Alternative Broadband Networks: Affordable Internet for the People, One Rooftop at a Time

Before Marco Antonio Santana could speak English, he was speaking computers. Now, the 32-year-old, who grew up in a Dominican household in New York City, helps provide high-speed fiber internet installations and repairs to over 180 units in a low-income housing complex in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. 

“I’ve been a nerd my whole life,” he tells me, running a delicate strand of fiber-optic cable into a splicer in NYC Mesh’s workroom. 

We climb to the roof of the 26-story building with striking vistas of the city’s water towers, bridges and prewar buildings. There, multiple long-range antennas and routers connect wirelessly to other rooftop nodes as far out as Brooklyn, miles away across the East River. It’s one glimpse into the growing network that NYC Mesh has built over the last several years. 

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NYC Mesh is not an internet service provider, but a grassroots, volunteer-run community network. Its aim is to create an affordable, open and reliable network that’s accessible to all New Yorkers for both daily and emergency internet use. Santana says the group’s members want to help people determine their own digital future and “bring back the internet to what it used to be.”


Internet access is an essential part of our daily lives: for employment, health, education, communication, finances and entertainment. Yet there’s a staggering divide between those who can afford to connect and those who can’t. At least 42 million Americans are estimated to have no access to high-speed internet, according to the data technology company Broadband Now. 

The lack of low-cost, reliable broadband options densely weighs on poor, Black, Latino, indigenous and rural communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when being online was the only lifeline, the crisis became even more acute. 

“There’s a stark problem of access,” says Prem Trivedi, policy director at the Open Technology Institute. Students doing homework in a fast-food parking lot to get free Wi-Fi is not sustainable. “That’s an intermittent connection that requires upending your life to do bare necessities.”

Digital equity is a herculean mission. It means going up against the few incumbent ISPs — Xfinity, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and the like — that determine prices, terms of service, speeds and where infrastructure is built. 

“ISPs are always trying to maximize profits. We are just trying to connect our members for the lowest cost possible,” says Brian Hall, one of the lead volunteers and founders of NYC Mesh. 

Historically, when the private market fails to supply access to a basic good, communities have stepped in to fill in the gaps, according to Sean Gonsalves, associate director for communications at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “It’s how the electric and telephone cooperatives got started in rural America a century ago.” 

NYC Mesh community Wifi on phone

Richard Peterson/CNET

Providing donation-based internet access is part of NYC Mesh’s objective to serve the underserved. The premise is that communication should be free. “We will never disconnect

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Monumental Sports activities & Leisure Opens 2023-2024 Time with Nisum as Essential Know-how Progress Lover

Nisum will supply strategic and tactical IT companies and options to provide cutting-edge ordeals and engagement for the activity giant’s universe of followers, companions, and stakeholders

[Brea, California and Washington, D.C.] September 25, 2023 – In a game-transforming strategic collaboration, Nisum, a foremost world wide technological know-how consulting firm, joins forces with Monumental Athletics & Enjoyment (MSE), America’s main athletics and amusement family members acknowledged for their various sporting activities houses together with the NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Washington Mystics, and NHL’s Washington Capitals, state-of-the-artwork venues such as Cash One particular Arena, amid other renowned ventures.

Nisum and MSE’s alliance unites two powerhouse organizations with the widespread vision of leveraging best-in-class technologies to develop excellent sporting activities and long lasting memories for lovers, stakeholders, and MSE partners like Anheuser-Busch InBev, Alibaba, Cash A person, Big Food items, and additional. To obtain this eyesight, Nisum will be a important associate in supporting MSE’s strategic IT initiatives by bringing a long time of abilities in digital engineering, custom made software improvement, details-led approach and insights, and agile shipping.

“This partnership with Nisum is a different major stage in advancing Monumental Sports, a person of the premiere athletics ecosystems in the state, in offering a collection of awesome, linked activities for our fans. We are happy to increase Nisum to our sturdy network of companions, augmenting this best tier group with their technological experience, strategic leadership, and large high-quality shipping from a global workforce,” mentioned Adam Heintz, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Intelligence at MSE.

“The coronary heart of Nisum’s perform is to ability life’s wonderful moments with the greatest technologies. There is no superior opportunity to do that than by means of the connectivity and bonds people create by means of a shared like of sports. Nisum is very energized to be part of the Monumental loved ones and produce unforgettable encounters for millions of lovers,” expressed Tina Wung, Nisum’s Vice President of Advancement Marketing and Revenue.

