  As of 2022, about 2.78 billion people in developing countries do not have
access to the Internet. Lack of Internet access hinders economic growth,
educational opportunities, and access to information and services. Recent
initiatives to ``connect the unconnected'' have either failed (project Loon and
Aquila) or are characterized by exorbitant costs (Starlink and similar), which
are unsustainable for users in developing regions. This paper proposes SONIC, a
novel connectivity solution that repurposes a widespread communication
infrastructure (AM/FM radio) to deliver access to pre-rendered webpages. Our
rationale is threefold: 1) the radio network is widely accessible -- currently
reaching 70% of the world -- even in developing countries, 2) unused
frequencies are highly available, 3) while data over sound can be slow, when
combined with the radio network, it takes advantage of its broadcast nature,
efficiently reaching a large number of users. We have designed and built a
proof of concept of SONIC which shows encouraging initial results.
