New Publication Details Cooperative Broadband and Community-Supported Infrastructure

DH Strategist and head of CDH graduate programs Grant Wythoff has published a new chapter in the latest Debates in DH volume, Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities. The chapter — Alternative Infrastructures for Digital Equity: Community-Based Internet Access —  details the creation of Philly Community Wireless (PCW), a community-controlled network. PCW offers free public Wi-Fi across the Philadelphia neighborhoods of Norris Square, Fairhill, and Kensington. Today, dozens of homes and businesses host PCW rooftop antennas. The network provides access to 50+ city blocks and 7,600+ monthly users. It is maintained by dozens of volunteers, community partners, and a dedicated staff.

PCW was first launched in the summer of 2020 with the support of a Rapid Response Grant from the Princeton Humanities Council and student interns from the Pace Center for Civic Engagement’s RISE Program. During the Covid pandemic’s earliest days, a group of organizers, researchers, librarians, and neighbors — including Wythoff and the chapter’s co-authors Alex Wermer-Colan, Devren Washington, and Allan Gomez — gathered to address the problem of internet accessibility at a time when most of daily life had moved online. Their goals were to expand internet access, grow tech literacy, and build community autonomy.

The chapter reflects on the lessons learned in building PCW’s technical and social infrastructures, puts concepts from digital humanities and community technology into conversation, and finally, gestures toward the future of community-supported infrastructure. The authors write:

Our question is how infrastructure cooperatives that provide community mesh networks for urban environments can facilitate collaboration between neighbors while fostering community consensus on network architecture, organizational structure, and the geographic redistribution of digital resources. Ultimately, our theory of change is that access leads to adoption in a fuller social sense: if one empowers the communities most affected by the biases and harms of the tech industry to own and control last-mile internet infrastructure in their neighborhood, such communities will be equipped not just to use broadband technology, but to advocate for better outcomes in the way that such technologies are utilized, governed, and regulated.

You can read the open access Manifold edition of the chapter now: Alternative Infrastructures for Digital Equity: Community-Based Internet Access