The sports industry is speedily leveraging the new alternatives produced from emerging technological know-how and electronic innovation, which includes further and additional individualized connections with supporters, related venues giving seamless omnichannel activities, and virtual engagement exporting the in-stadium magic to broader admirer bases. Monumental and Nisum are proud to partner together as leaders of transformation in the athletics and amusement earth.

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About Monumental Sporting activities & Enjoyment
Monumental Sports activities & Leisure is 1 of America’s primary sporting activities and entertainment people. Our persons, players, groups, and functions provide enjoyment and joy to hundreds of thousands. We make investments and innovate to persistently increase the video game so we can provide amazing ordeals that will inspire and unite our neighborhood, our lovers, and our people.

About Nisum
Nisum is a international electronic consulting company centered in Silicon Valley. With a talented workforce of about 2,000 experts spanning North The usa, Latin The usa, India, and Pakistan, Nisum leverages about 20 many years of business knowledge in digital method and engineering,

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The Internet Requires Some Time Off

Previous 7 days, I noticed extra posts than I could depend citing a review that promises Aug. 24 is the working day of the year when the most men and women connect with out of do the job sick (or “sick”).

For what it is worth, I have not carefully vetted this study. It was done by an staff tracking corporation that provided number of aspects about the scope of its conclusions, and it is the type of much too-slick data level that makes me a minor cautious. But, hey, anecdotally, I believe that it. It’s the past gasp of summer. Probably your business is excess tranquil. Maybe your city’s electricity feels a very little lazier than common. Perhaps it’s just you.

There is a pet theory I have extended held about the world-wide-web. I will disclose upfront that it has certainly zero scientific merit. The only peer evaluate it has been given is me telling my actual friends about it. You are now all my pals.

My idea is that the summer season makes for a uninteresting net. It’s the worst time of yr to be on the net. My feeds of late have felt like they have digital tumbleweeds rolling by.

Which isn’t to say this 7 days has not experienced its moments. Under, you can read about how former President Donald Trump’s mug shot swiftly grew to become a meme — which, if you know nearly anything at all about the online, you noticed coming from a mile away.

I have also a short while ago develop into obsessed with DJ Mandy, the most effective/worst D.J. on the world wide web. Insider identified as her mash-ups “intentionally gawky.” To even phone them mash-ups is an insult to the art of mash-ups. What ever they are, they are terrific. They damage and fulfill my brain in equivalent evaluate.

There’s also this piece from 404 Media about how Amazon is riddled with AI-generated mushroom foraging publications that could get someone killed. It has me terrified in new and fun(gi) strategies. (Sorry, sorry.)

Even my TikTok likes of late are sleepy. A recipe for potato salad. Recommendations for how to transfer my credit cards points to an airline rewards program. A video clip from a stylist who aids persons establish what shades glimpse ideal on them. Yawn!

Seeking through my likes I understood I’d unintentionally been observing a lot of “Call the Midwife,” a many years-previous Tv display I’m now digesting in quick clips from accounts devoted to bootlegging Tv displays and motion pictures. The demonstrate is heart-wrenching, but not particularly the odd and hyperspecific information I want from TikTok.

In any case, see you all on the net future week. Here’s hoping we all get around our late summertime malaise.


Here’s what else is occurring on line this week.


It has been tough to overlook Trump’s mug shot in the previous week, that scowling, off-heart photo that my colleague Vanessa Friedman

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20 Cost-free Website Style Equipment from Summer time 2022

Free resources from the design neighborhood can enormously enhance an ecommerce web-site.

Here is a listing of new website resources and structure features from summertime 2022. There are online video editors, analytic instruments, gradients, net website page builders, usability equipment, content creators, cost-free fonts, and extra.

All of these tools are totally free or have cost-free options, nevertheless some also offer you top quality versions. The fonts are totally free for commercial tasks. Ahead of utilizing a font, be sure to verify its terms.

Absolutely free Structure Equipment

Illusto is an intuitive, cloud-based mostly online video-enhancing software, supplying much more than 200 transitions, filters, and outcomes. Include an further layer of messaging with pre-recorded or live voiceovers. The beta product is totally free to use for all. The initial 200 signups will acquire no cost obtain to the approaching top quality subscription.

