How a Group of Rural Washington Neighbors Created Their Own Internet Service (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes with a story that might warm the hearts of anyone just outside the service area of a decent internet provider: Faced with a local ISP that couldn't provide modern broadband, Orcas Island residents designed their own network and built it themselves. The nonprofit Doe Bay Internet Users Association (DBIUA), founded by [friends Chris Brems and Chris Sutton], and a few friends, now provide Internet service to a portion of the island. It's a wireless network with radios installed on trees and houses in the Doe Bay portion of Orcas Island. Those radios get signals from radios on top of a water tower, which in turn receive a signal from a microwave tower across the water in Mount Vernon, Washington.

Comments

Well planned

[AHuxley]

The placement of the microwave link on the water tank, the network of '10 relay points, which have multiple radios", using "5.8GHz and 900MHz frequencies, and a little bit of 3.65GHz". Long term planning "take their time to add capacity before connecting everyone who wants service"
Tracking what relay point is down and having backup battery power for a time. The suggestion to place a "Raspberry Pi at the different relay points to do speed tests" was a good read too.
This is really motivating and shows what a community can do with existing methods rather than waiting for more traditional networks to even be planned or upgraded or offered.
Thanks.