About the network
Lindenvale covers about 42 blocks of Pittsburgh’s west side, mostly mid-rise apartment blocks. The network was built by a parish youth group after a tenants’ survey found that a third of households had no home connection.
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
- Lindenvale Community Net
- Legal home
- Cooperative corporation, owned by member households
- Members
- 1,936 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- Last Wednesday of each month, 7:30 pm, at the branch library’s community room
- Annual assembly
- Every May
- Maintenance fund
- $9 a month per household, suggested. No household is disconnected for not paying.
Stewards
Elected by the members. Listed by first name and initial.
- Carlos N.Network steward · since 2024
- Elena L.Treasurer · since 2018
- Nia B.Membership steward · since 2017
- Omar V.Training steward · since 2020
- Eduardo M.Rooftops steward · since 2022
- Elijah G.Secretary · since 2021
- Víctor V.Network steward · since 2022
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-17-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Pittsburgh internet exchange | 50% |
Maintenance log
Upstream outage. The network’s transit provider had an outage of its own. The mesh itself stayed up, and local services kept working.
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Spare parts inventory counted and restocked.
Power cut. The rooftop nodes on the affected blocks went down with the grid. Hubs stayed up on battery.
Heat wave: 3 rooftop nodes throttled; all recovered overnight.
Annual assembly: 134 members attended and elected four stewards.
Radio on N-2546 replaced after water got into the enclosure.
Storm damage: 7 dishes realigned and one mast replaced.
Power injector for N-0691 replaced after a surge.
Hardware refresh: 3 nodes upgraded to Gantry H5 over the year.
Hardware refresh: 30 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
Mount on N-0511 re-secured after the host reported a loose mast.
Radio on N-1085 replaced after water got into the enclosure.
Annual assembly: 119 members attended and elected two stewards.
Power injector for N-0525 replaced after a surge.
Expansion: four new nodes in 2023, mostly in grids C2, E3 and H3.
Hardware build night: 20 Stoop nodes assembled from parts.
Tree trimming along two backbone paths, with the city’s parks crew.
Hardware refresh: 38 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
Backhaul upgraded from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps fiber.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
New hub on the senior center roof: N-1019.
New hub on the church steeple: N-0744.
Firmware 3.0 rolled out to every node.
Network switched on: 47 nodes installed by 115 volunteers over a weekend.
Founding assembly: the Lindenvale Community Net adopts its charter and elects five stewards.