About the network
Santa Cruz Bend covers about 22 blocks of Tucson’s near west side, mostly stucco bungalows and courtyard apartments. The network was built by a group of high school robotics students and their teacher after the incumbent provider declined, again, to upgrade the area’s copper lines.
Schematic
Uptime
99.96% uptime over the last 90 days, with 1 day of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Santa Cruz Bend Mesh Cooperative
- Legal home
- Cooperative corporation, owned by member households
- Members
- 893 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- Second Monday of each month, 7:00 pm, at the branch library’s community room
- Annual assembly
- Every September
- 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.
- Jamal C.Network steward · since 2022
- Kwame K.Treasurer · since 2024
- Maya C.Membership steward · since 2022
- Maurice I.Training steward · since 2022
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-41-BH1 | Fiber | 10 Gbps | Tucson internet exchange | 13% |
| LT-41-BH2 | Licensed microwave, 11 GHz | 2 Gbps | Tower site, Tucson | 19% |
Maintenance log
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Annual assembly: 66 members attended and elected two stewards.
Planned backhaul work. Done overnight. Members were told a week ahead at the monthly assembly.
Grounding on N-1828 redone after an inspection found a corroded lug.
Hardware refresh: 15 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
N-1759 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
Annual assembly: 81 members attended and elected four stewards.
Dish on N-2790 re-aimed after a neighbor’s new extension blocked the path.
High winds: 3 rooftop mounts checked and re-secured.
Climbing safety refresher: 21 installers recertified.
Maintenance fund audit presented to members and approved.
Steward training on monitoring and fault-finding: 12 attended.
Hardware refresh: 13 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
Expansion: four new nodes in 2020, mostly in grids A1, B2 and E5.
New hub on the parish bell tower: N-1828.
Network switched on: 26 nodes installed by 89 volunteers over a weekend.
Founding assembly: the Santa Cruz Bend Mesh Cooperative adopts its charter and elects four stewards.