The Free Network Foundation was an American

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

active in the early 2010s. Its work focused on research and advocacy for

wireless community network Wireless community networks or wireless community projects or simply community networks, are non-centralized, self-managed and collaborative networks organized in a grassroots fashion by communities, non-governmental organizations and cooperatives ...

s. Its efforts to provide the

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...

with internet connectivity were the subject of the

Motherboard A motherboard, also called a mainboard, a system board, a logic board, and informally a mobo (see #Nomenclature, "Nomenclature" section), is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It ho ...

documentary ''Free The Network''.

Operations

The Free Network Foundation was co-founded by Isaac Wilder and Charles Wyble. Wilder was 21 years old during the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011, and was concerned about the centralization and control of physical

Critical Internet infrastructure __NOTOC__ Internet infrastructure refers to the physical systems that provide internet communication. It include networking cables, cellular towers, servers, internet exchange points, data centers, and individual computers. Background Several st ...

in the hands of a few

Tier 1 network A Tier 1 network is an Internet Protocol (IP) network that can reach every other network on the Internet solely via settlement-free interconnection (also known as settlement-free peering). Tier 1 networks can exchange traffic with other Tier 1 net ...

s. In a

documentary ''Free The Network'', Wilder went to jail for 36 hours during the Occupy movement and returned to find that his Free Network Foundation laptops and networking equipment had been smashed and destroyed by a garbage truck. Following the clearing of

Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza Park) is a publicly accessible park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is located in a privately owned public space (POPS) controlled by Brookfield Properties and Goldman S ...

, the Free Network Foundation moved its base of operations to Wilder's hometown of

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

. There it aimed to provide an alternative to

Google Fiber Google Fiber, Inc., sometimes stylized as GFiber, is a fiber broadband Internet service operated by Alphabet Inc. servicing a growing number of households in cities in 19 states across the United States. In mid-2016, Google Fiber was estimated ...

's inaugural network. Its commons-oriented approach to digital infrastructure has been cited as a model by numerous researchers and other organizations.

References

{{reflist Political advocacy groups in the United States Information technology lobbying organizations Internet governance advocacy groups