Ever since the discovery of electricity there hasn't been an invention more useful than the internet. As at Jan 1, 2018 over 4 billion people had access to the internet. This presents a massive market that the current ISPs are simply unable to cater to.
A major problem with ISPs is that they use infrastructure that is bulky, costly to setup and therefore are inclined to be strictly profit oriented.
This leads them to ignore "unprofitable zones" such as remote locations or areas of low income like Africa and the Middle East.

Despite this, technological advancement is fast spreading on a global scale and the year 2017 alone saw a massive addition of over 700million mobile users in the Middle East and Africa. What this means is that more people in those unprofitable locations now possess internet-enabled devices but lack the ability to connect to the internet. This is where bandz comes in.

What is Bandz?

Bandz is a global peer-to-peer Extranet project. It aims to utilise the blockchain to make enterprise-grade internet censorship-resistant, secure, cheaper and accessible over larger distances and in remote areas, all at a low cost.

How will Bandz Work?

First let us explain a few key terms.

• Intranet: private network accessible only to an organisation's staff. Wiki
• Extranet: controlled private network that allows access to partners, vendors and suppliers or an authorized set of customers. Wiki
• Bandwidth: amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. Webopedia
• Node: a computer or other device on a network.
• VPN: extension of a private network that includes links across shared or public networks, such as the Internet.
• Proxy: a computer system or application that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers.Wiki

Now that we understand what they mean, we can fully grasp what Bandz is about.
Bandz aims to transform the general public from just "internet consumers" at the mercy of Internet providers to ISPs themselves, allowing anyone who has an internet connection on their device, to access and provide enterprise-grade software in a peer-to-peer network.

What is Bandz's Vision?

Bandz wants to treat each user node as its own contained intranet. Each user node can provide
services (VPN, mesh, proxy, bandwidth sharing, and additional cloud services) to other users by
treating all nodes other than itself as an extranet network.
_Whitepaper

Real Life Situation

Global internet availability

The blue means good internet connectivity, the red/brown is bad coverage.

As you can see the Western World and Europe are already enjoying good internet connectivity. Now let us focus on Africa.

Many parts of Africa fall low on the economic index and so ISPs tend to be nonchalant about providing services there.
Many install few infrastructure such as a single Mast/radio tower to cover a large area. This causes all the users in that environment to compete for reception leading to massive congestion during peak use periods.

How Will Bandz Remedy This?

A major feature of Bandz is Mesh Networks.
For those new to the concept, a Mesh network is a local network topology in which the infrastructure nodes connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible and cooperate with one another to efficiently route data from/to clients.Wiki

Wireless Mesh

With this mesh system, a few nodes that have internet connectivity(Providers) can simply broadcast their internet and it will get received and broadcasted by other nodes as well covering a large surface area and providing internet for a massive population.

Bandz superiority over ISPs

• Mesh networks: These allow internet to be shared across longer distances using connected devices. This negates the need for a radio tower.
• No Congestion: Since every device in the network is an access point, there is no possibility of a congested node.
• No point of failure: It's a common occurrence that during heavy storms reception becomes poor. This is because once the radio tower broadcasting network is affected, then everyone is affected.

Conventional Local Area Network(a) vs Mesh network (b)

• Monetizing bandwidth: With Bandz, users can share or sell their internet bandwidth to other users for tokens. Also if the access point (Eg router) is getting over used , a user can lend the network some of his own Bandwidth in exchange for tokens.

• No censorship: By using the blockchain and complex topography like VPNs, proxies and Mesh networks, users bypass restrictions on sites.

• Customers satisfaction: with a cheap and streamlined internet experience, user satisfaction is guaranteed.

• Easy roaming: users can now connect to mesh networks when in other countries instead of going through the hassle of buying new SIM cards and setting up expensive data connections.

• Microtransactions: With the use of Bandz smart contracts, bandwidth is automatically sold at units of 1mb.
  Cheaper Bandwidth: With so many nodes in the system, competition will reduce internet costs.

• Hardware Agnostic: By using peer-to-peer networks and mesh systems ISPs can save on costs of using Radio Towers and expensive Routers.

• Security: The use of the blockchain and VPNs ensures that all data packets sent are properly encrypted and secure. Users can choose between using VPNs, rotating proxies or IP tables.

Secure data transmission using VPN and proxy

So Who Can Join the Bandz Network?

ISPs, Providers(users that have internet) and Consumers(users who want internet).

To participate in the network as a provider, one simply needs to run a Bandz node on their
device. This is done via use of the Bandz app or utilising it's Software Development Kit to integrate your own private product. Bandz nodes are compatible with Windows, Linux, Ios, Android, and ARM devices as of now.
Providers then earn money for every 1MB they forward. Bandz nodes can
forward both TCP and UDP traffic.
This is all thanks to the Bandz smart contract written in solidity for speedy transactions.

Aeternity-Etherem Hybrid transaction using Solidity code

For consumers,
They can join a Bandz pool. The Bandz pools are basically bandwidth buyers, who will enter the Bandz
Network without having to run a Bandz node. Think of it as connecting to a cyber cafe's WiFi, you pay and are granted access.

Buyers can choose which provider their traffic exits from based on country, city, type of IP, network quality and other filters.
The marketplace supply and demand will determine the prices for these choices.

Use Case

Mbaku travels to his village for Christmas. He meets his friends and neighbours Jamik and Okocha. All three live on the same street with their houses on the same line. Mbaku lives in House A, Jamil in house B and Okocha in House C.
Mbaku tells them about Bandz and shares the app with them. Later that night, Mbaku decides to chat with his friends but they don't have internet subscription. Mbaku has a new subscription with lots of bandwidth to spare but lives too far from Okocha.
Using Bandz, Mbaku(House A) shares his internet with Jamil(House B), who then acts as a node and shares it with Okocha(House C). Okocha can now surf the web unhindered.

This was done without the need for a router or any specialised hardware.

Bandz Token

As you've already known by now, all transactions and interactions on the Bandz network will be powered by the Bandz Token. It will serve as payment medium and incentive for user adoption. The private token sale is starting on June 22. You can also partake in their airdrop here.

Bandz Team

Advisers

Final thoughts

Bandz is offering too many unique and groundbreaking features to list. Most notably, instead of paying for bandwidth, Bandz aims to even turn that bandwidth into a currency that can be used to pay for services via the Bandz token. Bandz offers ISPs the opportunity to work with each other and sell even more services in a decentralized market that will flourish with potential consumers. This is a new frontier and smart money will be behind it.

To learn more about this project you can visit their website and read their Whitepaper here.

You can also reach the team on social media like
Telegram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Reddit | GitHub | YouTube

Artwork by @ninjadroidx

This is a submission for the @originalworks contest hosted here

bandz2018