With the FCC on the verge of killing net neutrality in the USA, and telecommunications being oligopolies (even if Tesla/Google/Facebook et al were to succeed in doing a loon/satellite thing, this wouldn't change), maybe it's time to think twice about how we build our Internet, particularly the wireless variety.
We've seen several highly significant decentralized or distributed technologies emerge during the last decades: The Internet itself, BitTorrent, Cryptocurrencies, IPFS. A significant part of the Internet is accessed wirelessly, however, and mobile networks are highly centralized, as are the currencies used to pay for being allowed to access them.
So how about creating a decentralized Internet based on mesh networks? It could work in tandem with the existing Internet, in particular when bridging large distances, but in any area with a certain population density, why couldn't every single phone be converted into a wireless router, as forming part of a mesh network? The radio technology could be re-used from 5G research, at least on the phone side. Communication would obviously need to be encrypted end-to-end in all cases. The only way to block access in a given area would be to use interference radio transmitters; magnitudes more difficult than intercepting telecom-based Internet traffic. The other major way to block access would be to prohibit the use of mesh-enabled mobile devices in an entire country. And it would be very hard to cross bodies of water or wilderness, so there fallback to Internet via cable or satellites would be required. But this doesn't mean the idea is unusable, just that it won't be able to ever cater to 100% of humanity's communication needs. It doesn't need to do that to have a big impact, though. It just needs to be available where it matters.
Imagine this kind of network, and the things it could enable.
- A corrupt state controls media and controls the Internet. But on the mesh network, traffic flows freely. Bye bye state Internet control.
- A corrupt state spies on its citizens without due legal cause. But on the mesh network, their traffic is encrypted, and there are no centralized logs of their connectivity, their sessions, their network activity. Bye bye big brother.
- A coup d'etat is intended and Internet is shut down temporarily. But on the mesh network, photos and videos are shared freely and rapidly reach the whole world. Bye bye covering up your actions from citizens.
- An intrusive state is lobbied into allowing big corporations to arbitrarily prioritize Internet traffic, favoring dominant players like Netflix, Facebook, Google etc and making it harder for smaller companies to compete with them. But on the mesh network, net neutrality rules, and traffic isn't prioritized by any central authority. Bye bye state-corporation lobbying.
- A totalitarian state disallows its citizens access to certain Internet content. But on the mesh network, information is global and flows freely. As long as people live in sufficient proximity across a national border, the government won't be able to impose any kind of national Internet firewalls.
Obviously such a mesh network wouldn't have the same bandwidth, latency, quality and service guarantees as a well-run telecom mobile network. Its capacity would ebb and flow depending on the concentration of people in any given area at any given time. But it would be censorship resistant. It would be open and permissionless. It would be borderless and global. It would be cryptographically secured. Possessing all these qualities, it would play nicely with public, permissionless, distributed technologies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and IPFS.
Wouldn't it make perfect sense to fuel such a network with cryptocurrency and an incentive structure that promotes participation in the network and builds network effects? Here's a (very naive) initial idea which has several flaws from a game theory perspective, but which could surely be improved significantly e.g. by using theory from ongoing Proof-of-Stake algorithm research in academia.
- I pay peers for traffic that I'm an endpoint for, originating or terminating.
- I get paid by peers for traffic that I'm routing for them in any direction.
- I recharge my mesh account with cryptocurrency if/when depleted.
- IPFS is used to cache content, and integrated in the same incentive structure (using Filecoin or something similar).
And the fantastic part... Enough mesh-enabled devices that also has mobile network and/or WiFi connectivity (to bridge mesh and Internet traffic), and somewhere to load them (using local grid-generated electricity from solar panels, perhaps). Some really power-efficient mesh network designs to save battery life. A few simple decentralized Ethereum smart contracts to manage the recharging and incentive structure part, and scaling Bitcoin and/or Ethereum using Plasma, Raiden, Lightning Network or some such solution to handle a sufficient amount of TPS. That's all it takes. No central radio towers. No fibers in the ground. No Internet Connectivity Providers. No mobile operators. No core networks.
Would the world benefit from building such a mesh network at global scale? I think so. Let's see if anyone is bold enough to actually start producing the devices. Because really, that's all it takes.