Press Release: Enfield, NC

Wave 7 New Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New Internet Service Provider (ISP) launches in Enfield N.C., offering new way to access broadband internet. [Enfield -- June 2nd 2020] Althea [https://althea.org/], a system that enables communities to build and maintain their own decentralized internet infrastructure, today announced the upcoming build out of a new network in Enfield. Wave 7 Communications started in April 2020 is one of the first Althea networks to launch in the Halifax County

04 Jun 20202 min read

Press Release: Knappa, OR

Clatskanie Co-op Launches High Speed Broadband Service in Knappa, OR FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Clatskanie Co-op is excited to announce that it is ready to expand its Althea high speed fixed wireless internet service into Knappa in collaboration with local IT professional Stephen Shumaker. The central connection to fiber, located at the Knappa Market & Chevron station, is scheduled to go live this Wednesday, June 3rd! Once operational, they will begin installing antennas to connect residents who w

04 Jun 20202 min read

Press Release: Watertown, TN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Elwell Internet Brings Inexpensive, Reliable Internet Access to Wilson County Watertown,Tennessee,May 29,2020-- Co-Founders of Elwell Internet, Derek Elwell and Dylan Thraen,have partnered with Althea Networks to provide faster, cheaper, de-centralized wireless broadband to residents, business owners, and schools in the Wilson County communities with little or no internet access. Elwell Internet provides a system that lets routers pay each other for bandwidth. This a

04 Jun 20201 min read

Blockchain

Althea Blockchain Update

We want to begin by sincerely thanking all our validators and community members who have supported our project through many months! TL;DR * In 2019, we successfully completed the testing of our custom transaction library and Althea testnets 1-4. * In late 2019, we began work on the design and evaluation of the "Peggy" ethereum-to-cosmos bridge. * In early 2020, we arrived at an improved Peggy design that meets all of our needs. However that is when COVID-19 hit. * Since COVID-19,

09 May 20204 min read

Africa

Althea in Nigeria

Written by Yakubu Yakubu, Nigerian Network Operator/Coordinator Diplomats Park Nigeria has the largest population in Africa at about 200million citizens. However, only 46% of the population have internet access via cellular carriers. Many people lack adequate and qualitative internet connectivity, This is due in part to inefficiency in coming up with innovative technological solutions that address the situation and also big telecommunication companies who would prefer to monopolise the ind

22 Apr 20204 min read

Rapid Connectivity Response

Rapid Response To address the immediate need for more broadband infrastructure we have put together a Rapid Connectivity Response. This is a plan to build a 100Mbps, affordable broadband network in as little as two weeks. This method can be deployed in both rural and urban environments to rapidly build or expand a network. Althea networks are adaptable, locally based and can be deployed rapidly. Traditional ISPs struggle to make the economics of providing connectivity to rural communities work,

25 Mar 20204 min read

March Community Update

In the US, 65% of consumers get their internet from just two cable providers. These providers charge too much for slow service and leave behind many Americans who can’t access the internet due to cost. But what if anyone could start or grow a network? What if we could take back our choice, control, and ownership of the internet? Over the past few months, Althea has helped make that dream of ownership and choice a reality for Americans in rural Oregon, Tacoma Washington, and Denver, Colorado. M

04 Mar 20204 min read

abuja

2019 - A Year in Review

2019 has been a key year for Althea. We implemented our billing software and grew our network in Oregon. From there, we launched a training and onboarding program which brought in new network organizers, each starting a new Althea network in their community. In the latter part of the year, two new networks came to life in Tacoma and Abuja, Nigeria. In the New Year, we are looking forward to building our own blockchain on Cosmos, wifi hotspot to phone capability, and seeing many more of these net

30 Dec 20195 min read

abuja

November Community Update

We are excited to share the latest Althea news! Over the last few months, many of our prospective deployments are getting close to launch, and networks in Tacoma, Washington, and Abuja, Nigeria have broken ground. New Altheahoods have also started in Phillipsburg, Tempe, DuBois, Grand Island, and South Africa. The network in Clatskanie, Oregon has around 50 subscribers now and over 70 people are waiting for Althea internet. The reach in Clatskanie continues to grow mostly through the efforts of

22 Nov 20194 min read

Althea

Althea and MakerDAO partner for Abuja Network powered by Dai

Althea, a system that lets routers pay each other for bandwidth, is launching its first network in Africa in early November 2019. An initial pilot network will start with about 15 participants. A partnership between MakerDAO and Althea will then help bootstrap the expansion of the network, bringing in more gear and better bandwidth. Althea is a decentralized ISP solution, operated by local people, where neighbors resell bandwidth to neighbors, creating a distributed network of routers paying eac

04 Nov 20193 min read

Althea business

Introduction to Researching Market Potential

Researching market potential is an important part of starting an Althea network. While adding more links to an existing Althea network is relatively easy, setting up that network is similar to starting a wireless ISP business and requires research and planning to ensure that take rate and revenue make sense. The three basic things to consider when evaluating an area are wholesale backhaul, competition, and an understanding of the community and demographics. Wholesale Backhaul Buying backhaul

02 Oct 20192 min read

altheahood

Getting Started with Community Outreach

Networks are made out of more than antennas and ethernet cables. They are homes and business - neighbors - connected to one another. These neighbors can also become relays, forwarding bandwidth to nearby homes and earning money. Althea organizers are project managers that spread the word and help coordinate installation, planning, and outreach. Community Outreach usually starts by establishing a social media presence.  If you are planning a network primarily comprised of businesses, you may con

