Editing Internet access (section)

====Sneakernet====
{{Main |Sneakernet}}

The term, a [[tongue-in-cheek]] play on ''net(work)'' as in ''[[Internet]]'' or ''Ethernet'', refers to the wearing of [[sneakers (footwear)|sneakers]] as the transport mechanism for the data.

For those who do not have access to or can not afford broadband at home, downloading large files and disseminating information is done by transmission through workplace or library networks, taken home and shared with neighbors by sneakernet. The Cuban ''[[El Paquete Semanal]]'' is an organized example of this.

There are various decentralized, [[Delay-tolerant networking|delay tolerant]] peer to peer applications which aim to fully automate this using any available interface, including both wireless (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi mesh, P2P or hotspots) and physically connected ones (USB storage, Ethernet, etc.).

Sneakernets may also be used in tandem with computer network data transfer to increase data security or overall throughput for big data use cases. Innovation continues in the area to this day; for example, AWS has recently announced Snowball, and bulk data processing is also done in a similar fashion by many research institutes and government agencies.