Commotion 1.0 is an open-source toolkit that provides users software and training materials to adapt mobile phones, computers, and other wireless devices to create decentralized mesh networks so they can connect and share local services.

A mesh network can function locally making local sites and services available, but when one user connects to the Internet, all users will have access to it as well.

“A mesh network is stronger when more people participate, so we designed Commotion and the Commotion Construction Kit so an entire town or neighborhood can take part in designing, building and using the network. It’s family friendly technology.”

Commotion was developed and has now been released as version 1.0 by the Open Technology Institute of the New America Foundation.

Here is their announcement of the release

New America’s Open Technology Institute Releases Commotion 1.0 Mesh Networking Toolkit

and a PDF fact sheet that gives a more visual description

The Commotion Wireless Project

“When local communities don’t have access to communications infrastructure, whether from natural disasters, prohibitive costs or the work of repressive regimes, people suffer. Seeing the need to address such challenges, and the failure of infrastructure evident in situations like those following Hurricane Katrina, a handful of media activists and technologists came together to figure out how to help people connect with each other at a low cost and using their local electronic resources.”

I would think that, apart from challenging situations mentioned in the fact sheet, this could be a great community building tool in any neighborhood, especially when combined with locally available content and services that don’t depend on an internet connection to function. It’s a ‘poor man’s internet’ that only connects to the world when necessary to reach someone outside the community or to get data that isn’t available locally.