For the handy and the curious
Build it with us
The network is built by the people on it. Do your own install, help with other people's, or work on the routing itself. You do not need to have done any of it before, and everything you need to know is written down in public.
Do your own install
Your roof, your hands, our network
If you are comfortable on a ladder, you can put up your own node. You start where everyone starts, because every node on the network has a number, and its addresses, its configuration and its place on the map all come from that number.
Get a number
Get on the list like everyone else. Your node gets its number, and with it everything about how it is addressed.
Check the path
We work out together which rooftop your roof can see, and we write down what the survey found.
Get the kit
About $250. We tell you exactly which dish and router, from the short list of hardware we keep spares and know-how for.
Mount it well
Non-penetrating mounts by default: ballast, a parapet clamp, a chimney strap. Nothing is drilled into a roof without the owner's consent.
Bring it up
Your devices' configuration is generated from your node number, and a volunteer checks it with you before the node carries anyone's traffic.
On any roof: never alone, never in ice or high wind, never near a power line, and never on a roof whose owner has not said yes. A dish can wait a week. You cannot.
Help on installs
Roof crews, cable runs, site surveys
Most installs are two or three people and a morning: one on the roof, one on the cable, one keeping notes so the next volunteer can find everything. We teach as we go. What you need is a head for heights, or a willingness to be the person who is not on the roof.
Surveys are the other half: standing on a roof with a phone and a compass, working out what it can see. It is how every node begins, and it needs no tools at all.
Other ways to be useful
- Knock on doors on your own block. A neighbour asking is worth ten flyers.
- Write grants. A rooftop sector is a few thousand dollars, and there is money for exactly this.
- Talk to buildings. If you know a property manager, a church or a library, an introduction opens roofs.
- Donate hardware, transit or peering. Radios, switches and bandwidth are as welcome as money.
Work on the network
All of it is in the open
The whole network is described in one public repository: how it is addressed and routed, every device's configuration, and the decisions we have not made yet. If you like networks, there is plenty to do.
Routing and radios
OSPF across a mesh of MikroTik and OpenWrt gear, IPv6 everywhere, WireGuard tunnels to islands, and our own address space announced over BGP.
The tools
Python that turns one node number into every configuration, a data model in Infrahub, Ansible for the servers, and a virtual bench that tests every file on emulated devices before it reaches a roof.
The open questions
A running list of what is not decided yet and where each one bites. Some need an engineer, some need a lawyer, and some need somebody who has done this before.
New to networks? Start with the architecture in plain language, written for volunteers who have never configured a router.