EU – Zonerider

Overall Scope

Key Information

Runs from: Jan. 2011 – Oct. 2011 (9 months)

Website(s): www.zonerider.com

Summary

Zonerider wants ordinary businesses and individuals to open their broadband connection, and earn free income as a result. Our patent pending platform recruits ordinary people to become Stakeholders in the broadband and increasingly knowledge economies of today and the future. The platform is new, but not necessary newly formed, and constitutes a paradigm shift in thought on how future internet connectivity can be provisioned, by forming an arbitrary tool to deliver better and more efficient means of connectivity. At its heart is a dead simple control mechanism that controls and monetizes data flow and shifts access costs from end user to media and advertising depending on market sentiment at any particular time or place. This goes against the established order and can bypass expensive incumbent gateways; thus fuelling innovative community broadband initiatives on a local and global scale.

Objectives

• Unlock value in existing infrastructure, offer secure access guest utility, and offer nomadic fat pipe usability
• Allow content/media to generate better returns in an increasingly difficult monetizing environment
• Involve communities worldwide to benefit financially while increasing broadband proliferation

 

 

Highlights

The Zonerider system is essentially a hotspot delivered mode of access, where end users casually connect to a network and are redirected to a landing/signup page to obtain access. Zoneriders core platform is driven by its patent pending windows application. Once installed on an ordinary PC the connected wireless router or LAN is instantly converted into a hotspot with no configuration changes to the router/network or adjustments to its controls required (we encourage the network name to be changed to something more commercial for marketing presence alone) This is a unique and innovative system with simplicity at its foundation, and offers anyone with no networking or high level internet skills to become part of the Zonerider community. The Community itself is dependent on an equal number of fixed line subscribers, thereby working hand in hand with Telecom and ISP incumbents, hence our use of the term arbitration. We will also employ smart bandwidth monitoring and predictive solutions for bandwidth optimization, and packet prioritization, and are working on a Cached Distribution Node (CDN) to add better performance on the networks edge.

 

R&D Scope

Zonerider is currently deployed in Latin America Eastern Europe, USA and Western Europe. The infrastructure itself is existing and not new, but the potential to unlock value is new and unforeseen. The current product offering is through ordinary subscription, limiting its market potential to developed regions. Our project will dramatically change the landscape as we move rapidly towards sponsored access; opening opportunity for less developed markets.

 

Expected Impact

Broadband high speed access is often linked to prosperity and is increasingly appearing on government agendas and taskforces worldwide. High speed broadband is quantified and compared to every day utilities such as electricity and water, and has been hailed a basic human right by leading welfare organisations. Instant communication has been long championed as a key to creating transparency and creating equal opportunities in information deprived regions. Without proper communications infrastructure these regions with fall further behind as western economies enjoy capacious bandwidth to support more complex applications and rich media. It’s a case of “must have” over “nice to have”. Zonerider empowers and enriches communities to embrace the digital age, and become part of the larger worldwide internet community.

 

Involved Constituency

From inception Zonerider has geared its product to work in a high level partnership capacity and we have attracted interest on both a commercial and government level in the US, UK, and a few Eastern European states, respectively. We have recently been awarded a fast track UK government grant and are collaborating with companies based in Cambridge and Bath. Working with communities and government run initiatives is a natural for us, and we intend to be at the forefront of future developments in this area. We believe winning this award would raise our profile and awareness toward these organisations types.