There was once a time when I couldn't quite make sense of the world's foray for a stable, uninterrupted globally enthused internet connection. Everyone seemed to have their lives built around the internet, which at that time, was regarded as the greatest revolution yet. With Facebook, Google fashioning themselves into new toys for grown-ups, I felt quite gratified that I was not part of the mad throng, which to me would eventually crystallize into a stampede.

However, in truth, my warped euphoria was mostly due to the tiny precinct I had for a home and it was not until I left my little community for college that I began to see that I was many steps behind the world; for all it mattered, I just might as well be living at the bottom of earth. So, in a way, I snailed my way to the center of the world very late but not late enough to miss the frustrations that came with trying to be attuned to the rest of the world via the internet.

Back at my higher institution of learning, not a day went by without any of the Internet service providers in school going savage on us. Whenever, we needed to carry out a 'Googling' assignment or we wanted so bad to giggle over Facebook and Whatsapp, we would have to walk far distances to places we thought were internet friendly, and then if that didn't work, we would lift our phones close to any place we saw a mast (I now wonder if this ever worked).

Our frustration with the internet was further compounded by the expensive data plans doled out by the prevalent ISPs. Although these ISPs try hard to reduce the cost of these data plans by introducing packages, with fanciful names like "Easy plan", "Pulse", "Smart Trybe", that were appealing to the student community, none of these customized plans quite much satisfied most students, as they all came with certain restrictions- you could only use some of these plans at night and for others, one was bound to keep losing a stipulated amount of good airtime so long as that plan was active.

Most times, to carry out a task that just couldn't wait, the best bet was to get connected to the school WiFi by buying a relatively cheap scratch card (INTECU) whose code gave one access to the school internet. And then, one would have to wait till midnight, go all the way to strategic skyscraping departments (the most popular being the Chemistry department often called 'White House'), and then sit on hard pavements with other students in search of 'network'. But then, due to the congestion on the WiFi network, accessing the internet was usually a slow, grueling and often futile effort.

However, although I could not bear the mounting problems that came with accessing the internet anywhere, any time and at relatively low costs, I couldn't but try and keep up with these challenges because I couldn't imagine my life without the revolution of the internet. Nobody can, actually. Small scale businesses, industrial companies and creative enterprises all need the service of ISPs to comfortably carry out their profiteering activities. But day in, day out, the disillusion that comes with the ever increasing demand to access the internet via the ample ISPs available is massive.

Although I knew that a solution was bound to come, what I didn't know was that a second revolution called the blockchain was well underway, and congruent with that, a lot of possibilities will be unlocked. So yes, for a second time, I walked my way into a revolution very late, but not late enough to miss out on Bandz, an emergent blockchain driven solution to the problems confronting internet accessibility and commercialisation.

BandZ and its Potency in Radicalizing the Internet Access Industry

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To sufficiently guarantee an understanding of Bandz, it is important to know what Bandwidth is. According to Digital Unite,, bandwidth is..

"... the rate at which data can be transferred to your computer from a website or internet service within a specific time. Therefore the amount of bandwidth you have (the bandwidth 'strength') determines the efficiency and speed of your internet activity... It is generally measured in ‘bits per second'."

Bandwidth is everything when it comes to determining the speed and effectiveness of the internet. I am almost sure that we, at one point or another, have come across a notification that says our bandwidth limit has been exceeded even right here on Steemit, and until we power up, we are most likely going to experience challenges assessing our blog. The same goes for the world out there, the amount of bandwidth available for use largely influences our accessibility to the internet. Solving a problem in this regard is largely the inspiration behind the name, "Bandz".

Bandz aims to completely get rid of the commercial restrictions pegged on the availability of bandwidth to just anyone by decentralising the internet. This will be made possible through their timeless innovation of creating a secure global extranet powered by the blockchain. What this means is that by running a Bandz node on any such device that has an internet connection or joining a BandZ pool, just about any user's node can become "a contained intranet (that) can provide services (VPN, mesh, proxy, bandwidth sharing, and addional cloud services) to other users by treating all nodes other than itself as an extranet network" (Bandz Whitepaper). This advantageously publicises and makes easy "the ability to access and provide enterprise grade soware P2P", hence "making internet connections censorship-resistant, secure, cheaper, as well as accessible over larger distances and in low infrastructure areas."

