A commercial telco and a mesh network are not different ways of solving the same problem. They are built on opposite assumptions about how infrastructure works. Understanding why that matters is the key to understanding why regional Australia keeps getting left behind, and what to do about it.

The Economics of Absence

In regional and rural areas, the connectivity gap is not a failure of effort or ambition. It is the predictable output of a particular economic model.

In the Wimmera Mallee town of St Arnaud in 2023, around 300 residents joined a tractor rally through the streets to protest renewable energy infrastructure. At a community meeting about the proposed VNI West transmission project, government representatives were heckled until Victoria Police advised the meeting be adjourned. More than 80 landholders signed a declaration refusing survey access to the company responsible for building the transmission line. Many of them had first learned their properties were in the proposed corridor through a QR code in a local newspaper.

A follow-up to Monocultures Are Dumb by Design

Let me be direct about where I stand.

I work in technology. I have spent over two decades building open-source infrastructure, mesh networks, and digital tools designed to put capability into communities’ hands rather than extract it from them. I believe in technology that serves people. I have seen it do exactly that.

And in the contest between family farmers and the Monsanto playbook, I have no difficulty choosing a side.