Magma began as a project to bring modern software defined networking techniques to bear on the challenges of rural Internet access. Our experience building rural networks taught us that policy-rich network edges and simple fabrics were a broadly applicable design approach for building flexible, low-cost, and scalable networks, even outside the data center. Magma’s early design decisions reflect this core insight as well as our earliest use cases: small-scale, low-cost community networks and for coverage extension through federation with existing mobile networks.