Red Hook Initiative compared to community supported agriculture [Slate]

As communities begin to worry about the demise of net neutrality, a few are solving the ‘last mile’ problem of Internet access for themselves, bypassing the majors and the preferential treatment of big players that they sell.

It’s a model parallel to that of Community Supported Agriculture, Slate‘s “Future Tense” blog says, where consumers frustrated by the existing food system join in a cooperative relationship with farmers to buy their crops before they plant.

The Red Hook Initiative is highlighted as one of these programs in a new piece by the Future Tense blog:

In fact, there are any number of options for what last-mile infrastructure can look like—communities can invest in “mom-and-pop” last-mile infrastructure shops like the Red Hook Initiative does. They can get together, purchase middle-mile “bulk” bandwidth and figure out how to build their own neighborhood wireless networks like the Free Network Foundation. They can (in places where it’s legal) work with their municipalities to activate existing resources such as dark fiber or municipal bandwidth. They can create bandwidth-sharing partnerships with nearby universities or other institutions. They can work with their local business improvement districts to build shared community-local-business networks.

[Slate]