This is not legal advice
This playbook explains the questions; it does not answer them for your network. Laws differ from state to state and city to city. LoTek’s legal team reviews every network’s setup before it switches on, and stewards should bring any letter from a lawyer, landlord or government agency to the team before replying.
A legal home
A network needs an organization to sign agreements, hold insurance, own equipment and open a bank account. The common choices are a cooperative corporation owned by member households, or a nonprofit corporation with a member-elected board. A tenants’ association or community land trust can act as a temporary home. Whatever the form, the charter sets out how members govern it.
Insurance
Every network carries general liability insurance covering installers and equipment on roofs, and most carry directors’ and officers’ cover for stewards. LoTek arranges a group policy that networks may join, which is usually far cheaper than buying alone.
Antennas, roofs and poles
Rooftop equipment is installed under written rooftop agreements. The FCC’s Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule protects some antennas on property a resident owns or exclusively controls, and since 2021 it has covered some fixed wireless equipment as well. Its limits are narrow, and it generally does not reach a shared roof or common areas. Do not rely on it without advice.
Equipment on utility or street-light poles needs a permit from the city or the pole owner, and usually an approved installer. Permits take months. Start early, start polite, and bring photographs of the Lamppost enclosure.
Members’ data
The best protection for members is not having their data. LoTek networks do not log traffic, browsing or DNS lookups, and the monitoring on this site records only what each node reports about itself. See what we measure.
If a network receives a subpoena, a warrant or any other request for information about members, the stewards forward it to LoTek’s legal team the same day and do nothing else until they hear back. We respond only to valid legal process, we tell affected members unless a court forbids it, and every request we receive is counted in our annual transparency report.
For members who want to understand their rights online more broadly, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an independent organization, publishes clear and practical guides.
Copyright notices
Networks sometimes receive notices alleging that someone on the network shared copyrighted material. Because networks do not keep records of who used which address, they usually cannot identify anyone. Forward notices to the legal team rather than replying.