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Introduction

Welcome to the Community Network Handbook — a practical guide to building and running community networks from scratch, even with limited resources.

This chapter explains why this handbook exists and who it's written for. If you're eager to get your hands dirty, feel free to skip ahead to Chapter 2 — but we recommend spending five minutes here first.

How to read this book

The handbook is divided into four parts:

  1. Introduction — You are here. Motivation and context.
  2. Imaginary Use Case — A fictional story that walks you through building a community network step by step, from the first router to a full deployment.
  3. Guide — Detailed, step-by-step technical instructions for every technology mentioned in the story.
  4. Real Use Cases — Field deployments where these ideas have been applied in the real world.

We recommend reading Chapter 2 (the story) first, then jumping into Chapter 3 (the guide) for the specific technologies you need.