Volunteer-run, community-owned rooftop Wi-Fi mesh in New York City that provides internet access to members
Nodes
1,222 nodes listed active (hand-maintained status; 1,416 records in total) (as of 29 Oct 2026, source)
Geography
The five boroughs of New York City, concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn. A node is a building or location, not a single radio.
Tech
Rooftop Wi-Fi radios (directional for hub uplinks, omnidirectional for local)
Fibre to whole buildings
OSPF internally, BGP to the wider internet
Typical cost
Suggested donation of about $290 for a professional install ($240 average equipment plus $50 install-leader expenses). Monthly donation tiers of $20, $30 and $50 are offered. Treat these as the project's suggestions, not fixed prices.
Bandwidth
Rooftop link speeds are not published in our sources. The project advertises 10+ gigabit for fibre-to-building installs.
Legal
Licence-free Wi-Fi bands with standard Wi-Fi hardware; no amateur licence is involved. The organisation was granted 501(c)(3) status on 21 August 2020.
German-origin movement of local volunteer groups sharing Wi-Fi routers
Nodes
41,169 nodes summed from self-reported community API; many entries stale (16,095 from communities that updated in the last 30 days) (as of 29 Oct 2026, source)
Geography
Mostly Germany (358 of 373 listed communities with a country), plus Switzerland (10), Austria (3), Luxembourg (1) and France (1).
Tech
OpenWrt-based community firmware (Gluon is the usual base)
B.A.T.M.A.N. or OLSR routing
VPN tunnels to gateways for internet access
Typical cost
Hardware only: a supported consumer router flashed with community firmware. We did not establish a typical price. Fees, if any, vary by local group.
Bandwidth
Not quantified. It depends on the local community, its gateways and the member's own uplink.
Legal
Licence-free 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi. Germany's liability rules for open Wi-Fi operators (Stoererhaftung) were narrowed between 2016 and 2018. Historically, some Freifunk traffic was routed out through Sweden to avoid that liability.
Open-source LoRa mesh for off-grid text messages, positions and telemetry
Nodes
9,619 positioned nodes heard on the public MQTT broker in the last 24 h (community map; the true total is higher) (as of 29 Oct 2026, source)
Geography
Global, strongest in the United States and Europe. There is no official total.
Tech
LoRa on sub-GHz licence-exempt bands
Managed-flood routing with a hop limit
ESP32 and nRF52 boards
Android, iOS and web clients
Optional MQTT bridge to the internet
Typical cost
Hardware only, no fees. A basic board such as the Heltec V3 is listed at US$17.90 to US$19.90 by its manufacturer. We did not verify UK retail prices in pounds.
Bandwidth
Very low. In the UK (EU_868) the presets run from about 0.34 kbit/s (Long Moderate) to about 10.94 kbit/s (Short Fast); the faster Turbo presets (up to 21.88 kbit/s) are not available in EU_868. Text payloads are roughly 200 bytes. Typical range is 2 to 5 km; the claimed record is 331 km.
Legal
No licence needed within the limits. UK: 868 MHz (Meshtastic region EU_868). The 869.40-869.65 MHz slot allows 500 mW e.r.p. with a 10% duty cycle; most of the rest of the band allows 25 mW e.r.p. (Ofcom IR 2030 v1.15). US: 902-928 MHz under FCC Part 15, +30 dBm in the Meshtastic US region.
Open-source LoRa mesh messaging with repeaters and path-based routing, popular in the UK
Nodes
20,603 repeaters heard in the last 7 days on the self-uploaded map (69,134 records ever; all types, many stale) (as of 29 Oct 2026, source)
Geography
Global, with large UK, US, European and Australia/New Zealand presence. The project's apps and firmware are developed in different countries.
Tech
LoRa on sub-GHz licence-exempt bands
Repeaters, room servers and companion radios
Path-based routing (first message floods, later messages follow a discovered path)
End-to-end encrypted messaging (per the project site)
Android, iOS, desktop and web apps
Typical cost
Hardware only, no fees. One UK volunteer site quotes boards from around £25 on one page and around £40 on another; the UK shop at meshcore.co.uk lists the M9 handset at £69.99. These are third-party figures.
Bandwidth
LoRa-class and text-oriented. One UK volunteer site claims 500 m to 2 km between nodes in built-up areas and 5 to 15 km from elevated positions. Treat that as a claim, not a guarantee.
Legal
No licence needed within the limits. UK: 868 MHz (Ofcom IR 2030 v1.15): 500 mW e.r.p. and 10% duty cycle at 869.40-869.65 MHz, 25 mW e.r.p. across most of the rest of the band. US and similar regions: 902-928 MHz under FCC Part 15. Check that your preset sits inside a legal UK slot; we did not confirm the official UK preset values.
Cryptography-based networking stack that runs over LoRa, Wi-Fi, TCP and other links
Nodes
975 interfaces seen in the last 24 h on rmap.world (voluntary auto-discovery map; no census exists) (as of 29 Oct 2026, source)
Geography
Global, with no central body. Reticulum is a software stack, not a single network.
Tech
RNode LoRa, KISS/AX.25 packet radio, TCP, UDP, I2P, serial and pipe interfaces
AutoInterface over Wi-Fi and Ethernet (IPv6)
Mandatory encryption, forward secrecy on links (single packets need ratchets), no source addresses
Works over links as slow as 5 bit/s
Typical cost
The software is free. LoRa hardware is optional; supported boards include the Heltec LoRa32 V3 and V4. We did not establish UK prices.
Bandwidth
Designed to work down to 5 bit/s. Over LoRa it is kilobit-class. Over TCP or Wi-Fi it is limited only by the carrier.
Legal
Reticulum is software; legality follows the radio you use. Over LoRa, the licence-exempt band limits for your country apply (UK: the 868 MHz table in Ofcom IR 2030). Over amateur-radio links, amateur-service rules apply. Reticulum cannot establish unencrypted links (its manual mentions unencrypted packets only for local broadcast), so using it on licensed amateur bands may conflict with rules against obscuring the meaning of messages; check your licence conditions. On licence-exempt LoRa within the limits this does not arise.
A licensed operator plus compatible radios. The documentation recommends 802.11ac hardware such as the MikroTik SXTsq 5ac, Ubiquiti NanoStation 5ac and LiteBeam ac; we did not establish prices.
Bandwidth
Much higher than LoRa, as it uses 802.11 radios, but we found no sourced throughput figures. Link speed depends on band, distance and line of sight.
Legal
An amateur radio licence is required (FCC Part 97 in the US; a UK amateur licence in the UK). Amateur rules prohibit messages encoded to obscure their meaning (47 CFR 97.113(a)(4) in the US), so traffic cannot be encrypted for that purpose. Check the rules of your own licence before connecting anything else to the mesh.