09 Jul 20194 min read

Althea

June Community Update

Over the last month, Althea organizers have been working to develop local partnerships and gain traction in their communities. Several organizers have chosen the “Altheahoods” approach to starting their networks, and have begun gathering pre-registration sign-ups prior to build out. Using social media and door-to-door canvassing, the hilltop organizers have gained traction at a brisk pace with 39 sign ups and several business have stepped forward to become relays or gateways there. In Newberg, O

01 Jul 20192 min read

Althea business

A Sustainable Network

The novelty of the Althea system [https://althea.org/how-it-works] is how it incentivizes a diverse group of partners within the network and automates their collaboration. Local organizers work together with home and business owners to host infrastructure that relays bandwidth throughout the community. This unique collaboration can give rise to a variety of different setups and economic models. In this post, I’m going to explore two frequently used economic models, and I encourage creativity in

17 Jun 20194 min read

fcc

Digital Divide Narrowing Substantially?

It's June 2019 and today I'm going to install a new subscriber of our cooperative ISP in rural Oregon. This family had previously only access to 1Mbps wireless or an expensive 4Mbps DSL connection. This is not a new or isolated incident. I receive calls every day from people in my community that are desperate for broadband so they can access education, health care or work online. So, when the FCC posted the results of the Broadband Deployment Report [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/29/fccs-broa

10 Jun 20191 min read

Altheamesh

Althea in Los Mochis

On a sunny day in the city of Los Mochis, Mexico, Althea organizer Raul, runs a speed test on an expensive 20Mbps connection. 20Mbps, which is not even considered broadband in the US, is about the fastest connection available in the city. Today, like most days here, the speedtest shows an underwhelming 1Mbps of download speed. Raul is here to change this - to bring real improvement to both the cost and speed of internet, starting in Los Mochis and growing to all of Mexico. Raul installing a Mi

01 Jun 20191 min read

Altheamesh

May Community Update

We launched six new Altheahoods communities in early May. An Altheahood community is selected by an organizer as a potential deployment.  Local organizers then work together with the Althea team to get people signed up and “pre-registered” prior to committing to a buildout. One of these organizers, Perri, had been struggling to find good internet access for her parent's 80 acre hazelnut farm and recognized that an Althea network might be the solution for her community of Newberg, Oregon. Perri a

27 May 20192 min read

Altheamesh

Faster, Cheaper Internet in Medellin Colombia

Before the Red Medellin team brought in Althea's innovative technology, options for internet access were limited in Comuna 13, one of the sprawling urban communities on the hills surrounding Medellin Colombia. A few of the homes had low-speed DSL access, but most people relied on expensive cell data plans. Many of these data plans “zero rate”, or give free access to sites like Facebook and WhatsApp, while charging high prices for the rest of the web. This gives people a very narrow perception of

14 May 20192 min read

April Update

Taking a note from Google's rollout of their fiber networks, we are introducing the new Altheahoods program! This program supplies organizers with the marketing tools and internet presence to get end users signed up and on board prior to building out the network. This is a good tool to evaluate if an Althea network will be viable in your neighborhood, and requires very little investment to get started. Shoot us an email at hello@altheamesh.com if you are interested in bringing a faster, cheaper,

22 Apr 20192 min read

Althea in Medellin

My trip to Colombia Entonces(enˈtonses/, [ẽn̪ˈt̪õnses]) — One of my favorite Spanish words. It means then or so. I like the cadence, how it fills the awkward space in a sentence and how it conveys a sense of time and place. My trip in Colombia was a journey through time and place, the logistics of project management — The first this, then that and the witnessing of a unique place at a unique time in history. How Medellin, a once violent place, has transformed itself and revitalized its economy

21 Mar 20199 min read

Altheamesh

March Update

We were so busy building and growing I think we missed an update in February! We now have 23 users in Clatskanie [https://blog.althea.org/tales-from-the-field/], and several relays (a relay is a node that has a connecting antenna and an antenna that broadcasts to neighbors – relays make money by forwarding bandwidth). People in Clatskanie are now paying for their internet by loading Ethereum on to their routers [http://www.althea.org/top-up] using the Coinbase mobile app with a debit card and

20 Mar 20192 min read

Tales from the Field

It was raining. It always seems to rain just as we pack up the rig with all of the antennas, cables, and tools. My fellow subnet organizer, Shaun, and I were heading to install a new Althea user. A few previous installs under our belt, we are getting better at packing the necessary tools and the process of installing seems to take less time. It's still takes about an hour and a half to install or sometimes several hours if there are complications. As we pull up to the house, Shaun eyes a dense

27 Feb 20195 min read

Blockchain and Broadband

It’s difficult for big telecom to make money selling bandwidth to small rural towns or low income urban areas, otherwise they would already be there. Internet poverty exists because there is little economic incentive for those who build the internet infrastructure to provide service to these areas. This is further complicated by the centralized nature of legacy ISPs, which are slow-moving and utilize rigid and expensive pathways to build out infrastructure. Currently, government granting progra

12 Feb 20192 min read

Net Neutrality

Althea in rural Oregon

This article is about a network started by Deborah Simpier, who has been working on incentivized mesh for years, but joined the Althea team a couple months ago. She started this network before joining our team, and was actually Althea’s first user.

11 May 20184 min read