How Althea’s removing the friction of internet payments

No surprise, consumers generally want flexible internet plans. Here’s a company that’s deconstructing the typical billing scheme. Althea is a startup that’s come up with a decentralized internet service that aims to remove the "manual pieces of friction at the last mile” so that rural areas get better access to broadband. The Althea platform is comprised of two core things, CEO Deborah Simpier explained. First, it’s a machine-to-machine payment. Basically, Althea’s network of routers “sees where the traffic is flowing and pays a programmatic microtransaction for that piece of infrastructure.” The other piece of the puzzle is what Simpier referred to as “the price-aware routing protocol.” It’s a router dashboard that allows consumers to customize their internet experience, from the network’s speed and latency to how much they want to pay.