Summary
This document details my understanding of Althea, and its associated provider Hawk Networks.
It will explain DePin, ISPs and Mesh Networks, and what Althea & Hawk Networks do. If you want to skip to the part about Althea and Hawk Networks, go to page 3.
Explaining DePin in Layman’s Terms
DePin stands for “Decentralized Physical Infrastructure”, and typically is used to refer to blockchain networks or apps which are used to provide and/or govern access to systems which are both physical and digital in nature, for example providing internet access or cloud computing.
DePin systems usually look something like a sharing economy model applied to common household resources which otherwise sit unmonetized. You have a router in your home which could be a node in a mesh network for internet access, why not get paid to let your neighbors tap into it? You have a gaming rig with powerful GPUs which sit idle most of the day, why not sell that idle time to some AI startup who can’t afford to run their own dedicated servers? And if you’re going to be selling these resources, why not do so through a system that doesn’t require you to provide a copy of your passport and your bank account information?
These systems allow for networks to be created in places where they might otherwise be unavailable. For a small community in the mountains of Oregon it may not be possible or profitable for an ISP to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars laying down the infrastructure to provide fiber, but asking a dozen households to spend a few hundred dollars each to install an antenna and a router (and potentially turn a profit for having done so) is a different story.
There are other benefits to decentralizing physical infrastructure. Censorship resistance and network resiliency increases being two obvious ones, however in terms of Althea the main story vis a vis DePin is one of using these sharing economy models to provide internet connectivity and access in places where centralized alternatives do not bother to expand. Keep this in mind as you read the rest of this document.
What are ISPs and Mesh Networks?
When you buy internet from a traditional ISP (Internet Service Provider) you are typically purchasing from a corporate entity that acts as the “Backhaul”. A Backhaul is a party that has an internet connection, typically via a satellite or radio signal, and sells it on to end customers like homes or offices with routers.
Under this model, which is how most people access the internet today, there is a single provider with strong connectivity who sells that connectivity on to downstream customers and that’s the beginning and end of it.
However, there is a different model of internet connectivity called a Mesh Network. The basic idea of this is that there can be one or more Backhauls, who pass their signal on to one or more users called “Relays”, who can in turn use that connection for their own purposes or pass it on to another end user or another Relay. The difference here is not only that there are multiple options for Backhauls, but also that unlike in the traditional ISP model where once the Backhaul passes that connectivity on to another user that is the end of the road, in a Mesh Network many of the users tapping into the Backhaul have the ability to extend their connection on to another user. This can be done via broadcasting wifi signals, and can extend the range of connectivity without the Backhaul needing to lay down additional physical infrastructure, as that responsibility can be handled by the Relay.
Mesh Networks can be very robust and are often good options for areas where due to cost or physical challenges ISPs either don’t want to compete or struggle to provide service. However Mesh Networks often face coordination challenges. Who gets paid how much, how those payments get processed, and how the network knows which particular combination of relays and backhauls is the best for a given user at any moment, are all questions which Mesh Networks have to engineer answers to in order to provide services which are usable.
What is Althea?
“Althea is a machine-to-machine payment and routing platform that enables new ways to fund, build and operate telecom, utilities and infrastructure.”
Deborah Simpier, CEO of Althea
Althea is a Layer 1 (L1) blockchain which is ultimately use case agnostic, but which has been tailor designed to best serve the “internet connectivity DePin” use case, and has been described as “a global market for bandwidth”. In simple terms it is an automated system for routing and payments for Mesh Networks.
Earlier in the Mesh Networks section we described some of the coordination problems they face;
“Who gets paid how much, how those payments get processed, and how the network knows which particular combination of relays and backhauls is the best for a given user at any moment, are all questions which Mesh Networks have to engineer answers to in order to provide services”
These problems matter because in mesh networks there is a question of “routing”. Say you want to connect to the internet via a mesh network of 5 routers, where 2 of those routers have a direct connection to a backhaul. The below diagram has the 2 backhaul connected routers as diamonds, while the relays are circles.
Even in this highly simplified scenario there are multiple paths you could take. You could hop from one circle to another and then use that circle to connect to a diamond, or you could go straight to one circle to the nearest diamond, or you could go from a circle to a diamond which is farther away. At first it may seem simple, pick the shortest path. But what if there is a difference in pricing and speed for each connection?
As more variables and options are added the difficulty of finding the best route exponentially increases. In fact you don’t need to find the best route, you just need to find a route that is good enough, but it is still difficult. If you sat here charting out each path and brute forcing each option, even if you’re a math wiz it’s going take a minute or two to figure out which gets you the most bang for your buck.
Determining which path to take to get from “You” to the diamond is the “routing” that a mesh network needs to solve. Fortunately modern wireless mesh network systems are pretty good at figuring out the fastest path, or at least a path that is ‘good enough’, so quickly that you won’t even notice. But one problem mesh networks have is making sure that the data that each of these routers is providing them regarding how much bandwidth it can provide and what the cost of that bandwidth will be, is accurate. So how does Althea make sure this data is accurate?
