About the network
Ashgrove covers about 43 blocks of Chester’s lower east side, mostly brick rowhouses. The network was built by a block club after a provider’s fiber build stopped six blocks short of the neighborhood.
Schematic
Hover over or tap a node for its details, and click or tap again to open it. With a keyboard, move to the schematic and use the arrow keys.
Uptime
99.92% uptime over the last 90 days, with 2 days of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Ashgrove Community Net
- Legal home
- Tenants’ association, incorporated as a nonprofit
- Members
- 2,091 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- First Wednesday of each month, 7:30 pm, at the YMCA multipurpose room
- Annual assembly
- Every November
- Maintenance fund
- $7 a month per household, suggested. No household is disconnected for not paying.
Stewards
Elected by the members. Listed by first name and initial.
- Eduardo L.Network steward · since 2020
- Kenji I.Treasurer · since 2020
- José M.Membership steward · since 2017
- Leon N.Training steward · since 2017
- Nadia I.Rooftops steward · since 2023
- Ruth I.Secretary · since 2017
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-10-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Chester internet exchange | 34% |
| LT-10-BH2 | Licensed microwave, 11 GHz | 2 Gbps | Tower site, Chester | 48% |
Maintenance log
Power cut. The rooftop nodes on the affected blocks went down with the grid. Hubs stayed up on battery.
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Upstream outage. The network’s transit provider had an outage of its own. The mesh itself stayed up, and local services kept working.
High winds: 5 rooftop mounts checked and re-secured.
Hardware refresh: 36 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
Annual assembly: 135 members attended and elected four stewards.
Expansion: six new nodes in 2025, mostly in grids D4, E3 and F1.
Heavy rain: water ingress found and fixed in 6 enclosures.
Hardware build night: 16 Stoop nodes assembled from parts.
Expansion: five new nodes in 2024, mostly in grids F1, G1 and G3.
N-0338 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
Rooftop agreements reviewed; 6 renewed with new building owners.
N-1395 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
N-0501 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
Cable to N-1659 replaced; squirrels again.
Hardware refresh: 42 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
New hub on the public housing tower roof, under a housing authority agreement: N-2441.
Hardware refresh: 3 nodes upgraded to Gantry H4 over the year.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
Backhaul upgraded from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps fiber.
New hub on the housing cooperative roof, nine storeys: N-1278.
Firmware 3.0 rolled out to every node.
New hub on the apartment tower roof, twelve storeys: N-0501.
Expansion: three new nodes in 2012, mostly in grids B2, B5 and C3.
Network switched on: 16 nodes across the first few blocks.
Founding assembly: the Ashgrove Community Net adopts its charter and elects five stewards.