FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The Althea blockchain is the future of telecommunications and consumer financial services. Creating a decentralized, secure, and reliable platform for Althea’s pay-per-forward bandwidth market.
What is Althea?
Althea is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) platform and blockchain that enables the coordination of multi-stakeholder networks. Althea decouples the service and infrastructure layers of Internet delivery and coordinates transparent and programmatic revenue sharing.
Using Althea’s platform, networks can be built faster and more economically than ever before.
Althea’s flexible payment structure opens new markets and supports new entrants into the market, by enabling them to capitalize on underutilized bandwidth and real estate.
What does "GAMER FAST" mean?
Unlike legacy models, Althea networks do not throttle or sell speed tiers, so you will always have the fastest connection your hardware will support. Utilizing state-of-the-art traffic management across the network and at the router level, Althea networks efficiently deliver the best experience for video conferencing, streaming, and, of course, gaming.
Most households will see speeds of around 50-100Mbps for wireless and in fiber networks, speeds can be 500Mbps and up to 1Gbps.
How does Althea improve on services provided by traditional ISPs?
1.
Structured as a smart contract on a blockchain, Althea’s innovative model for internet delivery decouples the service layer of the network from the underlying infrastructure, enabling investment into fiber networks in unique and sustainable ways.
2.
Althea’s pay-per-forward protocol allows a radical new approach to coordinating payments with bandwidth and network routing. This method is radical in its simplicity and efficient enough for near limitless scalability.
3.
Althea's pre-paid model and always-on Free Tier enable flexible payments for any budget and enable broadband access for more people.
4.
Hardware agnostic, Althea's platform can be utilized with fiber, LTE, and fixed wireless, enabling networks to grow and carriers to capture markets that were difficult to access.
How does the end user experience Althea Internet?
Quickly, easily and seamlessly! Althea’s network delivers high-speed broadband to the end user, and Althea’s upcoming distributed LTE service brings seamless carrier roaming to your mobile phone and smart devices, without cumbersome roaming agreements.
How can I participate in the Althea Network?
Example of a revenue share and roles in an Althea Network.
There are four roles in an Althea network:
1.
Bandwidth provider: Bandwidth providers play a passive role by running an Althea Node. They purchase a wholesale internet connection or serve as a middle mile provider and connect to an Althea Network.
2.
Relay: Providing real estate and an Althea node which forwards bandwidth.
3.
Network operator: A network operator gets paid for supporting and installing users (on a daily "uptime" basis) from live routers in the network. This role is supported by the Network Operations Center.
4.
Network Operations Center: A Network Operations Center (NOC) is run by companies who support the operators with technical support, logistics and planning. Currently Althea’s parent corporation Hawk Networks is the primary NOC, but we anticipate an ecosystem to grow.**
How does Althea currently operate?
Althea’s novel pay-per-forward model operates on the xDai blockchain, representing 70% of xDai’s microtransaction volume over the last year (as of January, 2021). Althea routers seamlessly bridge payments in Ethereum and Dai to the xDai platform.
How will Althea operate in the future?
A typical Althea user will use a payment portal to add funds to their account. These will be transparently converted to Dai and, using Althea’s cross-chain Gravity Bridge, will be sent to the Althea blockchain. The Althea blockchain will be secured by a distributed network of token holders and validators that process transactions.
Why does Althea have a blockchain?
Last-mile telecom infrastructure is siloed behind restrictive contracts and agreements that preclude an open bandwidth market. However, at deeper layers of the internet, bandwidth is sold between carriers as a metered commodity. Althea creates an open marketplace: from the data center down to the last mile of internet access. Althea D-LTE (distributed LTE) will allow seamless carrier roaming, without cumbersome roaming agreements, directly to the device in your pocket.
This open telecom marketplace allows for both new entrants and existing carriers to interoperate and earn revenue. Althea’s multi-stakeholder model solves the friction of accessing revenue from rural, low income, emerging markets, and the complexity of capex and coordination of infrastructure build outs, including 5G and fiber.
The Althea blockchain is secured by a distributed network of token holders and validators that process transactions. By contrast, centralized payment solutions require permissioned coordination, and are often restricted by bespoke regulation or restrictions.
