Rural Towns Frustrated By Big Telecom Are Just Building Their Own Internet

[Commentary] For communities that lack Internet access, maybe it's time to take matters into their own hands. Communities beyond US borders are building their own internetworks.

In rural Lancashire, England, the residents of one village have begun digging trenches and installing their own fiber optic cables. To make their homemade network run, they've enlisted everyone from a "Lancaster University professor who is an expert in computer networks" to a "farmer's wife who has just retired from a career in IT support." Other rural communities have set up "mesh networks," in which signals are transmitted directly from one Wi-Fi access point to the next -- no towers or cables required.