An technical Inquiry into why Threefold need Cellular towers (Mast)

#1

I noticed that threefold also will be using telecommunications mast (or cell towers) like the telcos usually use.

I saw this on the whitepaper.

Now my question is why and how many?

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#2

@kristof @AdnanF @andreaspow @sabrinasadik @scott @gosam @Sacha

Hello, in case you may have missed to come across this, I wanted to loop you into this post, as this question re-appeared over the Telegram channels today, although this subject was initiated 2 weeks ago here.

Please help share your opinions.

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#3

Apologies for the delay in a response here.Thanks to @tullysinc for tagging us in. I can answer from my perspective – & maybe there’s someone else that can chime in more. Actually, @scott and I were talking about a similar topic the other day, so for sure he has some thoughts. :v:t3:

ThreeFold is focused on Internet capacity but the other part of the Internet is connectivity. (We chose to focus on capacity because this is where the data is actually living.) Today, we all rely on networking cables and towers – and satellites – for that connectivity. But this is centralized as well. There are some projects out there that are working on decentralized connectivity (e.g. Helium and others) and overlay networks. Eventually, ThreeFold will likely need to collaborate with such types of last mile solutions owned by the people.

To answer your question specifically, we already have a partner called Kleos which does “safe 5g,” which is basically 5g running on 4g frequencies. So we can / will work together to install their towers – co-owned by the people – in places around the world where currently the connectivity is not strong enough for reliable Internet.

That’s as far as I know on the topic. Anyone else?

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#4

This is the 2nd time I’ve heard some shade thrown at 5g in threefold. Given the hard science type people involved on the hardware side it might not be best to ostracize them if that’s an official stance TF ends up taking.

#5

Noted. Could you elaborate though? Is there something wrong with saying “safe” 5g?

#6

Depending on who you are, yes, it implies the existence of unsafe 5g, which peer reviewed publications have yet to agree on.

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#7

I’ll add here that the original mention of cell tower masts in the whitepaper, as I remember, was in relation to installing nodes on or next to the mast. This is part of the “edge capacity” concept, essentially putting it as close as possible to the termination point of the wireless connection for workloads requiring very low latency.

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#8

I feel what you’re saying–best not to alienate anyone over this.

Reviewing what Kleos says on their website, I’d say that “efficient 5G” would be a safer way to talk about what they’re doing. They are optimizing for spectral efficiency, low power consumption, and avoiding needing to install more cells. When they do talk about “safety” it seems more in the context of resilience against jamming and eavesdropping.

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#9

im already building the connectivity keep an eye out on our collaboration with three different blockchain companies to create the first infrastructure free network.

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#10

he he scott you havent told them yet have you sir. ps ill be sending you a powerpoint monday or tuesday