Here we outline what we mean by the bandwidth layer, and why it is significant.
Distributed digital systems all involve transmissions of data and communications between computers. This is what we call the bandwidth layer. It corresponds broadly to 'wide area networks' and to national and international internets.
> Bandwidth layer - a commons of **signal transmission and processing**: cables and satellite capacity, wayleaves and base stations, data centres and routers, switches and ISPs, regulations and contracts; and all the associated **practices** and alliances.
One of the best initiatives we know of in the bandwidth layer - indeed, the only well-developed instance we can cite at this stage - is the Cooperative Network Infrastructure that has been pioneered in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and other parts of England.
In the CNI, broadband networks are owned by municipal authorities and usage of the bandwidth is allocated across both private-commerical agents (including national digital networks) and local-public agents (including local government, libraries, hospitals and community digital-tools centres). [Cooperative Network Infrastructure proect](https://cni.coop/about)
The bandwidth layer on a local scale might consist of mesh networks for example or, another example, implementations of Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) protocol. On a large scale the bandwidth layer is problematic because major elements - like transoceanic cables or satellite stations - are in private ownership, heavily under state regulation, and often of military significance.
Developments and experiments in the bandwidth layer are politically valuable, not least when they weave together with the planet layer (as in resilient, low-tech, post-collapse means of digital connection, for example: in place - at least locally - for the 'always on' internet).
> Project proposals in the bandwidth layer might be more difficult to frame as viable initiatives - they are the 'heaviest' in material terms and most local in material scope - and might thus be more erasy to fund when they *are* well framed.