What if youcould join a platform that guarantees you the fastest possible internetconnection every single time, one powered by blockchain technology?
Now you can, NOIA CEO Domas Povilauskas said. NOIA has created an exchange based on distributed ledgers where participants can buy and sell bandwidth.
“We connectdifferent backbones, different internets into one programmable network using blockchain,”Mr. Povilauskas began.
Earlier in his career Mr. Povilauskas founded a call center technology company, and one of the lessons he learned was every second counts. With software provided through VOIP technology, ensuring access to quick and reliable service was a challenge only solved by developing his own advanced technology.
Then Mr. Povilauskas learned of blockchain technology and once immersed in it he combined his discoveries with his network expertise to found NOIA, which he initially envisioned to be solely a content delivery network. The speed of such networks depends on where you are and where the hosting server of the network you are tapping into is, Mr. Povilauskas explained. If, say, you are in the USA logging onto a site powered by AWS (with servers stateside), you will likely have a much better UX than someone logging into the same site from Hong Kong. Content delivery networks take website content copies and put them on a Hong Kong-based server to improve the local experience.
NOIAprovides software so any internet user’s computer becomes a place to cache anddeliver content, Mr. Povilauskas said.
“Instead ofservers we allow people to become content delivery network nodes.”
The problemwith the current content delivery system is much of its infrastructure wasbuilt in 1994, long before anyone envisioned YouTube, Facebook and streamingservices. Different routing protocols for a different time, ones no longer meetingour needs. NOIA has changed by tapping into distributed ledgers to solverouting issues by expanding the data package so more custom entries can beentered into fields inside data packets.
“It’srevolutionary,” Mr. Povilauskas said. “This concept means you can program dataitself inside every single packet segment, to support routers everywhere.”
What NOIAhas essentially done is to provide the technology that standardized all of thedifferent internet infrastructure “languages” so various networks cancommunicate with each other. Combine that with distributed ledger technologyand you have a publicly distributed database listing all globally availablesegment routing connections. Once that data is available machine learningalgorithms can channel connection requests to the best available node. Contrastthat with the current system that keeps trying nearby routers.
Why limityourself to the neighborhood when you have the entire planet at your disposal?
Thisdevelopment allows everyone to enjoy the service quality offered by privatenetworks just like most companies do, Mr. Povilauskas said.
“Theprogrammable Internet concept makes public internet access like a privatenetwork.”
The NOIAnetwork runs on tokens where people lending their computers to the network earnthem for loaning their bandwidth. Should they wish to access the network theycash some in.
NOIArecently made a personnel move which will propel its growth, Mr. Povilauskasbelieves. Bill Norton, founder of Equinix, has joined NOIA as a later-stagecofounder and will be participating full-time with NOIA.
“He helpedcreate the programmable internet concept,” Mr. Povilauskas said. “He’s spenthis whole life in the internet industry.
“He’s thebest guy to do this because he’s the only one who understands how to developwork agreements between data centers.”
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