Community Network Builders Gather in Seattle for First-of-Its-Kind Conference
This is not your father’s broadband conference.
It’s CNCon in Seattle, an inaugural gathering for those running community networks or looking to start connecting people the big monopoly providers have left digitally disconnected.
Registration for the November 20 in-person event — Community Networks Conference (CNCon) 2026 — is now open here.
Hosted by the Seattle Community Network and Local Connectivity Lab, conference organizer Esther Jang tells ILSR the gathering will be geared for community network operators to geek out, “share, learn from each other, and build together,” adding that they are also putting out the call to community network aficionados who have closed shop and can talk candidly about why, and what went wrong.
“Building community-based networks is rewarding but incredibly challenging, and we want to create a support network for these groups to work together and strategize towards common goals,” Jang said.
Big Tent Approach
“For this first conference, we are taking a big tent approach,” Jang says. “We want to be inclusive of folks with broadband projects as well as those who are operating emergency or disaster resilience networks, to see what we might all have in common.”
Attendees will explore tradeoffs in network operations — fun vs need vs profit — and address differences between working with fiber, fixed wireless, mesh, and Long Range Radio (LoRa) Internet access technologies.