Broadband-capable community networks
SOWN (Southampton Open Wireless Network)
University of Southampton student wireless society running eduroam Wi-Fi, founded in 2001
Depends active
Active as a student society: the site loads, its footer reads 2007-2026, and it lists fortnightly meetings. Its /news/ page returned 404, so we saw no dated news.
Updated 29 Oct 2026
| Internet traffic | Internet access is limited to university staff and students through eduroam. Public community accounts are not currently offered; the site says they are planned to be restored. This is a university student network, not an open community mesh. |
|---|---|
| Node count | Not published (as of 29 Oct 2026, source) |
| Geography | Southampton, UK, centred on the University of Southampton. |
| Regions | Southampton, UK |
| Tech |
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| Typical cost | Not published. |
| Bandwidth | Not published. |
| Legal | Not stated on the pages we read. |
| Governance | A student society that began in 2001 as an initiative of the University's Wireless Society, started by mainly ECS students. It holds fortnightly meetings and workshops and can be contacted through a form or Discord. |
| UK notes | A UK network, but not open to the public. Hosting a node is restricted to University of Southampton staff and students, and hall residents are not eligible. If you are not at the University, it is not a network you can join. |
| Links |
How it works
SOWN began in 2001 as a student initiative from the University of Southampton's Wireless Society, started by mainly ECS students. Today it is chiefly an eduroam Wi-Fi deployment plus SOWN@HOME, in which university staff and students host Wi-Fi access points.
It is not a self-routing ad-hoc mesh in the Freifunk sense, and current routing details are not published.
How to join
You can contact the society through the form or Discord on its website, and it holds fortnightly meetings and workshops. Hosting a node is restricted to University of Southampton staff and students, and hall residents are not eligible.
What it realistically gives you
For eligible staff and students it provides Wi-Fi internet access via eduroam. We found no node count or bandwidth figures.
Caveats
- Status is active as a student society: the site loads, the footer reads 2007-2026, and fortnightly meetings and a Discord are listed. The site's /news/ page returned 404, so we saw no dated news.
- We include it because it is a UK entry, with this explicit limit.