guifi.net: a network infrastructure commons

Abstract

Community networks refers to open, free and neutral network infrastructure built and maintained by citizens and organisations who pool their resources and coordinate their efforts. Among many examples of community networks around the world, this paper presents an analysis of the case of guifi.net, probably the largest in number of nodes and participants, and a success case of a community network daily used by thousands of participants, focusing on the organisational structures developed within the community. guifi.net is organized around the principle of a Common Pool Resource, a viable model for the development of network infrastructure commons. Following an action-research method, the paper describes the processes and tools developed by the community, the current status of its implementation, local impact and lessons learned for more than a decade.