About the network
Gilpin Row covers about 18 blocks of Richmond’s near west side, mostly public housing towers and the walk-ups around them. The network was built by the tenants’ association after a school district survey found students doing homework in fast-food parking lots for the signal.
Schematic
Uptime
99.95% uptime over the last 90 days, with 1 day of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Gilpin Row Neighborhood Network
- Legal home
- Nonprofit corporation with a member-elected board
- Members
- 645 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- First Thursday of each month, 7:00 pm, at the housing cooperative’s lobby
- Annual assembly
- Every December
- Maintenance fund
- $6 a month per household, suggested. No household is disconnected for not paying.
Stewards
Elected by the members. Listed by first name and initial.
- Kateryna B.Network steward · since 2025
- Rafael L.Treasurer · since 2026
- Luis S.Membership steward · since 2025
- Xiomara V.Training steward · since 2026
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-61-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Richmond internet exchange | 13% |
| LT-61-BH2 | Fiber, donated by the library system | 1 Gbps | Public library network | 37% |
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.
Steward training on monitoring and fault-finding: 17 attended.
Spare parts inventory counted and restocked.
Cable to N-3209 replaced; squirrels again.
Tree trimming along two backbone paths, with the city’s parks crew.
Dish on N-3210 re-aimed after a neighbor’s new extension blocked the path.
New hub on the church steeple: N-3375.
Climbing safety refresher: 12 installers recertified.
High winds: 6 rooftop mounts checked and re-secured.
Expansion: six new nodes in 2025, mostly in grids B4, C4 and D1.
Network switched on: 21 nodes installed by 137 volunteers over a weekend.
Founding assembly: the Gilpin Row Neighborhood Network adopts its charter and elects four stewards.