About the network
Calumet Row covers about 21 blocks of Chicago’s northeast side, mostly mid-rise apartment blocks. The network was built by parents from the local elementary school after a school district survey found students doing homework in fast-food parking lots for the signal.
Schematic
Uptime
99.97% uptime over the last 90 days, with no days of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Calumet Row Mesh Cooperative
- Legal home
- Cooperative corporation, owned by member households
- Members
- 1,020 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- Third Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm, at the housing cooperative’s lobby
- Annual assembly
- Every January
- 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.
- Wanda B.Network steward · since 2019
- Tali Z.Treasurer · since 2024
- Malik L.Membership steward · since 2019
- Ibrahim S.Training steward · since 2019
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-23-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Chicago internet exchange | 19% |
| LT-23-BH2 | Licensed microwave, 11 GHz | 2 Gbps | Westhaven | 26% |
Maintenance log
Dish on N-0898 re-aimed after a neighbor’s new extension blocked the path.
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Annual assembly: 82 members attended and elected three stewards.
Hardware refresh: 6 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
Storm damage: 7 dishes realigned and one mast replaced.
N-1521 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
Annual assembly: 60 members attended and elected two stewards.
Expansion: four new nodes in 2024, mostly in grids A4, C5 and D2.
Battery modules replaced at 4 hubs ahead of winter.
Steward training on monitoring and fault-finding: 6 attended.
Heat wave: 4 rooftop nodes throttled; all recovered overnight.
Mount on N-2151 re-secured after the host reported a loose mast.
Hardware build night: 8 Stoop nodes assembled from parts.
Tree trimming along two backbone paths, with the city’s parks crew.
N-0893 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
Hardware refresh: 19 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
Expansion: four new nodes in 2021, mostly in grids A5, C3 and E1.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
Hardware refresh: 11 nodes upgraded to Stoop R4 over the year.
New hub on the fire station roof, under a city agreement: N-1277.
New hub on the recreation center roof: N-1177.
Network switched on: 20 nodes installed by 40 volunteers over a weekend.
Founding assembly: the Calumet Row Mesh Cooperative adopts its charter and elects four stewards.