Community involvement makes FreeNet an important and accessible meeting place, and prepares people for full participation in a rapidly changing communications environment.

Due to its volunteer and donation-based model the organization failed to keep up with the rapid technological changes that occurred in the 1995–2000 period and lost most of its membership to commercial ISPs as a result.

Later it floundered trying to make ends meet and finally established itself in the niche market of providing services to disadvantaged segments of the community.

Jay Weston of the Carleton University Department of Mass Communications and George Frajkor of the School of Journalism and Television Programming invited Dave Sutherland, the director of the university's Computing and Communication Services Department, to have lunch and discuss the concept of establishing a free-net based on the concept of the Cleveland Free-Net.

[7] A committee independent of the university was formed under Sutherland's leadership and started meeting weekly that same month to lay the groundwork for the free-net.

With help from Industry Canada, Sun MicroSystems was persuaded to donate a computer and Gandalf Technologies provided the first modems.

- Julie Chahal[11]By April 1993, NCF had reached the limit of their first server in offering 58 dial-up phone lines and started upgrading to faster 14.4 kbps modems.

NCF spent much of the year in fundraising activities to meet its mandate in the face of rapidly rising demands for service and the need to purchase new hardware on an ongoing basis.

[21] In June 1995, the organization adopted a Statement of Values that was based on free and equal access and specifically that there would be no charges for membership or Internet use, that the same services be available to all people of the region, unfettered communication and respect for the rights of others.

[20][22] By June 1995, NCF had 43,515 registered users and was taking action to make use of the then new World Wide Web through introduction of the Lynx text browser, among other preparations.

The AUP made individuals, and not NCF, responsible for their content posted on newsgroups and on the web, banned spamming, and provided guidance on offensive material and on personal attacks.

[29] The organization had been using a set of rooms at Carleton University since its inception, but the addition of ever more equipment and of four staff members put pressure on NCF to find new accommodations.

NCF not only established free-use computers in public places, such as libraries, but also made use of volunteers to teach classes, run drop-ins, and act as speakers to other organizations.

NCF established a formal Electronic Resource and Access Centre staffed by volunteers at the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

[34][35] Early in December, the three people who made up the full-time NCF staff moved into a new office, Dunton Tower at Carleton University.

[37] 1997 marked the earliest indication of a spam problem on NCF newsgroups with some members being identified as having cross-posted messages on multiple groups and again over consecutive days.

The Executive Director responded saying:[39] Many NCF members, and users of the Internet around the world, are becoming frustrated by the increase in commercial e-mail over the last three months.

It is just like those annoying pizza flyers that keep arriving in our mail box and go straight to the recycle bin...Developing solutions will take a little time.

[39]The organization's financial picture stabilized as members responded well to the requests for donations combined with some austerity measures, such as not replacing one staff person.

[41] In June, the incoming and outgoing executive directors collaborated on project planning for the near future and identified that the organization needed to focus on reliability and network upgrading, improving online service versatility and NCF's financial picture.

[42][43] NCF was able to count amongst its key partners, providing hardware, software and financial support: Fulcrum Technologies, Ingenia Corporation, Gandalf Canada, Dantek Computers, Ottawa Public Library, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Hardware Canada Computing, Loran Technologies, Netscape and Carleton University.

[47] By March 1998, NCF was running 13 computers, of various models, and a range of operating systems, including Solaris 2.5 and 2.6, SunOS 4.1.2 and 4.1.4, Linux 2.0 and 2.0.33, and Windows 95.

For example, in March 1999, Hardware Canada Computing donated a Horizon UltraSparc III UNIX Workstation valued at more than Cdn$8,500.

Cope emphasized that NCF had developed a niche market in service provision – low income citizens who were at risk of being left out of the Internet and all its benefits.

[77][78] To provide more technical assistance with the server upgrades and other issues, NCF hired former Nortel employee Glenn Jackman as a second sysadmin in July.

For the first time new members could sign-up securely online, pay by credit card and complete their inputs to the SQL database directly.

[96][97] In 2006, he NCF financial picture started to improve early in the year with more members making donations, plus 235 DSL subscribers signed up.

Executive Director Ross Kouhi noted, "The customers that have high-speed tell us they kind of get that warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that we're a member of the community.

[118] In January 2014, the faster service was made available to both residential and organizational subscribers, and NCF launched its fastest DSL plan: up to 50 Mbit/s for downloads and 10 Mbit/s for uploads.

"[126][127] For the organization's 25th anniversary a paper book was created, entitled AA000 25 Years of National Capital FreeNet, edited by Alex Parsons and distributed under a Creative Commons license.