CLEARWATER, Fla., July 4, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — It’s called the Connected Revolution Contest – a national crowdfunding effort that kicks off on Independence Day. This will ultimately lead to the deployment of a new type of internet infrastructure via BRIDGE wireless fiber switches deployed in 100 American communities beginning in early 2019.

The contest focus is to spark competition among communities seeking an alternative to their current internet experience. The Connected Revolution has identified 2,300 communities who have equal populations through grouping neighboring zip codes to “level the playing field”, so that communities both large and small have an equal opportunity to be a pioneer in introducing BRIDGE technology. The first 100 communities within these zip code groups to raise $500,000 win an initial BRIDGE pilot deployment. What do communities receive in return? These first adopters will become partners with the Connected Revolution in evolving their internet experience via BRIDGE technology and will be able to harness the potential of augmented reality and artificial intelligence currently not easily supported by existing internet networks.

BRIDGE’s small, low-cost and easily deployable infrastructure equipment is called a “wireless switch.” Designed by the electrical engineer who innovated the communications system for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a BRIDGE switch is about the size of a shoe box and can be mounted on a building, a light pole, or any existing structure, reducing the capital expense of installation. The switch can tap into areas of fiber optic networks that are not in use or underutilized, also called dark fiber. It sends a wireless signal that’s faster than any Internet solution currently available, with bi-directional, lowest latency gigabit bandwidth to end users that is dedicated, not shared. It’s less breachable due to its multiple layers of physical security, and virtually limitless in its capabilities when it comes to artificial intelligence and augmented reality.

Those communities that become the first 100 will be the foundation of a national rich media BRIDGE ecosystem, and will receive national press awareness, community launch celebrations, and on-going rich media demonstrations within a highly populated part of their community where BRIDGE can be utilized by the most businesses and citizens.

Communities and individuals can compete in the contest in different ways. Thought leaders, community innovators and entrepreneurs can purchase a deployment outright and make it onto the leaderboard without further crowdfunding. Civic leaders can allocate operational funds for a BRIDGE deployment to help attract technology minded companies and individuals to their communities. Individuals can go online and purchase Connected Revolution merchandise and then promote their purchase on social media using a special hashtag that is specific for each community. A real-time leaderboard on the ConnectedRevolution.us website will track hashtags to populate where communities stand in the contest.

Once deployed, BRIDGE will provide a free, interactive augmented reality kiosk in all BRIDGE communities to demonstrate a new kind of potential for the internet. Communities will also receive free smart phone adapters that make the most commonly used devices better able to maximize the BRIDGE experience.    

The Connected Revolution will also invest $1 million into its Developer’s Contest. The contest is in BRIDGE communities for developers to help spur the growth of applications, so citizens can take full advantage of BRIDGE’s capabilities in a robust, collaborative setting.

As Rebecca MacKinnon said in her TEDGlobal 2011 presentation called Let’s Take Back the Internet: “What we need to recognize is that if we want to have a citizen-centric internet in the future, we need a broader and more sustained internet freedom movement. After all, companies didn’t stop polluting groundwater as a matter of course, or employing 10-year-olds as a matter of course, just because executives woke up one day and decided it was the right thing to do. It was the result of decades of sustained activism, shareholder advocacy and consumer advocacy. Similarly, governments don’t enact intelligent environmental and labor laws just because politicians wake up one day. It’s the result of very sustained and prolonged political activism that you get the right regulations, and that you get the right corporate behavior. We need to make the same approach with the Internet.”

The BRIDGE team contends that The Connected Revolution is the approach MacKinnon was referring to and is inviting people to declare their independence beginning July 4th from current internet constraints. The difference between MacKinnon’s vision and BRIDGE is that BRIDGE won’t take decades to become a reality. It’s ready and available for model deployment today.

“The first 100 BRIDGE communities realize the struggle to communicate securely. Today’s internet is a place where we are all exploited for our personal data. It’s a place where we are told to forget about having any personal privacy. It’s a place where we are overcharged for a poor quality of service and user experience. It’s a place where, if we try to do to do too much, we are automatically throttled down in speed by the network operators who are now in control of everything. But the first 100 BRIDGE communities will change all of that. They are the revolutionaries that will demonstrate how to make the internet really great for everyone,” said Christopher Anderson, President and founder of BRIDGE and its technology.

For more information on who BRIDGE is, click here for our introductory press release.

About The Connected Revolution: The Connected Revolution is a for-profit entity created to support the initial deployment of BRIDGE wireless fiber technology in 100 cities throughout the United States. This team is responsible for communications, community support building, and deployment of BRIDGE switches in areas that have raised the necessary capital to invest in initial deployment in their downtown cores. BRIDGE is invented by Clearwater-based Redstone Technologies, who hold its patents and Intellectual Property rights and are responsible for issuing licenses to BRIDGE switch owner/operators. For more information, visit http://www.connectedrevolution.us.

SOURCE Connected Revolution