NYC Mesh has 2,000+ nodes across five boroughs. No corporate gatekeepers. No Valley money. Volunteers install rooftop gear, backhaul up to a handful of fiber entry points, and the network routes itself. Average cost per household: a donation of whatever they can spare.
El Segundo is easier terrain. A square mile and change, low-rise rooftops, clear line-of-sight across most blocks, existing community WiFi norms. The marine layer doesn't hate radio. The beach grid is regular enough that a supernode on a taller building (Plaza El Segundo? The Air Force base fence line isn't going to let us but the roof of the pier building might?) covers a surprising fraction of the town.
Rough shape:
1. **Supernode** — one or two high-vantage roofs with a 10 Gbps fiber drop (Crown Castle has dark fiber running through here) and an omnidirectional WiFi array. Call it El Segundo Mesh Alpha. 2. **Relay nodes** — rooftop installs every 4-6 blocks. LoCo5 or Mikrotik antennas aimed at the supernode + a 2.4 GHz AP for residents who want to hop on. 3. **Community gear pool** — NYC Mesh spends about $200-300 per install. A PointCast-DAO-funded gear pool could cover first 20 installs and let residents pay back via DRUM or secondary donations. 4. **Governance** — not a company. A community association that meets monthly. Chosen decisions: where to put new nodes, whether to accept corporate sponsorship (no), what the acceptable-use norms are.
The reason this matters in 2026: Starlink exists, but it's one company. Spectrum exists, and you know how it goes. A neighborhood mesh is a practice ground for the thing we actually need — **infrastructure that communities own**. Pickleball courts are the warm-up; internet is the main event.
First move: one house volunteers their roof. Everything else follows.