The Los Angeles Community Broadband Project

In late 2013, Los Angeles City Council began a push for a citywide Wi-Fi network at no cost to citizens. It would bring internet access to the estimated 30 percent of Angelenos lacking reliable high-speed internet connection, giving many low-income residents a boost up in the economy. But the project, called CityLinkLA, never materialized.

Josh Shapiro, a 29-year old 3D modeling producer, has a plan to help upset the status quo. He’s building the Los Angeles Community Broadband Project (LACBP), a wireless internet service provider that would beam affordable high-speed internet from Culver City to the Hollywood Hills. Building fiber infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming—but advances in radio communications tech is making it easier to bypass much of the construction and bureaucracy involved in connecting the masses. LACBP also hopes to safeguard net neutrality for users and undermine the corporate stranglehold major Internet service providers have on the market.