Havana residents wired their LAN parties together into a 100,000-address street network

Around 2010, Havana residents played pirated LAN-party video games over small, cable-linked intranets that rarely reached past a building or block. Cuba's US embargo made routers and network equipment nearly impossible to buy legally, and internet access was expensive, slow and reached only about 16% of the population by 2011. That year, more than 100 residents decided to unify their hyperlocal networks into one citywide structure they called SNET, the 'street network.'

SNET's founders sourced routers and cable through Revolico, Cuba's Craigslist equivalent, and relatives traveling abroad, repurposing household-grade $60 routers for links that would normally need $500 professional equipment. As neighborhoods joined, each ran its own servers, forums and hacked game mirrors, with volunteers enforcing rules against politics and harassment to stay under the government's radar. At its peak, SNET had an estimated 100,000 IP addresses, funded by voluntary user tip jars rather than any company or state budget.

Wire existing LAN parties together with $60 home routers

The embargo made buying professional network equipment illegal, so the workaround had to run on consumer gear that was legally purchasable.

Linking existing LAN parties rather than building from scratch meant SNET grew on infrastructure and habits already in place, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Strict, volunteer-enforced content rules against politics and pornography kept SNET below the threshold that would have triggered an immediate government shutdown.

A user-funded tip jar let the network scale to roughly 100,000 addresses without needing outside capital that would have invited scrutiny.

Where legally importing the 'right' equipment is impossible, federating what you can already get your hands on can scale further than waiting for the professional version.

State telecom ETECSA expanded public WiFi hotspots in 2015 and nationwide 3G in 2018; by mid-2019 the government authorized private home connections, and new laws required community networks to register and be state-supervised. Cuba's government absorbed SNET's role, requiring former members to donate equipment to a state-run intranet. Parts of SNET's original platforms never migrated to official servers. 'In a way, the state was the big winner,' founding member José Javier Mena Mustelier told Rest of World.