As cities become more involved in data-driven processes of growth and governance, critical
scholarship has highlighted the formidable issues around ownership, uses and the ethics of
collecting, storing, and circulating such data. However, there has been less focus on the
physical infrastructure as the ‘last mile’ problem for Internet access, between a revanchist
perspective on the ‘broken Internet’ delivered by digital capitalism and the liberal rhetoric of
the Internet as a human right. Through two case studies, the paper plots a pragmatic
trajectory in the adoption of the Internet for people and ‘things’, in which city and users take
different roles and responsibilities. It highlights benefits and challenges around the long-term
sustainability and maintenance of the Internet as an infrastructure of the commons. An
attention to ‘commoning’, instead, reveals the exclusionary or enabling practices the smart
city might foster. Thus, the paper advocates for the direct involvement of the city and its
citizens in maintaining and reproducing connectivity networks in the smart city
