Unlock the secrets of decentralized connectivity with Mario Di Dio, the General Manager of Network at Nova Labs / Helium, as we explore the groundbreaking journey of the Helium Network. Discover how Helium's innovative approach to creating a decentralized wireless network allows individuals to share their internet connections and earn Helium tokens. Starting from a focus on IoT innovation with LoRaWAN technology, Helium has grown into a global force with a million hotspots, and is now riding the 5G wave by transitioning to the Solana blockchain for even more exciting opportunities.
Step into the world of Mobile Virtual Network Operators with Helium Mobile, where we're shaking up the industry by offering a unique $20 unlimited data plan powered by T-Mobile. Subscribers benefit from lower costs and earn rewards by connecting through Helium hotspots, all while using their favorite devices like iPhones and Samsung Galaxies. Small businesses and public spaces can join the network by hosting hotspots, attracting traffic, and mining tokens, with technical requirements that are surprisingly straightforward.
The expansion continues across the United States and Mexico, thanks to partnerships with major carriers like AT&T and Telefonica's Movistar. This strategic growth not only improves connectivity in underserved regions but also supports seamless cross-border roaming. The Helium network enhances indoor cellular coverage and offers cost-effective mobile subscriptions. Plus, explore the benefits of discovery mapping, where subscribers can opt-in to create coverage heat maps and earn rewards. Join us as we navigate the future of connectivity through innovation and strategic partnerships with companies and services like Helium!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, it's Drew Lentz, the Wireless Nerd,
and I've got a very specialguest today.
We've been lining up somereally fun interviews, and so I
want to expose a little bitabout what's happening in the
industry as a whole to everyonewho's around, and maybe
introduce you to people that youmight not already know, and so
with that, mario, I'm going tolet you introduce yourself real
quick, man.
Who are you?
Why am I talking to you today?
What's going on, man?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello on, man.
Hello drew good morning well,okay, so thank you for having us
.
So so my name is mario didio.
I'm with, uh, I'm the generalmanager of network at nova labs,
which is the company behind thehelium network, which is this
interesting decentralizedwireless uh technology.
You know been in the industryfor about 15 years, used to work
uh work at Kepo Labs for a long, long time, so I'm definitely a
(00:50):
fan of telecommunications.
That's what I've always doneand I love connectivity and this
idea of what's in the futureand how we provide connectivity
to people.
I think it's a thing that willshift and change as technology
evolution goes along, and Ithink we got something really
interesting with the Heliumnetwork.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
And it's great to explore it here, interesting to
say the least, man.
I mean what you guys are doingis crazy and check this out,
totally not planned.
There's a box sitting here onthe side look at this thing,
look at this.
What do you know about that man?
You know if, if I look aroundin my office and and and I look
(01:35):
at the, I look at the toys thatI've collected over the years
when helium was first introduced, the opportunity was so
incredible.
It was like, oh my God, they'redoing, wait, they're doing what
?
And so the concept and correctme if I'm wrong, let's start at
the beginning, right?
The concept is that if I havean internet connection here at
(01:55):
my house and I want to share myinternet connection with anyone
who comes over to my house, yougive them a key, you give them a
passphrase, you onboard them insome way, shape or form so that
they can get connected to yournetwork, but they end up just
using your network for whateverit is and you just give them
your bandwidth, no big deal.
And a lot of times, if you livein a community where there's an
(02:19):
adjacent building or anadjacent neighbor, an apartment,
a house, whatever it is, thosepeople also have access to your
network if you have an opennetwork.
So wouldn't it be cool if youcould take that and monetize
that in some way, shape or form?
You could make it so thatpeople?
This is the first concept, right, was that?
How do you take your networkand allow people to access it so
(02:39):
that everyone has unfetteredaccess anywhere they go and
create this web of open access,but for the people that are
paying for the pipes, get sometype of way to compensate them.
And that first type of way tocompensate them was that HNT.
It was a helium token, likepre-Solana, right, it was that
helium token.
So, starting there, with thatin mind, you all have gone in a
(03:03):
number of different directionsand there's a lot of really
great things that have happened.
