BandZ - high-end Internet for Everyone

Introduction:
While waiting for his flight back to his country, Ogaga turned on data roaming to check for new mails in his mail box. He got a SMS warning him about data charges. He hurriedly went back to turn off data roaming, but before he did that, over 200USD worth of data had been used up. He didn’t even know how much data he used.

Frequent travelers are common victims of data roaming charges, and Ogaga is just one of the many travelers out there that face the issue of data roaming. However, BandZ is here with a solution for that.

What is BandZ:
BandZ is a global extranet project powered by the blockchain. BandZ would make the internet accessible & cheaper for users all around the world. By simply keeping their devices on, users can pay for their phone bills and/or ISP bills with BandZ

With BandZ’s end-to-end encryption, security is assured while using the BandZ network to send data.

Even while using the internet with BandZ, security is guaranteed

With BandZ, the internet is decentralized, and each individual user is turned into his/her own intranet (private network). Through this way, individual users will have access to the global extranet by allowing other intranets (user – could be individual or organization) to connect and access services from them. These services could be, VPNs, mesh networking, remote proxies, bandwidth sharing/exchange. Bandwidth is the amount of internet which a user can use. With BandZ, bandwidth is turned into a commodity which can be bought and/or sold.

For one-one or one-to-many BandZ would be using quick microtransactions to work, so as to deliver high end services. Hence, BandZ would make a very important decision concerning the choice of blockchain to user. However, BandZ is currently working with Hashgraph, Aeternity. And BandZ is also exploring other options. A final decision would be made closer to the third and fourth quarter of 2018.

Yes, you guessed correctly, BandZ would be available to every user worldwide, as long as they have got mobile devices.

Using the BandZ network:
There are three roles for nodes, viz-a-viz: providers, consumers and gateways.

The provider’s node is the node that releases out bandwidth from BandZ internal traffic to the internet outside.

The Consumer nodes are the nodes that accept application traffic (Socks5, HTTP proxy tunnels, IPTables, VPN, Kernel Hooks) and then send it to the providers.

The gateway nodes are nodes that provide services like STUN, TURN & GeoIp resolution. The gateway nodes receive tips for their services.

It is pertinent to note that all participants in the BandZ network can be any combination of the nodes at any given time.

Benefits of a Decentralized Internet:
It is true that no one man owns the internet, however, centralized services currently support stuffs like web hosting, cloud computing, social media, search engines, DNS services etc. These services use and rely on resources that are concentrated in a few number of physical or virtual servers. This approach makes it easier and convenient for companies to maintain their services. If anything happen to these few physical/virtual servers, all functionalities are lost. Thus, data can be lost, monetized, and/or given to the government, without users knowing. Thus, companies can act in their own interest, which can harm users who may not even know.

However, with a decentralized internet, a large number of users and independent machines would be in control. This would make the internet less liable to attack. With the blockchain decentralizing the internet, DDoS attacks can be prevented. (DDoS means Distributed Denial-of-Service. DDoS is a type of electronic attack, that shuts down servers, hence making the server inaccessible for a period of time).

A decentralized internet would also ensure a decentralized domain name system (DNS). The DNS server is the one that translates website names that we type in into an IP address and connects to the host. An attack on the DNS server causes great problems and issues – large internet outages, lack of access to services, data storage hacks. Data storage allows for massive data braeches at companies (e.g Equifax, earlier in the year 2017). All these can be prevented with a decentralized internet ensuring a decentralized domain system name (DNS).

Who can benefit from being able to exchange bandwidth:
Recall that I made mention that with BandZ, bandwidth is turned into a commodity that can be bought and sold. As a commodity, bandwidth is exchanged for the BandZ (BNZ) tokens.

Source: Steemit, @ambarabby


The BandZ (BNZ) token is not your everyday regular token. It is neither intended for value storage, nor intended to be used as a security, contrast to what is typical of other tokens.

The BandZ (BNZ) token is made so as internet services can be turned into commodities. The BandZ (BNZ) token aims to make internet services cheaper and add value to the BandZ network through a high circulation of BandZ (BNZ) token from peer to peer.
There exists a lot of benefits from being able to exchange bandwith for the BandZ (BNZ) tokens. Some includes:

For the Providers:
For the providers - users who sell, it gives them an opportunity to earn extra money. I mean, who wouldn’t like to earn money from selling spare unused bandwidth??

Users in Countries with strict internet censorship:
Another benefit from bandwidth sharing is the anti-censorhsip benefit. In some countries, users can’t access some websites. However, with the ability to share bandwidth, users from countries with Internet censorship will have access to unrestricted internet through users in free countries.

