Update 11/29/15 Necessity is the mother of invention, so of course we have have a need. Sprint purchased Clearwire communications and then chose to shut them down. We have had Clear since 2007 when it was first available in our area. It has been ideal as we are off grid and the wimax service was adequate for our needs. To fix this we have established a 3.5 mile connection with a tier one service and have it brought down to the house.
Update 8/18/14: I have been researching and thinking a lot about this subject lately. I believe that we can combine solar, wind, microcomputers, and long range routers to achieve what we are looking for. I will elaborate in a project log.
I would like to begin an open source collaboration to create a true egalitarian internet. An internet with access with low to no barriers for entry. An internet without corporate providers. Let's make the "last mile" a public right.
The idea is to create a base system that is repeatable, relatively inexpensive, reliable, and challenges the status quo. The basis of this idea comes from a situation that I have witnessed personally that is the direction of the internet today. In America, we are disillusioned that we have the best of everything in the world. The fact is that we have a fairly miserable internet speed for the developed world. However, we are charged more and more for less and less access everyday. There are companies fighting net neutrality and even pulling out of rural access. The taxpayers paid for the infrastructure to provide wide spread broad band access yet the companies control and charge more and more for the lines. Their chief argument seems to be that we need to pay more so that can innovate and give more access. They even have organizations like the NAACP and LULAC schilling against net neutrality. The truth is that I have witnessed in the last month a cable company pull out of my home town. My parents have been left with wireless access choices that are extremely limited or prohibitively expensive. My parents switched to Verizon and the $70 unlimited plan turned into $70 10GB plan and then turned into a $500 per month bill for two months use. It is not right and I can only imagine others that have been further limited.
I along with most of us believe that information should be freely accessible and available. An educated society is a civil one. That is why I am working on this project. The goal is to provide and alternative to the current system and provide access to the internet in places that it is not either available or affordable. I also believe that communities could actually fund projects like free wifi for the entire community.