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There's at least two people on HN that operate community wired networks. I have my notes on the wrong computer, but you could probably find them with search. The economics sound not great.

Fixed wireless may have nicer economics with the right geography. My parents use it on a farm. I doubt you're going to be able to stream HD netflix/amazon over it through.



Since the Santa Rosa fires, I have been trying to figure out some combination of community broadband and/or mesh network that would provide service during and after emergencies.

Our fire chief lives in Santa Rosa (and lost his house) and his description of the incredible chaos caused by a lack of communications was heartbreaking. i.e. People were evacuated to hospitals that were in the process of being evacuated.

I wish there was a way to run a mesh network on a USB stick Pi Zero sort of thing. Just spread them around town and have a wifi network for when shit gets bad.


Rather than giving full internet connectivity, some kind of local minimal bbs might be both more feasible and just as handy.

You could maybe link nodes with ham digital radio, and serve clients with wifi. Each node would have a mirror of the bbs and sync changes.




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