Benefits

An appeal to the statements made above and it is not hard to see the immense benefits of BandZ's vision to create an ultrafast, ubiquitous, “distributedly-managed" global extranet that decentralises the internet and makes every internet user a service provider in their own right.

Considering the present unequal accessibility to the internet arising from geopolitical availability of bandwidth, the integration of BandZ globally will expand users' reach to the internet just as it will prompt ISPs to reduce the cost of accessing the internet anywhere one is. Security is guaranteed Again, erstwhile unavailable software services that were once closed to the general public due to their sheer cost will be made accessible. This is not to talk about how the embrace of BandZ by major competitive ISPs will reduce the cost of data plans for all. One great extra to the Bandz network is the tight notch security guaranteed by the added Virtual Private Network (VPN) advantage that has been added at no cost.

Even more, BandZ, as a radical solution to the global tussle for a decentralised internet, does not just count for individual users but also for the ISPs themselves. Just as it applies to the individuals, several ISPs will be able to network symbiotically with other companies; this will not just help these companies as a collective whole to make fruitful researches, it will also increase the range of internet access across the global map, thereby enabling those in Africa, the Middle East and several uncharted territories to have access to the internet as well as an undisturbed service to those who travel offshores frequently.

The rate of accessibility being increased, the gross profit made by these ISPs will also increase by an infinite proportion. And there is yet one more important benefit- the prerogative to translate bandwidth services and the internet as a whole into real expendable currency, thereby adding more value to the customers lives as well as making the ISPs more relevant for the future. In reality, Bandz is a concrete actualisation of what has always been at the locus of the several upgrades following the discovery and invention of the internet at the hands of the US military.

The Mesh Network and its Advantages

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In my nostalgic reminisce, I touched on how over-reliant people in remote areas (like where I schooled) could be when it came to networking with available Wi-Fis and the unbearable congestion that follows. But then, it is not exactly the fact that the Wi-Fi is being overused that results in congestion, it is the strain that comes from solely depending and relying on a connection that can barely stand on its own. In this regard, the seemingly perfected Internet of Things (IoT) is flawed with regards to this. BandZ intends to solve this problem by creating "nodes for internet devices of all sorts to connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically and cooperate with one another to route data from/to clients" (Bandz Whitepaper).

What this does is enable each client to contribute in a symbiotic and mutual manner towards ensuring a stable, speedy, and low-cost internet access. In this sense, several smart phones, laptops and other routers can "connect to each other’s WiFi so that internet ranges and accessibility can be improved." (BandZ
Whitepaper). It's like gathering a group of well experienced chefs in a kitchen and instructing them to cook up a pot of stew. Without doubt, each experienced chef is bound to bring some inventive ingredient to the table, hence causing the stew to turn out great. Although the Mesh net(work), as it is called, is yet to span across different devices from very different locations (that is, it is not yet interoperable), the possibilities of being able to reduce the dependency on a single node by spreading out functions to every other node is immeasurable.

First, throught the synchronised packets and personalised bandwidth limits provided by the mesh network feature imbued within BandZ, the potentials of IoT are fully maximized.
Again, mesh networks makes it possible for individual internet users to access the internet even in places where there are no WiFi connections.
Even better, the cost of roaming (that is, using the internet in a country other than yours) is drastically reduced. And for the ISPs, as more people get connected to their bandwidth or network through the mesh network, the Average Per User increases.
And the best part of it is that st the failure of a few nodes, a meshed network still renders an optimum performance. This is due to the ability to self configure the mesh net and distribute tasks in a dynamic, customized manner.

