# Could a 'internet' work without a ISP

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-internet-work-without-a-isp/556450>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 8, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-internet-work-without-a-isp/556450 "2010-10-08T02:52:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-internet-work-without-a-isp/556450/1 "2010-10-08T02:52:58Z")

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Using wireless technologies could we just link up everyone’s houses to each other to create a internet instead of going through ISP’s?

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**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-internet-work-without-a-isp/556450/2 "2010-10-08T03:17:27Z")

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Yes. It’s called a mesh network. OLPC [does this](http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Mesh_Network_Details).

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**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-internet-work-without-a-isp/556450/3 "2010-10-08T16:12:28Z")

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> [@tellyworth](#):
>
> Yes. It’s called a mesh network.

Well, it’s not quite that simple. That is, it depends on what one considers “a internet”. Hmrf. Let me try again.

Certainly, mesh (or, perhaps more appropriate here, _ad-hoc_) networks can operate. My reservation in giving an unqualified “yes” is that many (most?) people don’t really get what “a internet” is; for instance, without DNS and its corresponding authority servers, we don’t really have world wide web capability (because root authorities are mutually exclusive with a pure ad-hoc network). Furthermore – although I’m not well-versed enough in current mesh network theory/practice to be sure – I’d suspect that there are practical limitations on the size/scalability of an ad-hoc network; for instance, an inter-continental network would clearly have connection issues without pre-existing routes. Yet I think that many (most?) people assume (that is, don’t put much thought into it, if any at all) that the internet is _necessarily_ global.

Perhaps a more concise answer is: theoretically, yes; practically, not really.