Community Wireless Networks (CWNs) are a fairly new phenomenon. One of the first projects, NYC Wireless, started in 2001. These wireless initiatives are often a response to the lack of high-speed ubiquitous computing. Many of the first users, frustrated neighborhood “techies,” jerry rigged low cost WiFi antennas to rooftops and the side of buildings in order to access a high-speed broadband service. By doing this the wireless pioneers shared high speed wireless signals with neighbors and anyone within reach of their signal. As wireless computing became more popular, and it’s social and economic benefits more obvious, CWNs became an attractive alternative for many rural and low-income urban communities. Populations that had been overlooked by large cable and telephone service companies. The success of CWNs has paved the way for municipalities to build publicly supported wireless projects. Cable and telephone companies, major providers of broadband service, view municipal networks as unfair competition, and thus began the legislative battle over municipal wireless networks. The battle continues to wage. Cable and telephone companies have had some success at the state level and the federal debate is underway at this moment. Therefore, the purpose of this report is to understand the role Austin’s nonprofits play to ensure that high speed broadband access is made available for everyone and how lessons learned in Austin can be applied to other cities and locations around the country. The study found that Austin, compared to other cities of the same size, has a very small nonprofit community to addresses the issue of universal broadband access. Although the group is small, networking and mingling between community service organizations, the city government and wireless projects has created a community that effectively addresses the issue of high-speed access to the Internet. / text

La thèse repose sur une étude longitudinale d’une technologie de réseau émergente (le logiciel MESH Commotion) et des agencements d’actants qui l’entourent (personnes, objets, organisations, discours, etc.). Ce dispositif, parce qu’il revendique explicitement qu’il est politique au sein de différents plis socio-historiques, produit différentes versions de lui-même qui articulent de manière singulière les notions d’agentivité, d’infrastructures et de biens communs. Par cette politique ouverte et assumée, il nous invite à comprendre la notion de médiation sous un jour nouveau : la médiation infrastructurelle. L’enquête menée rend compte des différentes interprétations de ce logiciel ; elle cherche à comprendre si cette technologie représente une forme de démonstrateur qui permet de penser différemment les forces des infrastructures de télécommunications et leurs emprises sur le lien social. Pour ce faire, ce travail se caractérise par un parcours ethnographique particulier qui, par le milieu, saisit les manières dont différentes versions de ce dispositif sociotechnique sont instaurées. Les résultats de la recherche rendent compte des tâtonnements successifs des acteurs qui visent à faire émerger une forme sociotechnique encore peu reconnue, mais ils dévoilent également les éléments nécessaires à une opération de médiation infrastructurelle. / This dissertation is concerned with a longitudinal study of a computer network technology referred to as the Commotion wireless MESH software, and the assemblages of actants that come into contact with it (such as people, objects, organizations, discourses, etc.). I argue that this apparatus produces different versions of itself that uniquely relates the concepts of agency, infrastructure and the Commons because it explicitly claims to be both technical and political within different socio-historical folds. By assuming such an overt political stance, it invites us to think through the notion of mediation in a new light (infrastructural mediation). My research methods reflect different interpretations of this software by seeking to understand whether this wireless mesh network technology represents a compromise solution to redefining the forces that constitute telecommunications infrastructure and its hold on the social bond. To do so, my dissertation expands on a particular ethnographic path which, “by the middle”, attempts to understand the ways in which the existence of a socio-technical system is established. I argue that the establishment of a socio-technical apparatus does not amount to pulling it out of thin air, but rather to make it become what it is. The findings reflect the successive trials and errors that go into this process of developing a sociotechnical and mediatic form that has yet to be recognized, while also shoring up the constitutive elements of a mediation process between the Commons and telecommunications infrastructure.