At some point in the past, maybe a year ago-ish, I was listening to a podcast
called Radio Survivor.  The episode I was listening to was about a small FM
radio station in a very small town in eastern Oregon (almost a ghost town).

It like the idea of community radio or just community in general.  I guess that
is what led me to build this BBS (Community @ mutinybbs.com:2300), even
though it doesn't get much use.  All I can do is build the infrastructure, the
saying "if you build it, they will come" doesn't really hold true.  It's more
like "if you build it, they will keep doom scrolling on X and getting angry
about stuff they can do fuck-all about".

This episode got me thinking about community (and the utter lack of it which
is usually the case in America).  I thought about if I moved to that town, or
one like it, and I took out my 75 watt FM transmitter, put it on a pole, and
started up my own pirate radio station.  How long could I get away with it?
What would I broadcast?

But then the obvious outcome came to mind.  Men in black with scanning
equipment searching the town, tracking me down, hauling me off to prison
(more likely a small fee and a slap on the wrist, provided I shut it down and
don't turn it back on).

So then I was thinking ... well radio is kind of dead anyway.  Everyone really
listens to their phones now; podcasts, spotify feeds, etc...  So I could do
community-based internet radio.

Somehow, the exact train of thought I don't remember now, this led to a vision
of creating an independant TCP/IP network for the entire town that's *not*
connected to the internet.  Such a thing could be done by putting routers,
raspberry PIs, or other small computers with WiFi equipment on poles around
town, maybe one per intersection.

A wide-area network accessible to anyone in town but cut off from the greater
internet.  I could host streams, web pages, forums, BBSs, music and video
streaming services.  All without too much worry about the RIAA, MPAA, and other
IP* trolls causing too much trouble.
*: Intellectual Property, not Internet Protocol.

And, being a network for the community others could host services as well.
But, of course this is fraught with trouble.  First, someone's going to get
drunk and post dick pics.  Someone's going to rant and flame about whatever
political targets their favorite social media feeds tell them they should be
hating right now.  Someone who is not tech savvy will have no idea how to
switch between being connected to the internet and being connected to the
community net.  And worse yet is that someone who *is* tech savvy will build
that bridge connecting the community net to the internet, thus inviting all
the troubles that the internet brings.  Not the least of which is just being
visible to the trolls.

Then I started to think, if I am retired and I moved to this podunk little
town because it was cheap and I wanted the peace and quiet, I'd still need
some income so maybe I could set up access restrictions so that I could charge
people a nominal usage fee, enough to upkeep the net and also supliment my
fixed income.  I could also use these access controls to handle bad actors
that would (either intentionally or through ignorance) hinder the network.

I'd like it to be free (as in freedom) but at the same time if someone is
tieing up all the bandwidth, or setting up mock web sites to trick people into
thinking they're logging into internet web sites and stealing their passwords,
or any of the other myriad of things one could do to cause havoc, then I could
shut them down.
In the end I dismissed the idea as foolish as it would depend too much on
cooperation and understanding by the community and I do often expect too much
from community.  I should (especially in America) expect others to basically
behave almost entirely in a self-interested manor.  I suspect the outcome
would be me doing a lot of babysitting (of the network, not the people),
doing a lot of work, doing a lot of monitoring*, and getting nothing out of it
except ire of unhappy citizens.
*: monitoring network health, not monitoring people

So, my thoughts then returned to the original point, community radio.  Let's
suppose I'm not going to get an FCC license because these are super expensive
and I'd probably want to be free to discuss (or allow the community to discuss)
things the (current) US government would rather not have on the air.  Let's
also suppose I don't want to do anything illegal so pirate radio is out even
if I have a fair chance of getting away with it.  I could put an internet
radio stream on but somehow try to lock it down to just my community, or
I could do the whole community-net thing but somehow lock it down so that not
everyone on the net could stand up TCP/IP servers.

I guess the way to do that would be in how each of the net's routers are
configured.  Then, if someone wanted to host something I guess we could ...
vote on it?  Taking into consideration the available bandwidth, the risk to
the net, etc...

This is where the whole train of thought kind of fell apart because it could
go so many directions and I couldn't clearly see where I would want it to go.
But ... starting simply, maybe run it like a BBS:  I host everything,
wireless access points allow people in the community to access the community
net and reach the various services such as audio & video streams, forums,
maybe private emails and mailing lists between members of the community.  But
do it in such a way that others cannot host their own services (at first).

I could then put out newsletters with announcements to help people find and
connect.

I could see some people, if any were interested, using old cell phones and
tablets which don't have sim cards and keep them connected to the community
net so that their main cell phone (or home computer) doesn't need to be
contantly switching between the internet and the community net.

All of this is an idea that still feels like it needs fleshing-out and also,
at the same time, is currently moot at least until I live in such a community.

I think this whole idea is me trying to bring back an aspect of 1980's/1990's
BBSing but using TCP/IP.  Using the internet we lose the local/community
spirit, but there's not much stopping us from using the internet protocol to
achieve what we had with modems in the previous century and maybe bring back
a sense of connection with our neighbors.
.