San Francisco Community Colocation Project is a non-profit that provides a community-based, low-cost colocation facility with optional support and services. We lease full and half rack blocks and pass the costs directly to our members, who pay for single unit spaces at full rack rates. The colocation facility provides UPS protected power as well as network access controls. SFCCP policies protect members' privacy rights. SFCCP supports world-wide non-profit and community-oriented enterprises.

About SFCCP

The San Francisco Community Colocation Project is a community-based provider of internet connectivity services for non-profits, community groups and open source, free software initiatives. Our primary goals are to provide affordable connectivity and a space where online free speech and privacy are protected. Mainly, SFCCP operates a server colocation facility in San Francisco. Our 'colo facility' provides proper mounting, power and internet uplink for rack-mounted servers that are required for hosting websites, e-mail, databases and other related technologies. These types of facilities are the backbone of the internet, where all the hidden magic occurs that brings websites into web browsers.

SFCCP also provides trainings for non-profits related to freedom of speech, privacy and other digital rights as well as on-going training in system administration and computer programming for the internet.

SFCCP charges our hosting memberss at-cost. Using a publicly-known formula which accounts for rental charges, power & bandwidth expenses and organizational overhead, we bill each member for exactly their share of the overall monthly bill that we pay to our upstream provider. A non-profit organization would normally find this type of high-availability server hosting extremely cost-prohibitive. We make it possible for non-profits to have the same high-quality hosting that commercial entities use for their online presences.

SFCCP is uniquely structured to protect online freedom of speech and privacy. When a commercial colocation provider receives a copyright violation take-down notice, subpeona or any other order from a corporation or government agency, they immediately comply without question. It's simply not profitable for them to do anything else and their Terms of Service normally indicate this. However, SFCCP has existing relationships with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) and other pro bono digital rights attorneys that we consult with before taking any action relating to such an order we might receive.

By putting ownership into the community, we increase the likelihood that someone within SFCCP would be the person contacted about such an order and we can then take action with the goal of preserving the freedom of speech and privacy for our members. This model has already been tested when we were involved with our predecessor organization (California Community Colo) and we received a take-down order from the Diebold Corporation relating to documents posted on a website we were hosting. These documents proved that Diebold's e-voting machines were vulnerable to ballot fraud while publicly, Diebold was saying that such vulnerabilities didn't exist. With the help of the EFF, we fought their order in the courts and we won, setting an important legal precedent and protecting the freedom of speech rights for the client. Complete information about this incident can be found at: http://www.eff.org/cases/online-policy-group-v-diebold

SFCCP encourages community participation in all aspects of our organization. So, we maintain a volunteer organization of system administrators who provide support to each other, we have a 24/7 online IRC chat room where everything is co-ordinated and members can turn to a vibrant, participatory commons to get help whenever they need it -- and they, in turn, are encouraged to pitch in to this effort with their knowledge and skills. Not only does this lower our overhead while providing excellent support services but participants are also benefiting by knowledge transfer and training that happens as part of this whole process.

Our target market is comprised mainly of non-profit organizations and open source, free software projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, we also host servers for parts of the world where this type of facility is extremely expensive -- mainly, Latin America. We host a number of servers for Latin American community initiatives and our organization has strong ties to Latin America. One of our founding members is Brazilian and another founding member lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Community Colo's Network

SFCCP is one of many community colocation projects around the country and is part of a growing movement to provide affordable, untethered internet access to a wide variety of non-profit entities and individuals, social justice organizations, and Open Source projects. We are currently the only non-profit, community-based colo in California, as the original, California CCP, ceased operations in late January 2007.

Our values are rooted in the notion that information and technology infrastructure should be available to all without government or corporate interference. We are fervently free speech and believe that the free flow of information will only help our communities thrive.

We have sister projects in the following cities around North America: Seattle, Chicago, New York, DC, and Toronto (Canada)