Davis Community Network (DCN) is one of several hundred community networking initiatives now being spawned in the U. S. and
throughout the world. Community networks are local responses to the needs of urban, rural and ever growing edge communities
in a globally evolving information society. They are taking a variety of forms and fulfilling various functions in response
to their social, economic and technical context. DCN is a notable example of the community networks that were jump-started
with government or corporate funds in the early to mid-1990s. Broad based community partnerships, a sound economic foundation,
an educated and participatory public, and clearly understood goals and benefits, are the still rare combination of factors
that result in successful community networking ventures. Non-local factors, such as government policies and private sector
telecommunication infrastructure deployment timeframes, also weigh heavily into the equation. The information society is in
the early stages of an evolutionary development. Community networks must frequently reassess and reinvent themselves in response
to greater local-global changes. Davis Community Network hopes to continue to learn lessons and to demonstrate possibilities,
as all communities, homes and people eventually become nodes in a ubiquitously networked society.