Let’s be honest. For most of us, the internet feels like a utility—a one-way pipe. A big, faceless corporation sends data to your home, and you pay the bill. If the service is spotty, expensive, or just plain unfair? Well, you’re often stuck with few, if any, real alternatives.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if the infrastructure itself could be built and owned by the people who use it? That’s the powerful, quietly growing idea behind community-powered internet. It’s a shift from being a passive consumer to an active participant. And it’s taking shape in two main, beautifully complementary forms: grassroots mesh networks and democratically-run cooperative ISPs.

The grassroots fabric: how mesh networks weave communities together

Think of a traditional network like a spiderweb—all threads lead back to one central point (your ISP). Cut that center, and everything fails. A mesh network, in contrast, is more like a fisherman’s net. Each knot (a router in someone’s home) is connected to several others, creating a resilient, decentralized fabric.

Data hops from node to node until it finds its destination. If one path goes down, it finds another. This isn’t just theoretical. In places with poor coverage—rural areas, underserved urban neighborhoods, or disaster zones after a hurricane—community mesh networks become literal lifelines.

Where mesh networks truly shine

Their value is profound in specific scenarios:

• Disaster Resilience: When central infrastructure fails, a pre-existing mesh can keep local communication alive. Think texting, mapping, and vital info sharing when the cell towers are out.
• Filling the Gaps: They can provide basic connectivity in areas where big ISPs say it’s not “economically viable” to build. It’s a classic case of communities doing it themselves.
• Digital Autonomy: They operate outside traditional corporate or heavy government control, which, for some communities, is the entire point—managing their own digital commons.

But, and here’s the catch, pure mesh networks often struggle with providing high-speed, reliable access to the full global internet. That’s where they often need to connect to a larger internet backbone. Which leads us to the next model—one that tackles the business and ownership side of things head-on.

Owning the pipes: the rise of cooperative internet service providers

If mesh networking is the neighborhood watch, a cooperative ISP is like a member-owned utility company. Here’s the deal: residents in a town or region come together, pool resources, and literally build their own internet service provider. You’re not a customer; you’re a member-owner. And that changes everything.

Profits are reinvested into better infrastructure or lower bills, not sent to distant shareholders. Decisions about upgrades, pricing, and data policies are made democratically. The incentive isn’t to maximize quarterly returns but to maximize service quality and community benefit.

The surprising practicality of co-op ISPs

You might think this sounds idealistic. But honestly, it’s intensely practical. In the U.S., hundreds of electric and telecom co-ops, especially in the Midwest and rural South, are now running fiber optic internet service. They’re already trusted community institutions with poles, rights-of-way, and a mandate to serve. Adding broadband was a natural—and revolutionary—step.

They’re proving that when the profit motive is secondary, you can deliver gigabit speeds to farms and small towns that Comcast and Charter simply ignored. The pain point of the digital divide isn’t just a talking point for them; it’s the reason they exist.

When models blend: a powerful hybrid future

The most exciting developments happen at the intersection. Imagine a cooperative ISP providing the high-speed fiber backbone for a city, while within neighborhoods, resilient mesh networks operate, managed by block associations or tenant unions.

The co-op handles the heavy infrastructure and business side—the connection to the global internet. The mesh provides hyper-local resilience, peer-to-peer services, and a layer of digital autonomy. It’s a best-of-both-worlds approach. The mesh can also be a testing ground for new services or a way to include those who can’t afford a full subscription, ensuring the net—in both senses of the word—catches everyone.

Why this matters now more than ever

Our reliance on the internet is total. It’s work, school, healthcare, and social connection. Handing over control of that lifeline to a handful of corporations with spotty track records on privacy, net neutrality, and customer service is, well, a risk. Community-powered infrastructure is about resilience, yes. But it’s also about agency.

It answers a fundamental question: who does the internet serve? The answer, in these models, is refreshingly simple: us. The people who use it. It’s infrastructure as a relationship, not a transaction.

Sure, there are hurdles. Coordinating people is hard. Building physical infrastructure is expensive and complex. There are regulatory mazes to navigate. But the blueprint is there, and it’s working. From the rooftops of Brooklyn to the farmlands of Minnesota, people are quietly building their own futures, one node and one fiber strand at a time.

They’re not just getting better internet. They’re rebuilding a sense of shared resource, of common good—something that feels in short supply these days. And that might be the most powerful connection of all.