I is for Internet Service Provider (ISP)
as 2024 is winding down so shall i. in the resounding words of nap bishop tricia hersey, “we will rest.” this is my last issue of New Terms & Conditions for the year. while i’ll be offline, i’ll be present and manifesting this project in other ways, so follow @citation.studio on instagram for those announcements.
as a preface to this issue, i want to thank founder of flox studio sloan leo cowan who unknowingly invited me to meditate on today’s newsletter as part of their FLOX labs dinner and community design series on “the science of community building.”
when we think about getting online, most of us imagine wi-fi (wireless fidelity) signals floating invisibly through our homes or the small box blinking quietly in the corner. but beneath this wireless illusion lies a vast physical network of cables, wires, and connection points that determine who gets to participate in our digital world — and who doesn't.
the story of internet service providers (ISPs) is, at its heart, a story about power. not just the electrical kind that powers our modems, but the power to control who gets connected and how. it's a tale that begins with copper telephone lines, that first snaked their way into homes, originally built for voice.
those copper lines became the inheritance of telephone giants like AT&T and Verizon. When the internet arrived, these companies found themselves holding the keys to our digital future. they suddenly owned access to the “information superhighway,” that was purported to be the great equalizer.
the "final mile" — that last stretch of cable connecting your home to the broader network — tells us so much about digital inequality in America. i first learned about this concept on episode 481 of 99% Invisible, “the future of the final mile.” in wealthy neighborhoods, you might find fiber optic cables, hair-thin strands of glass carrying light-speed data. but follow those same infrastructure maps to lower-income neighborhoods or communities of color, and you'll often find aging copper lines struggling to carry modern internet traffic, a practice known as digital redlining.
ISPs are gatekeepers of our connected world by making calculated decisions about where to invest in new infrastructure. the result is a digital caste system where your zip code determines your download speed, and your address defines your access to opportunity.
but there are always ways in which we can resist, and enact our agency. i always turn to mesh networks — webs of connected devices that share internet access across blocks and buildings — as the beautiful example of how when we power community, we power technologies of care that aren’t merely wires and metals. picture a string of christmas lights, each bulb a node sharing connectivity with its neighbors, creating a network owned by the community it serves.
think about your own points of connection. follow the wire from your device to your router, imagine it snaking through your walls, under your street, joining larger and larger cables. at each junction point, someone made a decision about what kind of infrastructure to build, where to build it, and who would get to use it.
the question isn't just about how we connect to the internet — it's about how we connect to each other. and we have a say. sloan opened the FLOX Labs dinner with the question, “what is the last thing [you] mended?” (let that question breathe) our connections are being severed by monopolistic ISPs who have privatized our connections and access to each other. so what does it look like for you to repair your connection to community in ways that are cooperative? i hope we all can reflect and carry these prompts with us as we prepare for the new year.
wishing you a season of rest, and a gentle transition into the new year.
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