As an organisation, we sprang into life in 2002. CLAN – an acronym for Community Local Area Network – was our first major project in Bristol, initially linking the 3 locations in Easton, Bristol, where we worked. This was a resident-led effort and provided the initial core of the Bristol Wireless network, which was built using lowest-cost materials (e.g. cantennas) and became in itself a study in conservation and the re-use of materials.
The physical impetus to birth of the project was the discovery of five working Dell Optiplex desktop computers complete with network cards thrown out in a bin in Bristol city centre.
The first incarnation of our website, featuring more information on CLAN, is preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
