We often speak about the internet as if it existed in “the cloud,” as if our data, services, and communications floated in some abstract, weightless space. This metaphor is convenient — but it hides an important reality.
In the sky there are only radio waves and satellites — just a small fraction of the internet. The vast majority of the network lives here on Earth: in cables buried underground, fiber running across landscapes, antennas on rooftops, routers in cabinets, servers in buildings, and devices powered, cooled, repaired, and paid for by real people.
The internet is not immaterial. It is physical infrastructure. And physical infrastructure neutrality, might be easily challenged or threatened.
Where services are located matters — politically, economically, environmentally, and socially. Location affects who controls the infrastructure, who has access, whose laws apply, who pays, who profits, how resilient the system is, how much energy it consumes, and whether communities can understand, influence, and maintain the networks they depend on.
The “cloud” narrative distances people from their own infrastructure. It turns a collective system into something that appears remote, untouchable, and owned by someone else. Community networks challenge this idea. They bring the internet back down to Earth — into places where people can see it, learn from it, participate in it, and govern it.
Understanding the material reality of the internet is the first step toward technological autonomy and democratic control of digital infrastructure.
In the following section, we describe how commons.guifi.net is built — starting from the physical layer and moving upward — to show how connectivity can be constructed as a shared, community-governed resource rather than a distant service delivered from an imaginary “cloud.”