About the network
Oakbend covers about 35 blocks of Hartford’s south side, mostly garden apartments and duplexes. The network was built by the neighborhood development corporation after the incumbent provider declined, again, to upgrade the area’s copper lines.
Schematic
Uptime
99.94% uptime over the last 90 days, with 1 day of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Oakbend Community Net
- Legal home
- Cooperative corporation, owned by member households
- Members
- 1,693 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- Second Saturday of each month, 10:00 am, at the masjid’s community room
- Annual assembly
- Every January
- 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.
- Darnell L.Network steward · since 2016
- Lorenzo O.Treasurer · since 2016
- Kwame M.Membership steward · since 2023
- Olga S.Training steward · since 2022
- Lucia H.Rooftops steward · since 2024
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-15-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Hartford internet exchange | 29% |
| LT-15-BH2 | Licensed microwave, 11 GHz | 2 Gbps | Tower site, Hartford | 42% |
| LT-15-BH3 | Fiber, donated by the library system | 1 Gbps | Public library network | 42% |
Maintenance log
Cable to N-0422 replaced; squirrels again.
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Power cut. The rooftop nodes on the affected blocks went down with the grid. Hubs stayed up on battery.
Installer workshop: 16 residents trained and climbed their first roof.
Annual assembly: 147 members attended and elected two stewards.
Battery modules replaced at 5 hubs ahead of winter.
Hardware refresh: 25 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
Heat wave: 6 rooftop nodes throttled; all recovered overnight.
New hub on the branch library roof: N-3190.
Annual assembly: 128 members attended and elected two stewards.
Dish on N-0425 re-aimed after a neighbor’s new extension blocked the path.
Storm damage: 6 dishes realigned and one mast replaced.
N-0402 moved to the other side of the roof to clear a new air-conditioning unit.
N-0403 moved to the other side of the roof to clear a new air-conditioning unit.
Hardware refresh: 32 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
Hardware refresh: 31 nodes upgraded to Stoop R4 over the year.
Backhaul upgraded from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps fiber.
Firmware 3.0 rolled out to every node.
Expansion: seven new nodes in 2014, mostly in grids A1, B3 and C2.
Network switched on: 34 nodes installed by 108 volunteers over a weekend.
Founding assembly: the Oakbend Community Net adopts its charter and elects five stewards.