Community Internet: Broadband as a Public Utility

Internet access is fast becoming a basic public necessity — just like water, gas or electricity. But far too many Americans, especially in rural and poorer urban areas, are finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide, priced out by high monthly fees or stranded by corporate redlining that has deemed their towns and neighborhoods to be unprofitable.

Community Internet could provide citizens everywhere with affordable, universal access to high-speed broadband services. New wireless and wired technologies allow local governments, schools, public-private partnerships, non-profits and community organizations to offer faster, cheaper and more reliable service than ever before. But the biggest telecom and cable companies are fighting these alternatives every step of the way.

Read a letter from the broad coalition supporting Community Internet.

Dark Gray = States with legal barriers to Community Internet
Blue = States with pending anti-municipal broadband legislation

Municipal Broadband: Corporate or Local Control?

In the past few years, hundreds of municipal governments have begun exploring how to directly provide high-speed broadband through local networks. In response, major telecom firms have pushed legislation in more than a dozen states that prohibits public entities from entering into the broadband market. A number of additional state legislatures – with more expected soon – are considering similar anti-municipal broadband bills or measures to strengthen existing restrictions.

Learn more about the pending legislation and the battle over municipal broadband.

Community Wireless: Unlicensed Airwaves, Unlimited Access

New wireless networks crop up across the country every day. Clouds of wireless connectivity now cover the business districts in our urban areas. They blanket entire towns and cities in rural America and serve as mobile communications systems for public safety officials in communities nationwide.

Community wireless networks offer wireless Internet access at a fraction of the cost charged by the telephone and cable companies. At present, there are several hundred of these groups operating nationwide using different combinations of software and hardware to provide towns, neighborhoods and campuses with high-speed, low-cost broadband. Taken together, these wireless networks offer the potential to revolutionize Internet access in America.

Community Wireless Networks: Unlicensed airwaves, unlimited access

Community wireless networks (CWN's) offer low cost, super-high speed wireless Internet access at a fraction of the cost charged by media giants like Comcast and Verizon. Operating with inexpensive, easily installed rooftop antennas, CWN's provide cheap, high-speed, wireless broadband signals throughout neighborhoods, local businesses, and public institutions. These "mesh networks" promise to revolutionize Internet access in America.

The biggest challenge to providing universal broadband access is the "last mile" - the high cost of digging up sidewalks and yards to connect homes and institutions themselves to a physical cable network. Highly profitable monopoly providers - cable and phone companies - charge exorbitant rates for cable television and internet access. Using open source software and not-for-profit business models, CWN's take big media corporations out of the equation.