Shortwave radios offer a way to connect one location on Earth to practically anywhere else with minimal infrastructure. But these radios come with some drawbacks—a significant one being that, unlike satellite communications , their transmission rates for digital data are typically measured in just hundreds of bits per second .

Peter Bloom

Peter Bloom is the founder of Rhizomatica, a nonprofit that works with remote, indigenous, and off-grid communities around the world to build shortwave and cellular-communication infrastructure.

Peter Bloom is the founder of Rhizomatica , a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that has open-sourced a digital shortwave-radio set called the High-frequency Emergency and Rural Multimedia Exchange System , or HERMES. The set operates in the high-frequency (HF) band from 3 to 30 megahertz, as does Mercury , its digital modem. Rhizomatica staff travel around the globe to remote locations in countries like Bangladesh, Brazil, and Ecuador.…