Now to naming stadiums.
After you all, like, I mean,you know, after that first
little part, where did it gofrom there and did you come in
at that phase, or when did youget involved in Helium?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So, basically, you know, like Helium, like you said
, we started a long time ago ourCEO, founder.
Amir Alhim and together withFrank Mong, our CEO, and others
and Abai Kumar, which is the CEOof the foundation, started a
long time ago with this idea,like you said, of what can I do?
How can I create a networkwhich, instead of being owned by
(03:41):
a single company or a fewcompanies, it's actually owned
by the company.
It means that, like you said,you have your internet
connection, you connect thisdevice.
We call it hotspot in thelingua, and those are devices
that create a connection.
So in 2018 and 19 and 20, itwas about iot, so it was a laura
a laura one uh connection thatcreated and that network grew.
(04:05):
It grew internationally, allthe way to like to get to a
million hotspots deployedglobally and you know there's
messages it's exchanged forInternet of Things in that
network, which is still well andin line.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So look at this.
So here's a rack wireless.
You can't see it's not focusingtoo well, but if you look, I
drew the.
I drew the helium logo on thisone because I was comparing it
to some other lorawan devices.
So this rack wireless.
When I use this to track mygolf cart around the
neighborhood, so then when my 12year old daughter decides to go
over to the neighbor's houselike real first world problems
(04:41):
right, so I could, I could trackit, and it was the idea that
you could use this network to dosomething low cost and
innovative to spawn creativity.
I skipped I totally.
I mean, I'd forgotten about theIoT component.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's how it started , right, yeah that's how it
started and it's exactly whatyou said.
They were like it started beingan internet or that you know,
namely, still didn't havemeaning.
There were a lot of use casesthat needed to be created, and
were created as they go.
So that's what was amazingabout the IoT side of the story.
So what happened is that about,I think three or four years ago
(05:18):
, the founders?
There were two things happeningin the industry.
Of course, the 5G wave was infull swing, and so the idea was
like is that possible torecreate the same type of
mechanism?
And, by the way, just for closethe loop on IoT, everything is
powered by a blockchain, whichis the back.
(05:38):
Then was the healing blockchainin terms of what they call
layer one.
Now today is on Solana, which isone of the other top blockchain
protocols and the idea was canI reproduce this blockchain
incentive mechanism to createcoverage, what they call
decentralized wireless back theninto the mobile industry more
(06:02):
of like our devices that we useevery day?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, and I think there was that middle part where
it was like okay, well, how dowe do that with Wi-Fi, like what
can we do from a Wi-Fiperspective to make that happen?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Right, and so what happened is that we started with
5G and mobile and started withCBRS.
The device that you justpointed at before is a Freedom 5
gateway.
So there was this company,funded by Boris Reski, which is
(06:47):
our general manager of wireless,so Nova, and Joey Padden, which
is our VP of architecture'mvery fascinated by the this idea
of convergence of mobilestandards.
So there is cbrs, but it isalso wi-fi, so we started
working on wi-fi, yeah, so, okay.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
So I mean that was what an interesting time.
And then now, so, so now it's,it's uh compensating people for
compensating people for usingWi-Fi.
Now, with CBRS, you know, and Idon't.
You know, there were a coupleof partners, I guess at the time
on the Wi-Fi side I'm trying tothink of who it was.
There were helium, there werehotspots that you could enable
(07:17):
helium on.
Do you remember like was thatbefore you or was that like a
Wi-Fi hotspot?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But there was still basically what you could do.
You could effectively createIoT hotspots.
You can bring your own device.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, yeah.
And then you all have equipmentthat you all sell, right?
Exactly so there's Wi-Fiequipment for that that allows
you to mine token by leveragingyour existing Wi-Fi service.
That's the Wi-Fi side, but theexciting stuff's in CBRS, right?
The exciting stuff is inoffload for CBRS and enabling Go
ahead.
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But, as I said, as we started going into that realm
of CBRS and Wi-Fi for carryingdata.
This is news that we've beenhitting the news a couple of
times already in the past coupleof weeks.