Owners of websites with heavy contents:
Benefit also exist for owners of websites with heavy contents such as online games or HD movies. These owners can buy bandwidth at a cheaper rate, thus ensuring that users of their website get a wonderful experience.

How does BandZ impact locations with a lack of infrastructure:
A lot of remote areas lack internet infrastructure, such as Africa and the Middle East. Thus, users in these areas have little or no access to the internet. And the fact is that, internet users are on the rise in these remote areas.

With BandZ’s mesh networking service, the internet is brought right to the doorsteps of users in these remote areas that lacks internet infrastructure.

BandZ would create nodes for all sorts of internet devices to connect to. These nodes connect dynamically, directly and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible. These nodes then cooperate with one another to route data from/to clients.

To bring data to remote areas that lack internet infrastructure, data would be hopped from node to node on the BandZ network until the data gets to it’s final destination. Thus users in these remote areas that lack internet infrastructure can get to enjoy and experience high end internet at a low cost.

With the tokenized incentives of the blockchain architecture, BandZ plans to bring interoperability to the different vendors of mesh network devices in the Mesh network ecosystem.

Source: Steemit, @georgechuks

Advantages of Mesh Networks:
BandZ is using the mesh networking service to bring network to the doorsteps of users in remote areas lacking internet infrastructure. Advantages of this mesh network includes:

Lack of dependency on one node:
With the mesh network, every node participates with the routing of data. There is no one node that depends on any other node.

Ability to self-organize and self-configure:
The mesh network has the ability to self-organize and self-configure itself. This enables the dynamic distribution of workloads, in the event that some nodes fail.

Reliability:
The ability of the mesh network to self-organize and self-configure itself ultimately makes the mesh network fault-tolerant. This is turn means maintenance costs is reduced. Hence the mesh network is very reliable.

How BandZ can get rid of needless data roaming:
Data roaming is a scary thing that most travelers face when they travel abroad. BandZ gets rid of needless data roaming via the following:

BandZ creates a software that allows ISPs to interact with each other and come to a partnership so that users can use the internet abroad while still being tied to their ISPs. This would get rid of data roaming. Take for instance, Jimoh’s ISP in America has a partnership with a ISP in Canada. Once Jimoh travels to Canada, he has access to the internet without the fear of data roaming, since he can use the internet in Canada and still be tied and charged by his ISP in America.

BandZ gets rid of data roaming through the ability to buy and sell bandwidth. Oki lives in Canada, and decides to go on a vacation to mexico for 3 weeks. During the course of these weeks, Oki wants to check his mail box and also wants to make posts on steemit. However he is scared of data roaming. With BandZ, Oki can just meet a local in Mexico – say Lupez. Lupez stays in Mexico and has some unused bandwidth he’d like to sell. All Oki does is to pay Lupez for the unused bandwidth and boom, Oki has access to the internet without the fear of data roaming.

Use-Cases of BandZ:
Let us take a look at some use cases of BandZ:

Use-Case 1:
Rukewe resides in CountryA, CountryA monitors it’s citizen’s use of internet and thus have a strict censorship on the use of Internet. This makes Rukewe to have a poor experience with the internet.
However with BandZ, Rukewe can secure her communications and have access to unrestricted internet service.

Use-Case 2:
To further their research, Ajayi Companies needs to use Toboto Inc.’s data processing service. Toboto Inc.’s data processing service is on the Toboto Inc.’s intranet and thus only available to members of Toboto Inc.

With BandZ, Toboto Inc.’s intranet can be made an extranet (Extranet are intranets that allow the access of external users as specified by members on that intranet). With Toboto Inc. as an extranet, Ajayi Companies is given access and thus can use Toboto Inc.’s data processing service.

Use-Case 3:
Tito resides in Tumbumtum Island, a popular tourist center and he always have unused bandwidth. With BandZ, Tito can make cool cash by selling his unused bandwidth to tourists scared of data roaming.

Conclusion:
For every traveler out there like Ogaga (from my introduction), BandZ is here to combat the scary data roaming charges for us. Alongside that, BandZ is indeed set to revolutionize the Internet, I bet you can feel it.

The BandZ’s Team:

The BandZ’s Advisors:

The BandZ’s Roadmap:

For more information, you could visit the BandZ website.
Click to get the BandZ WhitePaper
You can as well talk to the BandZ team on Telegram
Check out BandZ on linkedin
Visit the BandZ Facebook Page
Follow and Tweet at BandZ on Twitter
Check out BandZ on Reddit
The Bandz on GitHub
Watch some videos about BandZ on YouTube

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