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Illusto

Tydo is an analytics platform for Shopify retailers. Get a superior-level snapshot of your store. Obtain emailed reports on your crucial metrics.

Gradientify is a free, website-dependent gradient editor with 100-in addition versions. Create a shade gradient. Make tints and shades of solitary colour appropriate in the browser. Help you save gradients, incorporate a new gradient, duplicate CSS, obtain PNGs, and more.

Locofy writes output-completely ready code for cell apps and the web in the language of your preference. Consider Figma for React, React Native, HTML-CSS, Gatsby, Future.js, and far more. Tag responsive types, make components, get stay prototypes, and export or deploy code. The beta variation is cost-free.

Daftpage is an straightforward website builder for landing web pages and uncomplicated web pages. Drag and fall to develop one of a kind layouts or start out speedily from a template. Daftpage’s editor offers an intuitive and highly effective interface similar to Notion. Totally free for up to 3 internet pages.

Home page of Daftpage

Daftpage

Bobby is a Windows and Mac app that backs up your Google Docs by converting them to usable formats for your community system (e.g., desktop, USB, exterior push).

Motionity is a absolutely free and open up-resource animation editor on the web. It is a blend of Adobe After Consequences and Canva, with superior functions these types of as keyframing, masking, filters, and additional.

Feathery lets product teams produce customizable, developer-helpful sorts with out getting to code. Make your personalized structure and ingredient system with drag-and-drop controls. Add conditional phase branches, loops, and a number of entry and exit factors. Absolutely free up to five forms and 250 submissions per month.

Artboard Studio has relaunched from a mockup device to a detailed content generation platform, combining Figma structure with Just after Consequences motion. With vector, picture, audio, and online video all in a person, buyers can combine a number of property to make dynamic content material in the browser. Cost-free for up to a few initiatives.

Home page of Artboard Studio

Artboard Studio

Sprig has introduced a browser-dependent “Concept & Usability” for unmoderated exams with limitless seats, Figma prototypes. and templates for exam flows. The totally free alternative delivers 1 shareable connection

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Jeremy Franco: the 10 funniest things I have at any time viewed (on the net) | Comedy

To know what is funny on the internet, you have to BE amusing on the online – and, let’s be honest, I’m a hoot.

The net is a good deal various nowadays: a a few-minute YouTube online video of Potter Puppet Pals just doesn’t hit like it applied to. These days, to be funny on line, you have received to behave in a way that’s borderline insane. If you’ve not obtained crippling depression and severe anger difficulties, then why do you deserve my laughs? I want to see Pink Uncooked feelings and finish cluelessness. In any other case consider your jokes off the net and set them in e book or anything.

So shut your doorway and get all set for the snicker of your everyday living, cos I’m about to serve you something even much better than masala dosa with mango chutney. Here are the 10 funniest things that I (or everyone else for that make a difference) have ever observed on the online.

1. ‘Pooja, what is this conduct?’

The emotion. The general performance. The rawness. The vulnerability.

Somebody GET POOJA AN OSCAR.

Let’s be straightforward, we’ve all had times exactly where nothing is likely as planned and you’re about eight seconds away from a comprehensive-fledged breakdown. That is why when Pooja Misra went on the Indian truth clearly show Bigg Manager and smashed a broom into the ground, it resonated with us for the reason that, let’s be real, who hasn’t needed to do that? (Brooms are highly-priced.)

The showdown amongst Pooja and Shonali Nagrani has been recreated and remixed for many years and many years considering that it very first aired. If this is not the best part of currently being Indian, I do not know what is.

2. Online jokes about Taylor Swift’s private jet

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The sustainability advertising and marketing business Garden put jointly a list of which famous people have used their non-public jets the most this year. Taylor Swift’s personal jet was ranked No 1, with a whopping 170 flights in the very last 6 months, some of which have been a mere 15 minutes long.

A spokesperson for Swift has denied that she was responsible for “most or all” of the trips, saying: “Taylor’s jet is loaned out frequently to other folks.” But the world wide web has long gone entire savage, pairing footage of random planes with T-Swizz undertaking the most menial jobs.

3. The point that H20: Just Add H2o is a issue outside of Australia

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