Closing the digital divide is one of the the most critical and challenging issues our society faces today. Currently in America 6% of households and 25% of rural America (14.5 million people) lack proper access to broadband service. Communities who are underserved and unconnected remain cut off from the vital benefits broadband services provide that include (but are not limited to) economic benefits to households and businesses, access to work from home, access to on-line education services, access to life-saving telemedicine services, and the general vital real-time communications that the internet facilitates. For most of these rural communities they will never receive proper broadband services because they fall outside of the traditional profit model of incumbent commercial ISP. However our organization, leveraging the Althea technology platform, and inexpensive commercial wired and wireless carrier technology, are able to build community powered, community owned and operated, fast and affordable broadband services at a fraction of the cost, opening markets previous deemed unprofitable to provide access to even the smallest and most rural communities across the region. By working in close coordination with these communities we are capable of building fast, resilient, and inexpensive mesh networks by leveraging the power of private property, and thereby avoiding the traditional expenses of building costly radio towers, or burying miles of cables to connect disparately located homes. It is through this model that we can quickly and efficiently connect communities with vital broadband services that have been historically inaccessible, and thereby provide them with all the well documented benefits that come along with a connection to and presence on the modern internet.
We are a group of seasoned veterans of the technology and telecom industry that shares a passion for, and dedication to, applying the unique and valuable skills and technical experience we have built over decades. We have made it our primary focus to find new and creative solutions to common problems that face the communities we live in, and all those like them.
But more than simply building advanced infrastructure designed to evolve to meet the demands of an ever changing modern landscape with new applications always around the corner, we aim to share our knowledge, as well as connect and collaborate with other’s who share our drive, passion, and ideology.
At the Pacific NW Rural Broadband Alliance our core mission is to work at the direct local community level to help build, fast, efficient, and cost effective infrastructure in the most under-served and un-connected communities that struggle to get, and stay, connected to the internet.
It is a growing trend in many country’s that universal digital access is considered a fundamental human right, no different than the right to access clean water. We wholeheartedly share in this belief. As such it is our organizations goal to ensure people in rural under-served / unconnected areas have universal access to fast and affordable broadband, and that once connected they stay connected. Leveraging Althea’s utilized on-demand billing model customer’s aren’t forced to keep up with expensive monthly payments, risk disconnection, or being further disenfranchised by having a past due bill sent to a collection agency.
Instead customers pay what they can, when they can. Even when someone’s router runs out of funds they remain connected to the internet (albeit rate limited), so they never lose access to vital services like e-mail and other standard browsing requirements. We will never disconnect a customer due to non-payment, nor send them to collections.
We invest in local communities by coordinating the construction and supporting the operation of community powered, community owned and operated, internet infrastructure:
We work closely with each community, and each customer, to ensure that everyone has access to fast and affordable broadband services that satisfies their needs and expectations. Customers who participate by providing access to their private property by acting as relay operators receive revenue in real-time, directly proportional to the amount of bandwidth they provide to other customers. This provides many benefits, both individually and at a community level, by helping customers supplement their monthly bandwidth costs (or earn straight revenue for those who may not choose to be a direct customer), keeps the ownership and operation of this internet infrastructure in the hands of the community, and helps keep as much money as possible customers spend on their service inside the local community.
The internet is the most significant tool for the free exchange of information and global communication since the advent of the printing press. That is why we believe it is of paramount importance that it remain a neutral network where all traffic is treated equally. Adhering to this principle we ensure no sites, content, or users traffic are unfairly prioritized over another, blocked, or filtered.
We consider matters of security and privacy in each decision we make and every action we take. For every critical system or service that stores or transmits any sensitive or personally identifying data we leverage cutting edge encryption algorithms and ensure all systems use end-to-end-encryption built into each systems architecture to ensure we are always preserving individual privacy.
Traditional incumbent ISP’s leave privacy and security up to the customer and actively capture, analyze, and data mines traffic, leave it open to being eves-dropped from the prying eyes of third party companies, government organizations (such as the NSA), or malicious bad actors.