Broadband-capable community networks
Freifunk
German-origin movement of local volunteer groups sharing Wi-Fi routers
Carries internet traffic active
Updated 29 Oct 2026
| Internet traffic | Yes, normally through VPN tunnels to community gateways. Throughput is bounded by gateway and uplink capacity. |
|---|---|
| Node count | 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). |
| Regions | Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, France |
| Tech |
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| 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. |
| Governance | Decentralised: local volunteer groups, often registered associations. Formed in September 2003. Website content is CC BY-SA 3.0. |
| UK notes | The community directory lists no UK communities. A UK reader can use the Freifunk software stack, but there is no UK group to join through Freifunk. |
| Links |
How it works
Freifunk began in Germany in September 2003. It is not one network. It is a movement of local volunteer groups, such as Freifunk Hamburg or Freifunk Berlin, that each run their own mesh with shared tools. Members flash a consumer router with community firmware and place it at home or on a roof. Nearby routers link to each other.
The firmware is usually based on OpenWrt. Gluon, described in its documentation as a modular framework for OpenWrt-based firmware images for wireless mesh nodes, is the common base and ships a batman-adv package. B.A.T.M.A.N. was developed by the German Freifunk community. Routing is B.A.T.M.A.N. or OLSR. Berlin has also built a microwave backbone.
Most communities tunnel member traffic through VPN gateways to the internet, so throughput is bounded by gateway capacity.
How to join
- Find your local community in the Freifunk directory. The directory API lists 375 communities, nearly all in Germany.
- Read that community's own pages. Firmware images and supported routers are set per community, and some community pages are in German.
- Buy a router your community supports and flash the community image. In Gluon, "factory" images flash from stock firmware and "sysupgrade" images from another Gluon or OpenWrt system.
- Place the router. It connects to neighbours and, where available, to a gateway.
What it realistically gives you
It carries ordinary internet traffic through gateways. Speed depends on your community, its gateways and the quality of neighbouring links. We found no figure we could source.
The headline node count is the sum of numbers that each community reports about itself: 41,169 on 29 October 2026. About 260 of the 375 listed communities report a number. Only 16,095 of those nodes belong to communities whose entry changed in the last 30 days. For example, Hannover reports 2,000 nodes, last changed on 26 February 2024. Wikipedia's "over 41,000 access points" appears to mirror the same data. Read the total as "roughly 40,000, self-reported, of mixed age".
Caveats
- The directory lists no UK communities. Of the communities with a country, 358 are in Germany, 10 in Switzerland, 3 in Austria, 1 in Luxembourg and 1 in France. UK readers can use the software but have no UK group to join through Freifunk.
- The Freifunk forum is German-language.
- Germany's liability rules for open Wi-Fi operators were narrowed between 2016 and 2018. Gateways remain the usual design.
Sources
- Freifunk
- Community directory API, summed 29 October 2026
- Wikipedia
- Gluon documentation