Let's Roam a Little

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As much as the Internet has spread its wings across several countries, it seems to hate traveling a lot which explains why on earth accessing the internet in a foreign country is more difficult and expensive as buying a gramophone This is not to say that the internet is unfriendly, but with the fluctuating bandwidth limit, varied standards and different mode of operations that cut across boundaries and nationalities, we cannot expect any things less when it come to acccessing the internet.

However, Bandz provides a chain of solutions to the challenge of roaming services. As earlier mentioned, the mesh network is one such solution. But more than that, as the whole concept of a global extranet comes to play in the filed of the internet access industry, as opposed to the prevalent intranet system, ISPs all over the world do not need to expend a lot of hardware resources, given that other parties apart from the private networks can very well provide internet services to other external users. Even companies can network and pool together their resources in harnessing the potentials of the internet. Inadvertently, the cost for accessing the internet from anywhere becomes cheaper even as the services offered increase in parallel ways.

It wouldn't be too much of an overstatement to say that the premium solution of translating bandwidth into a currency which can be bought, exchanged seamlessly and converted into real value, will reduce, if not exterminate the crises of exorbitant roaming charges.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

In the search for securing data and private communications, many companies, and even individuals have taken to accessing VPNs. This has made the global VPN market scale to $1 billion USD. And even amidst the misconceptions at large associating the technology to the submerged devious activities of the mass media, it is still expected to break through new frontiers and gain further grounds. But even at that, the market is rarely accessible to the general public not because most internet users don't want to grant the right of privacy to the stored files stored on their electronic devices, but because they can't be bothered with the sophistication and complexity of VPN. BandZ, in redressing this problem, is stepping in to decentralise VPN and make the technology not just more security enhanced but also accessible to as many internet users who can just as much click a button.

BandZ (BNZ) Token: Commoditising Internet Services

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The integration of crypto economic incentives into blockchain based solutions is no news. These incentives comes in form of tokens that sit dock in a cold room, and with a whiff of a wand, increase in value till they are iced enough to make some anxious investors and speculators rich. The BNZ token is different as "it is not intended as a value storage. It is not a security by any means... (it is meant to)commodi ze internet services, turning data packet transmission directly into currency." With the BNZ token, ISPs can offer more value to their customers and even data can be bought and sold between on a peer to peer basis, as would be done with Fiat. Indeed, what better service to commoditize globally than the very one that connects everyone globally?

To herald the BandZ token sale, BandZ is soon to give out airdrops. Check on the website for more details.

A Use Case

I have dwelt a lot on the frustrations that come with being a student in a community that is decapitated when it comes to accessing the internet. Let's see how things would be different with Bandz. In a school like mine, being a student of Geophysics means one thing: travel. And yes, we travel to the weirdest places on Earth. It could be the sunlight city of Israel with its unusual rocky topology or the plain deserts of Kenya.

So, on a beautiful Friday morning, I and my colleagues touch down at Jerusalem and we were taken aback by its historical sites. We want to take pictures and flaunt them on the school social media accounts, but the roaming charge is way beyond us. With Bandz at our beck and call, we can easily connect to the network, buy bandwidth at a fair price and post selfies to our hearts' content. Posting pictures while in Kenya exploring desert lands wouldn't be a problem too because we can just as well connect our different phones in a Bandz mesh network.

So after a fruitful excursion, I get back to school only to discover that my home country is due for a faceoff with another country in the ongoing FIFA world cup. I can't miss out on that, but I don't have data. Rather than squabble with the boys at a football center, I can simply knock on a neighbour's door, buy data with my accumulated BNZ and live stream the match. It wouldn't take me long to watch us being thrashed with a two to nil outcome, and in a fit of anger, I can vow not to sell my BandZ tokens in an attempt to watch any match this FIFA season, but to save it for our upcoming trip to.... (I will leave that to your imagination).

A Cosmic Nutshell

A popular proverb puts it to everyone that "what Manchester says today, the rest of England says tomorrow." With the ingenious innovation of channeling the blockchain into doing service for the internet just as the internet did for the blockchain, the visioneers of BandZ have seized today, taken tomorrow by the horn and ran wild like matadors into the future. Indeed, with BandZ, tomorrow is looking good.