The Metropolis of San Jose, California, plans to activate 20 wi-fi hotspots, designed for cryptocurrency mining, throughout low-income neighborhoods in an effort to additional shut town’s digital divide and enhance its “web of issues” capabilities, Mayor Sam Liccardo introduced Wednesday.
The town plans to make use of cryptocurrency, mined via units that connect with the brand new hotspots, to pay for the broadband service of greater than 1,300 households for one yr. The town is main the mission via a partnership with Helium, a cryptocurrency firm that markets a service it calls “the Individuals’s Community,” and the nonprofit California Rising Expertise Fund. The scheme, which represents San Jose’s first foray into blockchain and cryptocurrency applied sciences, is a method to “democratize the advantages of rising applied sciences for all residents,” Chief Innovation Officer Jordan Solar informed StateScoop.
The town’s hotspots run on a long-range, low-power and low-bandwidth protocol, referred to as LoRaWAN, designed for IoT units — not televisions, telephones or laptops that may change massive quantities of information.
The hotspots — designed by Helium, and bought for San Jose by the CETF — are designed to connect with smaller units, like GPS trackers, internet-connected pet collars, movement sensors, air high quality sensors and cameras. Solar stated the units can service lots of of sq. miles of San Jose, and that every of the hotspots will likely be hosted by residents and small companies over the mission’s six-month timeline.
As soon as they’re put in, the hotspots will then use the related units to mine HNT, a proprietary cryptocurrency issued by Helium that may be swapped for different cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin or Ethereum, or U.S. forex. CETF will maintain the cryptocurrency mined by the hotspots in order that San Jose isn’t liable, Solar stated, and can periodically change the HNT mined by San Jose’s Helium hotspots for U.S. {dollars}.
Hotspots use no extra power “than an LED lightbulb,” Solar stated, in comparison with the and the transactions are recorded on an HNT blockchain for safety, in accordance with the corporate. The typical LED bulb consumes 10 watts an hour, a fraction of the consumption from top-tier Bitcoin mining rigs that may burn as much as 3,250 watts an hour.
‘Final-mile issues’
As soon as the forex is swapped, CETF will donate it again to San Jose, which is able to use it to fund pay as you go money playing cards that eligible low-income households can use to pay for his or her web service, Solar stated. The town intends to make use of nonprofits that it already companions with on its different digital inclusion initiatives, he stated, resembling its Digital Inclusion Fund, to establish and educate qualifying households concerning the new program.
The purpose, Solar stated, is to offer residents one-time funds of $120, sufficient to cowl a yr’s price of discounted web service. Greater than 50% of San Jose residents with out satisfactory at-home web entry cited service affordability as the biggest barrier to adoption, and although San Jose has invested closely into its Digital Inclusion Fund since 2019 to close the digital divide, rising applied sciences like cryptocurrencies and blockchain are nonetheless very a lot on the desk, Solar stated.
“The impetus behind that is taking a tough have a look at our metropolis and the last-mile issues that impede residents from accessing broadband,” Solar stated.
A evaluate interval will comply with the pilot, he stated. The town can even create an change schedule for CETF to comply with forward of time, Solar stated, in order that the nonprofit and town don’t have to take a position on the cryptocurrency market’s actions. As of Aug 1., there have been 2.5 million HNT tokens minted each month, although Helium plans to chop that quantity in half each two years.
San Jose isn’t the primary metropolis within the nation to discover subsidizing important companies with digital currencies. That distinction belongs to the Metropolis of Miami, which earlier this month voted to just accept donations from a cryptocurrency pockets that now owns a pockets with greater than $7 million of a bespoke digital token, called MiamiCoin.
