About the network
Market Bend covers about 38 blocks of Wilmington’s south side, mostly public housing towers and the walk-ups around them. The network was built by a block club after a school district survey found students doing homework in fast-food parking lots for the signal.
Schematic
Uptime
99.93% uptime over the last 90 days, with 1 day of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Market Bend Community Net
- Legal home
- Nonprofit corporation with a member-elected board
- Members
- 1,935 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- Third Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm, at the housing cooperative’s lobby
- Annual assembly
- Every February
- Maintenance fund
- $8 a month per household, suggested. No household is disconnected for not paying.
Stewards
Elected by the members. Listed by first name and initial.
- Latoya W.Network steward · since 2024
- Ariel W.Treasurer · since 2018
- Renée S.Membership steward · since 2019
- Gabriel H.Training steward · since 2023
- Nia W.Rooftops steward · since 2019
- Vernon M.Secretary · since 2019
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-13-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Wilmington internet exchange | 37% |
| LT-13-BH2 | Licensed microwave, 11 GHz | 2 Gbps | Tower site, Wilmington | 53% |
Maintenance log
Rooftop agreements reviewed; 4 renewed with new building owners.
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Storm damage. High winds knocked several dishes out of alignment. Stewards realigned them once it was safe to go up.
Expansion: ten new nodes in 2026, mostly in grids B4, D4 and E5.
New hub on the fire station roof, under a city agreement: N-3614.
Annual assembly: 183 members attended and elected three stewards.
Hardware build night: 8 Stoop nodes assembled from parts.
Hardware refresh: 39 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
Expansion: four new nodes in 2025, mostly in grids C1, F4 and G5.
Dish on N-0852 re-aimed after a neighbor’s new extension blocked the path.
Heavy rain: water ingress found and fixed in 7 enclosures.
Annual assembly: 181 members attended and elected three stewards.
Expansion: six new nodes in 2024, mostly in grids C1, C5 and D4.
Installer workshop: 11 residents trained and climbed their first roof.
N-0328 moved to the other side of the roof to clear a new air-conditioning unit.
Expansion: eight new nodes in 2023, mostly in grids B2, C1 and D4.
Storm damage: 4 dishes realigned and one mast replaced.
Hardware refresh: 31 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
Hardware refresh: 22 nodes upgraded to Stoop R4 over the year.
Backhaul upgraded from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps fiber.
New hub on the former bank building roof: N-0855.
New hub on the church steeple: N-0734.
Firmware 3.0 rolled out to every node.
Expansion: four new nodes in 2013, mostly in grids C5, F3 and G3.
Network switched on: 15 nodes across the first few blocks.
Founding assembly: the Market Bend Community Net adopts its charter and elects five stewards.