Report on the Existing CNs and their Organization (v2)

This deliverable is devoted to build a homogeneous mapping of the Community Networks netCommons is working (or intends to work) with in Europe, plus a general overview of the many facets of the Community Network concept around the world, with the goal of providing a sort of taxonomy plus a rough global quantification of the phenomenon. For the development of the analysis framework we have worked in close collaboration with a few of the Community Networks (CNs) that are most representative and more relevant, one way or another, to the netCommons project. This report builds on and extends D1.1 (M6) with further elements of commons theory, more details and coverage of additional CNs, a mapping of CN web sites to show the inter-relations among them, a typology of international CNs, and a expanded taxonomy for comparison and typology. The report first of all reviews and partially re-define the concept of commons in the context of modern society and technologies. Next a description of the general framework for the comparative analysis of different CN instances is given trying to set a “reference conceptual architecture” that can help understanding different organizational models and different implementations of CNs. After this general and theoretical analysis, the deliverable reports a detailed analysis of a selection of CNs: guifi.net, FFDN, Ninux, AWMN, Sarantaporo.gr, Freifunk, and CNs from INCA, that are representative of European initiatives. These CN have inspired the development of the general framework; An extensive list of many self-proclaimed CNs around the world and further details collected from a few of them closes this descriptive part of the Deliverable as an Appendix. This report concludes task T1.1: “Mapping of CNs” and contributes to achieve objective O1.1 “Mapping CNs providing a description of relevant CNs structure and organization to other WPs”.