(The French, original version of this article to appear in the next
issue of 'Le Sauvage' http://www.lesauvage.org/)
An other Internet is possible: Catalonia and Germany as examples
When Wifi came up in the early 2000s, and it became possible to connect
a computer to the Internet without cables, many hackers started
tinkering around with hard and software so as to increase their in and
outbound range. At first it was mostly about getting Internet in an
outlying room or at the end of the garden, and then sharing connectivity
between neighboors became the next stage. At the time Internet
connectivity was highly desired, especially in places not served by
ISPs, and the only way to disseminate it was to make it available for
free and to share it as far the equipment would carry it.
It took a few months only for the culture of an always on, self-managed,
free, decentralised, and F/OSS-based Wifi network to spread all over the
world. Before ADSL became widely available, all cities of the world have
seen clubs, associations or other form of collectives rolling out Wifi
networks on voluntary basis. Most were by way of hubs, more
sophisticated ones were meshed, and all saw various outcomes in terms of
success. The cleverest hacks with antennas involved coffee tins, or
deep-fry skimming laddles common to Asian kitchens, still used in many
countries for directional antennas. Progress in reach extention went
fast: at first hundred of metres then kilometres and then even scores of
kilometres. Nowadays, all kind of industrial grade equipments are
manufactured and sold worldwide, this despite very disparate national
legislation in terms of the range permitted.
.
In France, many 'Free Wifi associations' saw the light around 2001: all
big cities, but also smaller towns like Montauban, Mazamet, or villages
like Les Orres had their self-managed Wifi networks [1]. These networks
were up for a few months or years, this untill telecom operators
deployed cable connectivity all over the territory. So today a very few
of these collectives are left. Some do it 'just for fun', others have an
educational purpose to self-teach about network protocols and their
evolution, and still others use them to connect sheperds' huts, isolated
dwellings and mountain refuges. But the situation in other countries is
very different.
In Germany you have the Freifunk self-managed network which is still
growing steadily. Started in Berlin in 2002 if now aggregates 400 local
communities all over Germany with a total of 41 000 access points. In
scores of countries, very poor and very rich alike, collectives and
associations run self-managed networks, some of them adding GSM and 3G
technologies to Wifi , e.g. around Oaxaca in Mexico, boosted up by the
Rhizomatica.org network.
In Catalonia also, as national operators would not provide connectivity
in mountainous zones of the Pyrenees, or in the hills of the Osona
region, a self organised WiFi culture developed, and a number of
villages came together from 2004 onward to start a self-managed
citizens' network: Guifi.net.This network expanded incrementally over
the Iberic peninsula, et even connected with other countries, especially
in South America. As I write there are 34 630 active interconnection
nodes, of the 58 000 that have been set up.
These nodes all work with ultra small routers available of the shelf for
30€ or even less, which use very little electricity, something between
3W and 10W, sometimes more, depending on capacity. Some of them are
solar-powered. Internet at your fingertips with just a small antenna on
a rooftop, and a router in the attic or the staircase. Once the
equipment is connected the set up is through a simple webpage, everybody
can do it. The network adjusts seamlessly to new nodes coming up, or to
old ones disapearing.
The software used to be starkly experimental at first, but by now it has
been seriously upgraded, just like all F/OSS. This thanks to the
contribution of scores of developers banding together on a Linux distro
specifically intended for the devolpement of this type of autonomous and
resilient Internet networks. It goes under the name of Cloudy [2]. It
links all the nodes without any need for a centralised server. In
addition to classic communication protocols, the Guifi community has
also put in place mail servers, IP telephony, database services, instant
messaging systems, webradio, webtelevision, and video-conferences
set-ups. This way the community created a truly autonomous,
self-managed and resilient Internet, but one which is also connected to
the 'big Internet'. And this is exactly where one realises the political
and technological significance of such an approach in the context of the
challenging years that await us.
The 'big Internet' itself is a network slowly losing its resilience. It
is subjected to extremely strong political and technological forces
which are in the hands of the planet's most powerful actors. Internet's
frailness in on the rise both in technical terms, due to its massive
energy needs, but also politically. President Trump's attacks on net
neutrality are a boon to many a regime. Undemocratic governements, like
China's, have erected digital walls preventing the free circulation of
ideas and knowledge. There are a lot of economic, political, military or
religious actors who dream of putting an end to the techno-anarchism
that has been prevailing on the Internet from its origins. Internet as
we still know it gives equal access to any human individual, indiferent
whether sHe belongs to a GAFAM type of company or is a simple farmer in
Bangladesh going online in an Internet cafe. But as governments have
shut down access to the Internet for hours or even days on end, as
happened during the 'Arab Spring' , avaibility of network connection
becomes an crucial geo-political criterion, a basic necessity of life,
and an absolute prerequisite for real democracy.
To this context, one should add the effects of the climate crisis, and
the depletion of resources. No one can tell what the consequences will
be of a (economic) crash on the telecommunication infrastructure and the
avaibility of networks. If the Internet would come down, whatever the
cause or the duration - and history shows that it has almost happened a
number of times – self-managed network like Guifi or Freifunk will still
be able to maintain local and regional communications, and provide for
essential services in times of crisis, as the only thing a node needs to
stay alife is that the small router or SBC (single board computer)
powering them keeps being fed with the few Watts of electricity it
consumes.
The resilience we need to set up and achieve to weather the coming years
will necessarily involve initiatives like Guifi, Freifunk or
Rhizomatica: decentralized bottom up structures, started by citizens,
managed (and owned) by citizens, developed and improved by citizens,
which are low-cost, low energy, resilient by virtue of a mesh network
format, resistent to any form of technological, economic, or political
forms of censorship. And to bring this about, there is no need to
reinvent the wheel as everything exists already, it just requires
adaptation to the specific, local context.
---------------
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réseaux_sans_fil_communautaires
[2] http://cloudy.community/
Nice, March 12, 2018 (written by JNM, & translated by yrs truly)
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