Distributive Mesh Networks are not a new phenomenon. The technology was initially developed in the 1980s for military purposes, and expanded commercially in the 1990s.

Thanks in large part to advancements in hardware, diminishing costs of production and expansion of the accessible radio spectrum, local mesh networks are appearing all over the world to the benefit of communities both rural and urban.

A mesh network will vary in scope and execution according to the needs and resources of the community building it. The Milwaukee Mesh Cooperative begins by tapping into the Backbone of the Internet—the global infrastructure that provides access to every city, state and country.

From there, our tower (the Hub Node) acts like a huge wireless router, to which our partner community nodes connect and spread the network beyond the capacity of the primary tower.

Using wireless receivers, member-owners tap into this distributive network to access the internet and further spread and strengthen connectivity across the city.

Using this model, every new community node added to the network acts to make the system more robust. For example, if one node loses power in a thunderstorm, other nodes pick up the slack to limit the impact on member connectivity. A broad network, is a robust network.