to the community.
"With all ISPs, once you get a customer, the bandwidth doesn't really cost anything," explained Rudy. "A lot of the costs are service, when something breaks, having to do a service call. If the equipment is working, it's almost all profit for the ISP. In that regard, we can sell it for zero dollars, and we're not really shooting ourselves in the foot."
Though other ISPs might argue that bandwidth is a real cost, MonkeyBrains does give Internet connectivity away for nothing. It maintains about 40 free WiFi hotspots in San Francisco's Mission District. Users joining the network see the SSID "MonkeyBrains.net" and some have become customers. It's an unintended form of marketing for the company.
MonkeyBrains is building a network composed of a bunch of overlapping directional antennas. Some of its customers have repeating antennas that provide service to other customers, if they're in optimal locations. The MonkeyBrains network is similar in some respects to what Meraki tried to do in San Francisco several years ago, though Meraki used omnidirectional balloon nodes as opposed to crisscrossing directional transmissions.
Alex says the Meraki comparison only goes so far, noting that Meraki was trying to build a mesh network while MonkeyBrains is building a core directional network with reliable nodes.
"The reason Meraki failed (beside not having a good business model) is that the system relied on having a usable node nearby, which was not always the case," he said in an e-mail. "In the MonkeyBrains WiFi network, each subscriber points at the closest reliable node. Some subscribers who have stable links to a reliable master node often have an open access omni toggled off of it for the surrounding area."
The networking model combines point-to-point connectivity for business customers and point-to-multi-point connectivity for residential customers. Alex concedes that point-to-multi-point isn't popular because of the potential for instability but he insists it's working well so far.
Discover the benefits of scalable backbone and network services for application and cloud providers.
Network automation is gaining momentum. Here's how you can drive this powerful technology to its full potential.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
