RevK

RevK's blog has a lot of interesting posts on it. https://www.revk.uk/ He also runs an excellent ISP in the UK called AAISP which I can highly recommend (https://www.aa.net.uk) AAISP build their own core & customer networking devices/routers from scratch (not Linux based) in the UK. They are fascinating to use - a completely different evolutionary tree to any other networking kit I've used. Some unique features. https://www.firebrick.co.uk/fb9000/

+1 for A&A. I've used them for years. The owner's blog is also worth a read: http://www.revk.uk/

You should follow Adrian Kennard's blog: http://www.revk.uk/ He's the CEO of AAISP, arguably the best and most transparent ISP in the UK (also quite a small one). On costs, there's also contracts with other ISPs (most lines are leased from other ISPs, not leased by the ISP itself), customer hardware (routers and other gadgets), marketing, support, subcontracts for personnel across the country, etc.

Adrian Kennard's (said boss) blog is always worth a read: http://www.revk.uk/

RevK's recent stratum 1 server hardware [0] is worth a look. As are the notes [1] that someone wrote up after using it in the UK NTP pool for a couple of weeks. [0] https://www.revk.uk/2026/07/time-for-something-new.html [1] https://codeberg.org/RevK/ESP32-GPSNTP/src/branch/main/RevK%20NTP%20Se…

Piling-on to my own comment: Searching the site https://www.revk.uk for the keyword "firebrick" returns a ton of results detailing the development. It looks like it's exactly what it says on the tin-- a proprietary operating system with its own implementations of a ton of protocols. I wish I had a reason to interview RevK about the Firebrick code. I think it would be an immensely interesting topic.

There's also a follow up post that goes into a little bit more technical detail: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/please-upgrade-me-to-adsl-over-wet.html

RevK (who runs a UK ISP) has been looking at this since March: https://www.revk.uk/2019/03/air-quality-and-co-levels.html https://www.revk.uk/2019/03/understanding-co2-air-quality-better.html He’s very much an old-school Hacker; it’s worth reading the posts he’s made since those two.

Andrews and Arnold are outside ISPA, have a healthy respect of privacy and a healthy disrespect of logging and block lists. The owner blogs at https://www.revk.uk Zen are in ISPA, but don't participate in any blocking or filtering. They both provide service leagues ahead of the big ones, have tech support that's UK based and actually have a clue what they're on about.

OpenReach own all the ADSL wiring - that's what TT have to buy from them. Most consumer ISPs are quite 'virtual' and dependent on BT for actual provisioning. The manager of a tiny geek-friendly ISP, Andrews&Arnold, frequently complains about this on his blog: http://www.revk.uk/

This is one reason why I spend considerably more money on a mere 40MBit DSL link to my preferred ISP rather than (since I live in a city where it's available) getting a fairly cheap gigabit link. The ISP is basically somebody's personal mission, grown into a modestly successful business, specifically this guy: https://revk.uk/ I have only called them like twice since buying this place years ago, once to order a more modern DSL router, and once because my service died (electricity cable under a road literally exploded, turns out the nearby cabinet full of DSL hardware didn't like that). Each time I talked to somebody like a colleague, who understands different things than me but doesn't treat me like an idiot and expects the same in return. We would both understand why "There's no place like ::1" is funny, and both know that "It's always DNS" is both true more often than you expect, and yet not so reliably true as to rule out all the other possible causes. When I called for the exploded DSL, they didn't waste my time asking me to try power cycling things, they were able to trace the actual problem, and quickly found out what I cared about and while I was disappointed [no Internet!] I understood what was happening and why, success. The other reason I'm with them is that they don't do censorship. Lots of UK ISPs have "optional" censorship (you know to protect the precious children) and then of course a judge says well, you've got the technology so if I order you to take…

Check your local law. In some jurisdictions, you can charge interest, or penalties. You can be gentle about it - give fair warning, reminder that intrest is starting to accrue, etc. But customers don't generally want liabilities to increase, so will prefer to pay before extra costs are incurred. Here is one company's experience (UK focused): https://www.revk.uk/2026/03/late-payments.html It depends a lot on your relationship with the customer as well, I guess. Some may get butthurt about it, for others, your relationship is with a person in a different dept to the people organising the payments, you can send interest notices to the finance dept without worrying the person who wants your services.

Very familiar: https://www.revk.uk/2026/01/amazon-copyright-issue.html And yes, more info is pointless, see https://www.revk.uk/2025/11/more-useless-amazon.html

If the copper isn't in good enough condition, you can always try with wet string instead: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht…

Did this app have anything to do with the huge QR codes which encoded far too much information? https://www.revk.uk/2020/09/how-not-to-qr-nhs-c19-app.html

This goes back further. Teletype machines needed a delay to move the printing apparatus back to the beginning of a line. The two characters provided that delay. I never used one of these; I was too young. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33 https://www.revk.uk/2022/02/crlf-has-long-history.html?m=1

In the same vein of interesting experiments on weird cables: ADSL on wet string: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht…

There's already dicks in Unicode: https://www.revk.uk/2018/10/unicode-dicks.html

https://www.revk.uk/2023/03/bed-sensor.html?m=1 has another take on the idea after frustration with a "smart" & expensive Withings solution drove him to something different.

VDSL is surprisingly capable, and would certainly work well within a house’s existing wiring (ADSL works over a wet string[0]). I’ve used modules you can buy on Amazon[1] to run private VDSL halfway up a mountain for one client. [0] https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht… [1] http://amazon.com/dp/B01BOD8C9W

The owner of the ISP that I use has been experimenting with making his own [1]. [1] https://www.revk.uk/2019/09/environmental-sensor.html

> but there is no chance of running data over the same circuit Maybe true for top of the line fiber connections, but I honestly wouldn't underestimate the resilience of ADSL https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht… Edit: Actually here's an exact case where the phone line no longer functioned due to a break, but ADSL soldiered on: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/9yzp5wr3

ADSL is magic. It can run over wet string: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht… If only they’d replace the ancient phone lines around here with wet string! Until then, I’ll continue to get my internet via multi-mile air gaps.

A few years ago, revk (owner of an ISP in the UK) did ADSL over wet string: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht…

https://xkcd.com/806/ https://www.revk.uk/2010/10/xkcd806-compliance.html?m=1

Another person reverse engineered the hardware protocol and built a replacement controller which also implements MQTT https://www.revk.uk/2022/04/new-air-con-part-2.html https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Daikin

Considering running ADSL over wet string didn't work until the water was salted there's obvious EMF considerations at play. https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht…

Even more incredible, ADSL works over wet string: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht…

Could be a fun way to test and demonstrate robustness of various parts of computer hardware, actually. It's already been done with ADSL for example: [0] https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.ht…

Somewhat related - here's [0] a report on the QR codes that public venues in England can display for patrons to 'check in' using the NHS COVID-19 app to assist with contact tracing [0] https://www.revk.uk/2020/09/how-not-to-qr-nhs-c19-app.html