The Internet turns 50! Time for a New Economic Model to Free the Internet
How Proof of Connectivity can enable the deployment of internet services and internet access everywhere
With the Nodle Team, we have been working for the last 24 months to deploy a data network leveraging what I call “the smartphone infrastructure”.
After implementing and operating our prototype of network architecture for IoT devices, we decided to release our white paper.
We wanted to make it public for some time and call for all your comments and suggestions to be able to improve the model. We made it available to some of the grand fathers of the internet like Tim Berners-Lee, Paul Mokapetris @svnr2000 , or Vinton Cerf.
I first discovered data networks in France with the Minitel in 1982. At that time, you could query large data bases of data like the phone book, make your first online reservations for travels or chat with strangers. Even if the applications were very limited, it was a real success that paved the way of the commercial internet. It enabled to create a profitable model for access that was replicated by the first internet providers.
I still remember the first time I was able to surf the web in the early 1990’s with a modem and by paying access through a toll/surcharged number with AOL. The model worked for some time and service providers were distributing free CD-Roms in magazines to advertise and popularize the access. Then the toll numbers were quickly replaced by subscriptions and slowly the dial up technique was replaced with DSL and cable.
Since that time and with the massive global adoption of the mobile internet the access model vary from a prepaid fix access fee for a certain amount of data to an unlimited monthly data plan fee.
This current model has been extremely successful but there are still regions of the world that lack internet access and services availability can still be very challenging.
I consider internet access as one of the most important rights in our current society. If internet access was available and free from anywhere, anyone on the planet would get the same equal chances to learn from an early age and therefore to realize their dreams.
In our model, we created a cryptocurrency, it enabled us to make payments immediate and incentivize each and every single bit of data moved. Cryptocurrencies have no borders and therefore create a global network, similar in nature to the internet network.
The demand for data in one part of the world can incentivize access in another.
We believe the proposed architecture in the white paper is not limited to internet access and that it can be leveraged for many other valuable mobile services that can operate on top of the mobile internet. This wouldn’t be possible without the use of the blockchain technology. We think it is very appealing for the use case we describe.
We feel we have highlighted the path to a new generation of services that so many other blockchain projects tried or are trying to build. A generation of new services where users are directly rewarded for sharing the resources of their devices and for completing tasks. It has the potential to reach billions of people and impact their life positively.
This work has been made possible thanks to the contribution of the whole Nodle Team: Garrett Kinsman, Marlinski, Eliott Teissonniere, Isaiah Pan, Jay Goldberg, and myself Micha Benoliel
