Episode Two: The Path To 5G
We founded Helium back in 2013 with a mission to make the world a more connected place through a ubiquitous, global wireless network. We decided to focus our initial efforts on an open source wireless protocol, LoRaWAN, purpose-built for IoT devices and sensors. By adding the open source Helium blockchain, we unlocked the barrier of traditional centralized network build-outs by spreading the cost across a decentralized ownership model. The cryptocurrency, HNT, started the flywheel of a people-powered network to roll out globally.
Today the Helium Network, also known as “The People’s Network”, is live with 28,000+ Hotspots in over 3,800 cities worldwide. There are also another 200,000+ Hotspots on backorder, from a flourishing ecosystem of Hotspot manufacturers, that will soon be deployed. The current Helium Network is well on its way to becoming the largest and fastest-growing global network with a strong forecast for over 600,000 Hotspots in the next 18 months. The best part, the accelerated growth is almost all community-driven around the world. It’s been quite the journey, one that I’m particularly proud of, but today marks the next chapter in what is sure to be an important milestone in the Helium Network: the path to 5G.
On April 14th, the Helium community voted to pass HIP 27, which effectively paves the way for the Helium Network to become the first consumer-owned 5G network in the world.
Let that sink in.
The People’s Network is coming to a phone near you — to 5G.
Helium 5G will be the second major wireless network that the Helium Network supports. If you have a phone that supports 5G, such as an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, you will soon be able to connect through Hotspots that are powered by the People — you may be getting 5G from your neighbor!
And it couldn’t have come at a better time.
5G is one of the most important technologies of this decade. It’s a geopolitical issue, an infrastructure arms race. Everyone in the world wants and needs a faster connection to the internet.
But building a 5G network is extremely hard. Telecom in general is hard. In a lot of ways, it shares many similarities to building an IoT network. A useful 5G network will need significantly more base stations than current deployments, which means installation can be challenging in dense urban areas. The economics of rolling out a dedicated 5G network also don’t often scale, which leads to patchy coverage in underserved areas. Both of these problems can uniquely be solved with consumer-deployed, 5G-compatible Hotspots that are orders of magnitude cheaper than legacy infrastructure.
So, when Helium 5G Hotspot?
To help put HIP 27 in motion and accelerate the pace of Helium’s 5G rollout, we’re working in partnership with FreedomFi, a connectivity company that manufactures open source 5G devices. FreedomFi today announced the pre-sale waitlist of the inaugural batch of FreedomFi Gateways, a connectivity device that pairs with 5G antennas and is compatible with the Helium Network. These gateways can be thought of as the very first generation of 5G Hotspots.
FreedomFi expects the end-to-end 5G setup to cost between $1,000 and $5,000, depending on how powerful the 5G radio included with the system will be. Hosts will be able to earn a variable amount of HNT, depending on radio power, location, and amount of data traffic passing through their Hotspot. Check out the pre-sale waitlist here if you’d like to learn more: www.freedomfi.com/Helium5G.
Later this year, we expect to see a self-contained, 5G-compatible Hotspot from FreedomFi, similar to the thousands of Hotspots that are already deployed. We also expect to see modification kits that will allow hosts to support 5G applications with their existing HNT mining Hotspots. As we’ve seen before, it’s inevitable that more third-party manufacturers will enter the market and compete on differentiated Hotspots.
The Helium 5G Network will be exclusively available in select cities in the U.S. to start and will utilize The Linux Foundation Magma project as well as the open CBRS spectrum band that was made available by the FCC in January 2020. We expect the Helium 5G Network to expand into other countries and cover a variety of spectrum bands as early as next year.
With the right incentive model in place, the possibilities on the Helium Network are endless. We’ve come a long way in a very short period of time with the launch of not only one, but now two types of wireless networks, and there are no signs of this movement slowing down anytime soon. None of this could have been possible without you and the support of the Helium Community. Join the community here.
Thank you for turning our dreams into reality.
