info_tfgrid/collections/abundance_internet/architecture/internet_bandwidth_problem.md

Internet Bandwidth problem

The internet is not optimized, most data should stay local but it actually travels very far away.

Status Quo

When two individuals in Zanzibar want to communicate, for example over a zoom call, their transmitted data must follow an incredibly lengthy and expensive journey;

• the message must travel to the central Zanzibar internet exchange
• it then crosses in one of two sea cables to mainland Tanzania
• the message undergoes a very long journey to a European or American internet exchange
• in Europe, the message is routed to Zoom's datacentre where it is processed.
• Finally, the message is sent back along the entire route to the second person

This situation is not sustainable!

There are five primary issues:

• Data must travel over such a long distance, increasing transmission times and increasing the energy consumption of the infrastructure along the route.
• Crucial bandwidth with the rest of the world is used up, meaning that critical communication is delayed for unreasonably long periods of time.
• Data is not owned by Zanzibar or its people; it is owned by multinational corporations in the West.
• If those two undersea cables digitally connecting Zanzibar to the rest of the world were ever damaged, the entire internet within Zanzibar would fail as well. Two residents would no longer be able to communicate with each other over the internet.
• Transmitted data is far less secure and has a far greater attack surface.

Threefold Alternative

We present an alternative solution in which data remains within zanzibar and we avoid all of the issues above. The journey will be massively simplified; the first individual interacts with their twin to send a message to the second individual's twin, where it is immediately accessible.