Well, the first question is: what would we do with an alternative internet? Once you know what you want to do, you can go about deciding how to make it possible.
What would an alternative net be used for? For instance, if it's mainly chatter and emergency contacts, then amateur radio already satisfies that. You don't even have to learn Morse code any more to have a license to operate your own station.
None of the major services like search, banking, etc. will exist on an alternative net. No google, bing, ebay, amazon, facebook. We could host FreeRepublic.com on the alternative net, but where will the articles come from if none of the source sites are on the alternative net?
No one will want the responsibility of providing DNS for an alternative net, except people you don't want to trust with DNS.
And on and on... I'm not pooh-poohing the idea in principle, I'm just trying to see what direction to start off in.
So let's first decide what we would try to do with an alternative net. Thoughts?
how many millions of Americans have amateur radio sets?