Tangible Sharing, Invisible Mechanisms: The Design and Implementation of the BayanihaNets Access Sharing Network

Cooperation through resource pooling may help deliver affordable connectivity to those without subscriptions and improve access bandwidth for those with existing connections. Using the concept of *bayanihan*, a Filipino expression for a deeply traditional and cultural type of cooperation, we designed and implemented the *BayanihaNets* access sharing network, a cooperative system that delivers connectivity through the practice of *bayanihan* among its users. It induces *bayanihan* by making sharing tangible to the users, through mechanisms that highlight the altruism they exercise in sharing connectivity and the negative impact of selfish actions, if any. Our strategy of promoting and enabling network resource sharing as a social activity is achieved through the use of the familiar interfaces, mechanisms and idiom from social networking applications: our approach may thus be described as social networking through social networking. We discuss our *bayanihan*-based design principles and present our initial experiments on bandwidth sharing in a controlled environment.