[upbeat instrumental music]
Everybody has issues with their internet.
Hey, is your guys' internet working?
No! Nobody's is!
Whether it's an unnecessary bundle, data limits,
[beeping] or speed.
[whooshing]
It's not working, Gerald.
But, it has to work!
Maybe if I-- Your internet's not working,
Gerald, face it!
[screams] What's happening?
[bells jingling]
But, this guy actually did something about it.
My wife came home with the bill
and I said there's gotta be a better way.
He built his own internet service company
from his garage. [playful instrumental music]
[Garage door opening]
This is where all the magic happens.
This is-- [laughing]
This is Brant and this is his garage.
It's the DIY hub of internet connectivity
in Dillon Beach, California.
The way I engineered the service is kind of like
an irrigation system.
The green lines actually represent sort of a big,
fat virtual pipe that brings strong internet service
to the different areas of the community.
Just basically liberating information to the people.
But, Brant wasn't always a DIY internet guru.
[electronic music]
In fact, before building his own ISP,
he swore off technology altogether.
[funky instrumental music]
We came out here six and a half years ago.
I was finding what I needed kind of out on the water
and outdoor activities.
In hindsight, I think I can look back at,
and I call my Luddite phase.
Let's roll. Come on.
Let's get on board.
But I didn't really know where it was taking me
at the time.
All the while, I think my family was suffering a little bit.
They felt pretty isolated out here.
He loved that it was away from everything,
which was exactly what was the most challenging
for me and Emma.
I think it was a good couple of months
that we had no internet and I felt a little resentful.
We're kinda stuck out here in this isolated place.
[whooshing]
It became apparent that Emma would need internet for school.
The burden that my daughter felt for school was heavy.
She was bouncing back and forth
between staying late at school, going to the public library,
maybe going to Starbucks when the library closed
and she still wasn't done with her homework,
but it was very slow.
Public Wi-Fi is just terrible.
The cell phone service was really our only option,
but that proved to be extremely expensive.
My wife came home with the bill, $707.
[thudding]
That was the last straw.
There's gotta be a better way to do this.
[thudding]
He's not one to just sit back just sayin' there's nothing
that we can do.
He will find a solution.
[soft piano music]
I knew that there was a cell phone tower
in our close proximity.
I thought maybe that would be a good direction
to start investigating.
So, Brant begins searching for the cell tower.
After chasing down utility trucks,
he eventually found it and the company
that owned the fiber line attached to it.
But, he had a problem.
No one would return his calls.
It was like silence for six months
and then one day I got this call out of the blue saying,
now, what is it you're trying to do out there?
[laughing] I'm like, oh, my gosh!
I can't believe it.
I get to talk to somebody.
I just want the internet,
I don't wanna play these games or whatever,
just open the pipe up and let me have access.
After months of negotiations,
Brant eventually got a fiber line installed directly
into his garage.
That really solved my [laughing] internet problem!
Some of my closer neighbors asked if they could buy in.
I was just being bombarded with people just saying,
hey, sign me up, sign me up, sign me up!
And, I didn't even know if I could do it.
Hey, Terry, how are you?
Good, you remember Clara? I do, oh, my goodness.
I was actually really skeptical about it.
I was imagining that the service would be bad,
the speed would be slow, we'd have problems.
So, have you been able to get out on the water lately?
He's got this great energy about him.
[thudding]
Not at all afraid of us pestering him about our service.
My partner and I can actually both work
from home at the same time,
which would never happen with the other service.
To have that choice of something
other than the bigger companies
that were providing terrible service has been huge.
[upbeat instrumental music]
Right here, actually, is the fiber coming into my garage.
My interface to the fiber connection.
This head end unit really is the brains
for disseminating all the information,
which go to the antennaes up on my roof
that actually get the signal out there.
That's how we do it.
[Gentle wave sounds]
I feel like there are no limitations now.
Now that we have internet and it's fast and it's good.
Emma was ecstatic.
She'd just finished her freshman year at Berkeley.
I think she saw it as him doing this for her.
It just, it made her happy.
[upbeat instrumental music]
So, the spirit of DIY in my mind is anybody who wants
to just take the bull by the horns
and get it done themselves.
There's no restrictions, I mean, you just go.
Especially out here, it's like the wild west.
It's kinda nice.
So, what's next for you?
What's next for me?
I think I wanna learn a little bit about editing DNA.
[uplifting instrumental music]