‘Joseph Bonicioli and his fellow Athenians built it. They did so by linking up a set of rooftop wifi antennas to create a “mesh,” a sort of bucket brigade that can pass along data and signals. It’s actually faster than the Net we pay for: Data travels through the mesh at no less than 14 megabits a second, and up to 150 Mbs a second, about 30 times faster than the commercial pipeline I get at home. Bonicioli and the others can send messages, video chat, and trade huge files without ever appearing on the regular internet. And it’s a pretty big group of people: Their Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network has more than 1,000 members, from Athens proper to nearby islands. Anyone can join for free by installing some equipment. “It’s like a whole other web,” Bonicioli told me recently. “It’s our network, but it’s also a playground.” http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/08/creating-an-alternative-internet-to-keep-the-nsa-out-2742440.html
http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/athenians-set-up-their-own-internet.html
In 2011 fear of repression spurred scholars and activists to start building Alternate Internets.
‘Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia U., is developing the Freedom Box, a personal server that makes data harder to intercept. “The Net we have is increasingly monitored, measured, and surveilled everywhere by everybody all the time,” he says. “Our Net has been turned against us.”‘
ukgovernmentwatch 