Eillie Anzilotti

Starry, the startup that is trying to beam cheap internet into low-income communities

Based in Boston, the internet provider Starry has launched Starry Connect, an initiative that equips the common areas, computer rooms, and hallways of the Boston Housing Authority’s Ausonia Apartments with free 5G internet for residents. More public housing developments, both in Boston and in other cities like Los Angeles, will come online soon through the program.

Why Low-Income Communities Are Building Their Own Internet Networks

With major telecommunication companies not offering broadband in poorer neighborhoods, community organizers are training locals to manage and implement their own networks to create equity and opportunities. In Detroit (MI), the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) is stepping up to meet that need.

See How The Telecom Industry Is Quietly Changing The Shape Of Our Cities

Once the photographer Rian Dundon began seeking out cell-phone towers and transmission boxes, he started seeing them everywhere. Dundon’s resulting series of photographs, taken around the Bay Area, are scant on people, but instead highlight the telecommunications infrastructure–from tall, tree-like towers to clusters of boxes and cables–that have slowly taken over our cities and landscapes. The infrastructure, Dundon says, serves as a way to think about ideas and concepts that are largely invisible, namely, our creeping dependence on constant communication and data usage.