Africa has significant bars when it comes to integrating with the global economy. 3air aims to use the SKALE blockchain, paired with K3 Lastmile technology, to revolutionize the telecom, internet, and banking industries and bring Africa into the global economy. Through the use of wireless mesh hardware, NFT subscription services, SKALE’s low fees, fast transfers, and microfinance options, the company has a steady plan to roll out an important variety of services to Africa.
3air will use K3 Telecom’s Last Mile technology to build base centers across the African continent, providing high-speed broadband internet service to Africa’s booming cities. This technology is already in place in several countries and multiple continents, including Africa. These centers can be installed easily and in enough areas to cover everywhere necessary, as they have a 50-kilometer range. Having already been proven to work, 3air will install these over a few-year period, starting in 2023.
This hardware is necessary on the African continent, where internet connections are difficult to come by, especially at high speeds. In 2019, only 0.58% of Sub-Saharan Africa had broadband internet access. In 2016, 73% of people had a mobile cellular subscription, but only 20% of those subscriptions provided internet access, as most mobile towers in Africa are 2 or 3G connections. With these powerful wireless mesh centers, 3air aims to shore up these statistics and empower the African continent with reliable internet connectivity.
Partially because of the lack of reliable internet, nearly 400 million adults in Africa are unbanked. These individuals are financially excluded from necessary banking services, such as banking accounts, savings accounts, loans for supporting houses and businesses, financial education and literacy, and even basic insurance services. Even those who are banked in Africa are reluctant to use the services they are paying for; transfers can take extended periods of time and can cost low income users more than they are willing to spend. 3air aims to provide banking services in the form of microfinance alongside its platform of internet service.
In addition to providing internet service, 3air will provide its subscriptions through NFTs. These NFTs are directly tied to the service, providing several benefits over the usual subscription services. The most important of these bonuses is the direct ownership of the service contract. You can sell or transfer your NFT freely. In addition, as the NFT is unique, you do not need to provide personal information to the company, retaining your right to privacy while paying for the internet. Consequently, you retain control over your financial data, preventing companies from selling your data to you.
3air provides these NFTs with the SKALE blockchain to keep fees low and transfers quick. These fees have already prevented banking services on the ground from being used by the average individual and, as such, are not acceptable when it comes to a better solution. SKALE is designed specifically to keep costs low and transfers quick while also being modular and scalable; perfect for a system designed with a developing country in mind. With proven technology, the company has a roadmap to establish internet connectivity all across the African continent by 2025.
