How could the internet look different?

More and more of the community got connected as we were able to develop more and more community-owned digital infrastructure to support the energy needed for the internet. The internet encourages more community-building. I was responsible for monitoring usage, my neighbour was very skilled with installing cables, and we found members of the community who were happy to take care of other parts of our network.

With our computer, knowing how much energy we were using was always important. It was important because we recognized that we were limited by the solar income, how much we used the bike, and how the hardware was functioning. We took care of the computer and in turn, it took care of us, it worked for us.

This page explores a speculative digital platform that supports the irresistable and possible future of a community internet that is only sustained by renewable energy sources

After about a year, we wanted to connect to the internet. I wanted to share my stories, send emails, watch videos, and learn from others. There is so much knowledge on the internet, and with that, so much power. So much power in two meanings here. There is power that comes from knowledge and being connected to the internet, but there was also a need for us to find ways to get more energy to power our internet.

My neighbour and I were able to put enough money aside to get some solar panels and put them on the roof we shared. We got a big battery to share but kept each of our individual batteries. We also were able to get some solar panels on the community centre because other people saw what we were building and were interested in connecting soon too, we needed to raise a lot of money to make this possible. The community centre set up an antenna that pointed to the city to receive internet. We ran the network cables up the hill and around the block to reach our houses.

We each monitored our usage individually and because we had knowledge about how our computers worked, we knew our usual usage. We set up notifications to let us know when our usage was above average, and when it would make more sense to use our individual power sources, rather than the shared battery.

The internet we use in my community started a few years ago. It started with just one computer. My family shared that one computer. It was in the basement and we had its battery connected to the exercise bike and some solar panels outside. We got lots of sun, but also lots of snow, so we had to clean the panels often.

We used the computer to write stories, edit photos, and play games like Minesweeper. We didn't send emails, we didn't use the internet.

We monitored our own systems individually for a while but then found more value in sharing our data and our energy with each other. Some nights I would not use the internet at all and my neighbour would use it to watch movies. Sharing made sense.

We created a dashboard with our systems and data to monitor our usage, report maintenance needs, the energy we had stored, and to share news about the network.

This platform supports our community internet, we all get notifications and track our energy consumption. It is only sustained by renewable energy sources, but that is how the internet always is. I have an important zoom call tomorrow at 8AM, so I will charge my home battery on the bike before sleeping tonight, and go offline now.

Thanks for reading. Connect again soon :)

We have always been aware of our energy consumption because the internet works this way. We knew how much energy we were using when visiting each website and we needed to know this to stay within our energy budgets. Alongside sharing the energy estimate for each data transfer on the internet, most websites offer low-energy versions.

We adapted to changes in the network, changes in the needs of community members, and we always worked to make the system more efficient and more sustainable for us.

Most of our home networks were interconnected, and with this, we could share power and minimize outages.