A network that
works without a network.
We're building a discussion forum that runs over radio instead of the internet. Small devices pass posts from device to device — across a city, over kilometres, without cellular, without Wi-Fi, without a data centre. That sounds like emergency gear. It isn't. It's an attempt to bring back a certain kind of conversation we've lost.
What was there before
The mailbox era
In the late 1980s, long before the internet, Germany had networks like MAUS. You dialled in by modem — that screech and hiss older people still remember — downloaded the new posts, hung up, and read offline in peace. You wrote replies offline too. They went out on the next dial-in.
The call cost money by the minute. So you were brief. And because reading and writing happened offline anyway, you were thorough. Posts lived on so-called boards — sorted by topic, like pinboards in a hallway. Everyone subscribed only to the boards they cared about.
The discussion had a shape
Every post knew which one it replied to. Out of that grew a tree: a question, three replies, replies to each. You could follow a train of thought even as it branched — unlike today's chat logs or comment sections.
Brevity was forced, not asked for
Not because someone made rules, but because time literally cost money. Whoever rambled paid for it. Then the internet came, bandwidth became practically free — and with the free-ness, the reason to be brief disappeared.
What's possible today — LoRa
A radio technology built for the opposite of what cellular does. Free to use, no licence, no contract, no provider.
| Cellular | LoRa | |
|---|---|---|
| Data volume | huge | tiny |
| Range | a few kilometres | several kilometres, sometimes ten |
| Power draw | high | so low a battery lasts years |
| Needs infrastructure | yes, cell towers | no |
The catch is a big one: it's incredibly slow.
Transmitting a single photo would take hours. And there's a legal limit — each device may only transmit 1% of the time, so the band stays usable for everyone. In numbers: about 700 messages per day per device. That's all.
The real idea: the pager trick
The obvious way doesn't work. You could send every post over radio — at 700 messages a day that's quickly over. One long text, and the day is spent, for everyone in range.
The trick: anyone who remembers the 90s knows pagers. Little boxes on your belt that beeped and showed a phone number. The pager never transmitted a message — it just said “call back.” Almost no radio capacity. That was the trick. We do the same: only a tiny notice goes over radio — “new post in board X, first 40 characters, and here's its address.” The actual text lives elsewhere, retrievable the next time the device sees Wi-Fi.
Radio cost depends on how often something happens — not on how much is transmitted.
This notice is always the same size — two lines or twenty pages. The limit is suddenly negotiable. 700 notices a day is plenty for a neighbourhood forum.
Keep it to 140 characters — SMS length — and the whole post fits into the radio notice. No fetch, instantly readable, everywhere.
That's the heart of it. MAUS forced brevity through phone bills. We force it through audience. Both work because it's not a rule, it's a fact.
Why it's a good idea
It's not Twitter
Twitter never had structure — everything in one stream. Here every post knows what it replies to: out of 140-character snippets grows a readable tree. And with no room for quotes, the posts that are 90% the thing they reply to disappear.
It belongs to no one
No server to switch off, no company changing rules, no algorithm. The devices belong to whoever put them on the roof. If one fails, the message finds another path. No place to pull a lever.
It works when nothing works
Solar and battery. In a blackout, a dead zone, on an overloaded network it keeps running. But: we're not building an emergency system — a network that only runs in a disaster is broken in a disaster. We build something for everyday use that doesn't fail in an emergency.
It makes you think
When talking is free, there's a lot of talking. When every post uses radio budget someone else then doesn't have, you consider first whether you have something to say. The same mechanism that made MAUS good — this time built in on purpose.
What it is not
Honesty is part of it, otherwise it's advertising.
It replaces no forum
If you have the internet, you have it better. This is something else, not a substitute.
It's slow
A post takes minutes to your neighbour, hours to the other end of the city. Like 1991 — only today the law is to blame, not the modem.
It's text
No images, no video, no files. If you need that, you're in the wrong place.
It has a social catch
Whoever never has internet reads only the short posts, and of the long ones just the start. Two classes in one discussion — whether that grates has to be shown by a real field test.
Where we stand
The concept is fully thought through. What remains is a measurement that decides everything else.
How much radio budget does the underlying software spend on its own housekeeping before a single message even flows? If the answer is “little,” the way is clear. If it's “a lot,” part of the design has to be rebuilt.
Two radios, one weekend. That's the next step — and you want to know the number before anyone writes code. How that looks technically is in Architecture & Transport.