Commotion Wireless is an
open-source wireless mesh network for electronic communication. The project was developed by the
Open Technology Institute, and development included a $2 million grant from the
United States Department of State in 2011 for use as a
mobile ad hoc network (MANET), concomitant with the
Arab Spring. It was preliminarily deployed in
Detroit in late 2012, and launched generally in March 2013. It rose to fame in the USA with Hurricane Sandy in 2012: After the storm took out all the internet and telephone lines in New York, Commotion was the only communication network still up and running in the city. The project has been called an "Internet in a Suitcase".