Well the first thing Althea does is regularly test each router. Each router is constantly advertising its own available speed and cost. The network tests the validity of what is advertised by sending the router “Hello” messages and listening for that router to respond with something called an “I heard you” (or “IHU”) message back. It compares the speeds at which these were done to what the router is advertising, and assigns it an “accuracy score” based on this. But that’s only one of two methods it uses to determine the accuracy score for each router. It also bases these scores on how these routers have historically performed when selling bandwidth to other routers. But how do they verify the accuracy of that data?
Previous attempts at using blockchain to enable mesh networks, such as Helium, ran into a simple problem; How do you verify that one party sold another bandwidth? The proposals to solve this often treated it like the Oracle problem, leading to proposed solutions like “Proof of Coverage”.
These solutions were built around the idea that when one party sold another bandwidth, they needed to prove this to the entire chain, in real time, before the sale could close. This required the coordination and incentivization of a large number of parties, as now not only did the buyer and seller need to go through the effort of verifying to the chain, but so did several external validators. Incentivizing all these parties for such a simple transaction was prohibitively expensive, and also easily corruptible.
Althea’s blockchain instead uses a “pay-per-forward” system which automates this entire process via a market solution. When party A wants to buy bandwidth from party B, they agree on a price and execute the sale, and party A only pays party B after the bandwidth is received. There are no incentives needed because the validity of this pricing does not need to be proved to the entire chain in real time, third parties outside of these buyers and sellers do not need to verify the pricing or amounts of this transaction. The results of this transaction only need to be reported to the network after the fact. Pay-per-forward emerged from the failure of these “Proof of Coverage” type mechanisms and threw out the concept of needing to solve the Oracle problem in its entirety, replacing it with a market based alternative.
So to sum up, Althea can be best understood as a blockchain built for the purpose of tracking this pay-per-forward data for machine-to-machine transactions, like the the example of the routers used in the mesh network., and using it in conjunction with data from regular and random tests performed on each router, to assure the speed and accuracy of its mesh network. Because Althea also serves to facilitate payments between routers, the same process which assures the speed/strength of the underlying internet connectivity networks also automates the payment process, allowing anyone to very simply not only buy internet connectivity but also sell it to any interested party.
In the simplest terms possible: Althea lets anyone with a router buy and sell internet to anyone else with a router. Althea is backhaul agnostic, meaning that you can have Google Fiber, Comcast, Starlink, or any other provider, and still forward internet connectivity to other people and sell it (though you’ll have to check with your provider’s terms of service to see whether or not that is allowed).
“what we are proposing is essentially a normal last mile ISP on all appearances on the outside using perhaps point to point wireless, fiber, or cable … each user is capable of selecting their own routes, providing transit for others, paying or being paid for these services completely automatically. From the perspective of the outside world you could say that it’s just a bunch of wi-fi routers paying each other for bandwidth.”
Justin Kilpatrick, CTO of Althea
How do I use Althea?
If you’re interested in being a part of an Althea mesh network you have two options: Buy new hardware or use your own.
Using your own existing router is the more technically difficult option, but it also lets you avoid the cost of purchasing new hardware. You’ll need to check if your router supports OpenWRT, at which point you can flash Althea onto your hardware. Some of the devices they support can be found HERE and you can also join the Discord and ask for help checking or setting up your router.
However the average user isn’t expected to do this, and can instead take the less technically challenging option by just buying a new router. Setting up Althea this way is no more or less difficult than setting up Comcast or Google Fiber, and installer will come to your house, you will prepay with a debit card, and you’ll be up and running shortly.
And that’s not all, if you see an opportunity to be a provider for your local area, they have the equipment and support to help you get started on that as well. There are options across a whole spectrum from setting up your own backhaul, to just providing router-to-router forwarding within a single building. Althea’s basic package costs about $200 ($33/mo) to install and includes everything a household needs to get started, but you can also take smaller or larger packages depending on your needs. If you have any questions you can check out the previously linked discord or email hello@althea.net for more information.
What is Hawk Networks?
While the long term goal is for Althea’s hardware to be provided and installed by a whole host of smaller, competing, providers around the world, to get things started the team at Althea created Hawk Networks.
Hawk Networks is an NOC, a “Networks Operations Center”, that facilitates installations and support for Althea customers and the buildout of new infrastructure for the Althea network. In layman’s terms, when you want to set up a satellite dish or a router in your home so you can join the Althea Network, Hawk Networks is who you will call and who may come to your home to make it happen.
Hawk is a private Delaware entity run by the same team that built Althea, and works closely with the network to maintain and support it, but is ultimately a private and for-profit provider that is separate from Althea itself.
In Sum
Althea itself is the blockchain routing & payment layer for an emerging mesh network which is hardware agnostic but also provides its own hardware options. Hawk Networks is the largest provider servicing this network, run largely by the same team as Althea, but technically separate.