Pro/Con of Decentralized peer-to-peer WiFi or LoRa networks
The idea of buying WiFi or messaging communication on a layer 2 internet or No KYC peer-to-peer internet that completely reject’s the government’s infrastructure and surveillance is very appealing. The ideal situation is using some kind of no-government DNS messenger such as Briar with bluetooth or LoRaWAN messengers with layer 2 internet. However, many projects have implementations of this that are either not yet ready for real use, or I disagree with their approach.
This is a general overview of SOME of the projects in this space. Please keep in mind that mentioning a cryptocurrency does NOT mean I’m endorsing their coin. Many of our readers dislike shitcoins. But this isn’t an investment article, it’s a tech article to benefit YOU and not to promote the coins, so you can someday use these concepts in whatever currency you do like.
Helium
https://www.helium.com
Pro: Largest LoRa (Long Range Wide Area Network) out there. This is bluetooth based coverage for IoT. The technology can potentially be used for LoRaWAN messengers which is basically a full-blown off-grid 2nd internet type mesh networks
Con: It’s not WiFi, we’re talking about IoT bluetooth. The range on WiFi is much lower. They may be developing something similar for WiFi in the future
Pollen Mobile
pollenmobile.io
Pro: Peer-to-peer WiFi, this is basically like a reseller market. People buy physical infrastructure and erect it on a satellite thing on their roof. It’s teamed with multiple providers, but one is Starlink, providing a secondary market for Starlink.
Con: They will be doing PCN crypto payments in the future, but right now, it’s temporarily only US dollars. It’s unclear when they will shift. Their test pilot involved government officials voluntarily agreeing in California, so not exactly crypto-anarchy but still progress.
Chirp
https://www.chirpstack.io/
Pro: This is real LoRa off-grid, and not a reseller like Pollen. 150+ cities. Hardware is original.
License-free 2.4 GHz LoRa frequency so fuck regulation.
Con: Managed by AI. That’s lame bullshit for decentralization. I can’t find the white paper on their website, but I can find the influencers program. That’s a bad sign.
WiFi Map
https://www.wifimap.io/
Pro: Crowdsourced WiFi mapping funded by crypto. In other words, people map out where you can get free WiFi for a reward for updating the map.
Con: Proprietary AI technologies help manage the map. Socialist purpose, to provide “free coverage to all”. This is NOT about defying the government. They’re hosted on Amazon and use Google.
Drop Wireless
https://dropwireless.io
Pro: Blockchain w/ LoRaWAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and more services. A lot of options for users.
Con: They openly WANT to collect metadata and use it for AI machine learning. This company should stop pretending to care about blockchain and just be a gig economy company. Maybe they’re trying to get around laws by masquerading as decentralized.
Karrier.One
https://karrier.one/
Pro: WiFi and cell service peer to peer
Con: Tries to comply with telecom regulations by tying blockchain identity to government phone numbers.
ThreeFold
Pro: GrapheneOS phones with decentralized service network.
Con: Spread out too thin on capital. Why are you selling pre-orders of phones if you need millions of dollars to do a network also? We already got Graphene phones, just sell/give us the new tech.
Resources
Where can you learn more about Decentralized infrastructure?
Check out this site listing projects, https://depinhub.io/
As one of the MANY examples of LoRaWAN messengers. Here’s TheNico14’s github:
https://github.com/TheNico14/LoRaMessenger
Helium is quite over-the-top in their promises of KYC and constant surveillance, despite their feeble bandwidth. A lot of the others you list are no different.
But they have to be like that - no non-KYC internet will be permitted in the First World, my government would unflinchingly escalate all the way up to airstrikes on our cities to prevent a project openly working on a non-KYC internet.
Which is a good reason to look into doing just that, especially since KYC network infrastructure is increasingly complex, fragile and supply-chain-dependent.
But to avoid drawing the "Eye if Sauron", we have to start small and build out.
And avoid single technologies, single suppliers, and unified governance structures, like all the above projects.
Reticulum uses non-KYC globally unique identifiers easily generated and not linked to any other ID, and can bridge multiple physical-layer technologies, including but not limited to LoRaWan.
https://reticulum.network/manual/hardware.html
It is FOSS, and technically quite capable of duplicating the Internet's functionality in a fully decentralised way, but more typically used to create smaller networks of any scale that can easily be bridged.
I already run a Reticulum node over For, but this holiday break I want to test out building some #offgrid LoRa-based nodes. I have the modules sitting there, just need to make the time! Less #nostr shitposting, perhaps :-p
That gets me thinking: I would be open to setting up an access point at my home for the public that shares my bandwidth and charges in sats⚡ per GB used.
I'd simply route all traffic from that AP over a VPN connection to avoid DMCA notices etc.
Even if it does not create a profit, it's still a nice pitch for Bitcoin lightning payments!
Someone please create a router firmware to easily setup these public APs! 😀
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