This Digital Radio Gets Messages to the World’s Remotest Locations

We have spent the last decade obsessed with satellites. Whether it is Starlink or the race for 6G, the assumption is always that we need more birds in the sky to fix the connectivity gap. But builders working in the world’s most remote areas know that high-tech solutions often come with high-cost dependencies. If you are a founder or a developer looking at infrastructure, there is a certain elegance in using what is already there. Peter Bloom and his team at Rhizomatica are doing exactly that by revitalizing a technology most of us left in the 20th century: shortwave radio.

The Ionosphere as Infrastructure

The core concept of the High-frequency Emergency and Rural Multimedia Exchange System, or HERMES, is a reminder that the ionosphere is essentially a free, natural mirror for data. While traditional internet relies on physical cables or expensive orbital hardware, HERMES uses the high-frequency band (3 to 30 MHz) to bounce signals across hundreds of kilometers. Bloom’s team is taking 20-watt radios—roughly the power of a standard lightbulb—and establishing reliable links over 600 kilometers.

From a builder's perspective, this is a masterclass in working within constraints. We often talk about building for "low bandwidth" environments, but HERMES takes that to the extreme. We are talking about data rates measured in hundreds of bits per second, not megabits. For anyone used to modern web development, this sounds like a nightmare. But for a fisherman in the Bay of Bengal or an indigenous community in the Amazon, those few hundred bits are the difference between life and death.

Moving Beyond Voice

The problem with traditional shortwave—the kind your grandfather might have used—is that it was designed for voice. Voice is inefficient. Trying to dictate coordinates, parts lists, or medical instructions over a crackling radio line is slow and prone to human error. HERMES changes the game by treating the HF band as a digital pipeline. It’s a software stack that allows for file transfers: photos, emails, voice memos, and GPS data.

Think about the implications for decentralized systems. If you can move a file over shortwave, you can move a transaction. You can move a ledger update. You can move a proof. By turning a radio into a digital modem (their specific hardware is called Mercury), Rhizomatica has created a bridge for people who are entirely off the grid to interact with modern digital systems without needing a single cell tower.

The Encryption Dilemma

One of the most interesting aspects of Bloom’s work is the inclusion of encryption. This is a spicy topic in the radio world. Amateur radio regulations in many jurisdictions actually forbid encryption because the spectrum is considered a public resource that should be transparent. However, Bloom is building for the real world, not just for hobbyists.

If you are a community leader in a region plagued by illegal logging or political instability, broadcasting your exact location and intentions in the clear is a security risk. HERMES makes encryption optional, allowing users to toggle it based on their local laws and their specific threat model. This is the kind of founder-level thinking I appreciate—building for the user’s safety rather than just sticking to the rigid traditions of the medium.

Practical Wins in the Field

We see a lot of "tech for good" projects that never leave the whitepaper stage. HERMES is actually in the water. Bloom cites a recent pilot with artisanal fishers in Bangladesh. When a boat suffered mechanical failure 200 kilometers out in the Bay of Bengal, they didn't have to hope a passing ship heard a voice distress call. They sent their precise GPS coordinates through the HERMES system. The rescue was coordinated, the crew was saved, and the boat was recovered.

For those of us building in the AI and crypto space, there is a lesson here about resilience. We often build systems that assume a constant, high-speed connection to a centralized cloud. What HERMES proves is that there is a massive, underserved market for "good enough" connectivity that functions when everything else fails. It’s not about watching 4K video; it’s about the minimal viable data necessary to solve a problem.

Building for the Remotest Locations

The engineering challenge of HERMES isn't just the code; it's the environment. Rhizomatica operates in places like Ecuador and Brazil, where infrastructure isn't just sparse—it's often impossible to build. In these contexts, the "cloud" is a luxury, and the local radio link is the reality. The HERMES stack is open-source, which is a critical detail. It means the communities using it aren't locked into a proprietary vendor. They own their communication layer.

As builders, we should be looking at these low-power, high-resilience systems as a blueprint for the future of decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN). While everyone else is focused on the next iteration of the iPhone, Bloom is figuring out how to make a 30-year-old radio technology speak the language of the modern web. It’s skeptical of the hype, grounded in utility, and focused entirely on the end user.

The Takeaway

The real takeaway from the HERMES project is that innovation doesn't always require new physics; sometimes it just requires a better software stack for existing assets. By turning the ionosphere into a data mirror, Rhizomatica has created a tool that is more resilient than a satellite and cheaper than a cell tower. For the builders in the room: don't overlook the "slow" pipes. If you can make your application work on a few hundred bits per second, you can make it work anywhere on Earth.

Read the original at IEEE Spectrum →