We're actually focusing more onWi-Fi, and why?
Is because, if you follow theindustry trends, there is this
(08:14):
technology enablement thatprobably some of the technical
people that follow you they knowabout this passpoint of open
roaming.
Never heard of it.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Just kidding.
Just kidding the word that youdo.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Just kidding, just kidding.
Effectively, what it is is theability to, like you said,
segment your Wi-Fi network in away that it can be accessible
securely and safely by anybody,with a simple integration that
does not require you to ask forthe password and whatnot.
So we started to dig in thosetrenches a lot, and what we find
(08:47):
out is that not only there is alot of interest, there is
actually a growing interest inPasspoint and what they call
carrier offload.
What carrier offload means?
It means that there are nowways for carriers like AT&T,
mobile Verizon to effectivelyautomatically bring their users
(09:08):
into the Wi-Fi network in aseamless way using Passpoint and
complement their macro network.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So let me ask you this then there's a break off
there between an MVNO MobileVirtual Network Operator, and
the term MVNO is when you havefor lack of a quicker way to
explain it.
You've got AT&T, t-mobile,whoever it is, and they have all
their infrastructure, they havetheir tower sites, everything
is set up.
But a Mobile Virtual NetworkOperator, an MVNO, offers
(09:37):
services that they purchase andwholesale from those carriers
and they get to use their sameexisting infrastructure, and
these are companies likeTracfone.
Boost Mobile was a big oneuntil they started carving out
their own 5G.
You've got Mint Mobile.
You have all these MVNOs thathave been able to push a
marketing campaign and resellservices on those towers as a
mobile virtual network operator.
(09:59):
Where does this fall into that?
Because this isn't atraditional MVO in the sense
that you're using theinfrastructure for the most part
.
But is there an MVNO play therewith what Helium's doing?
How does that world work?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There absolutely is, and that's why, actually, when I
say initially I look after moreof our network unit inside Nova
.
There is another network unitwhich actually we do have an
MVNO, our own MVNO.
It's called Helium Mobile.
It was launched in partnershipwith T-Mobile and what our
Helium Mobile MVNO does utilizesthe network in this way, like I
(10:38):
just described, so that,effectively, if you buy the
Helium Mobile plan which, by theway, a little bit
Self-advertisement- Go for it.
Go for it.
How much is it?
It's $20 a month for a limiteddata tax and call, and it's by
far the cheapest unlimited dataplan in the state.
Why?
It's because of this concept.
(11:03):
Many, in strategic locationswhere it matters, we are able to
lower down our own costs andthe result of that, we can lower
down the price for the end user, for the end subscriber.
So the way it works if you arean MDNO, if you are a Helium
mobile subscriber, as soon asyou're close to a Helium hotspot
(11:27):
, you'll be automaticallyconnected to it and you start
using data, and the owner of thehotspot gets rewarded for the
amount of data they gettransferred over their own
hotspot.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Okay, and then it does work as an MVNO on.
You said T-Mobile, is that whoyour partner is?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Which means that when you're not in the hotspot in a
hotspot coverage, you use theT-Mobile micro network.
So it's just like a regularT-Mobile customer.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
When you're close to the hotspot, you connect to the
hotspot.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
So everybody who has an interest in this right.
The idea is that if you getyour friends to sign up for
Helium Mobile, then not only dothey get to use the T-Mobile
service and again that's from afeatures and devices perspective
it's anything that will work onthat equipment, right?
So iPhones and Samsung Galaxiesand all that other stuff still
(12:22):
works on it.
But now when they come over toyour house they're going to roam
under your network and you getto mine token because of it.
Is that part of the marketingplan?
It's like, hey, everybodyshould jump on this so that when
you're in my house I getcompensated for it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, well, there is that.
But there is also theinteresting play, which is, you
know, places like restaurants,coffee shops, small shopping
malls, small retail stores,restaurants, coffee shops, small
shopping malls, small retailstores those are perfect places
to place one of these hotspotsbecause, organically, you will
capture traffic from peoplestopping by your shop or passing
(12:57):
by or, you know, stoppinginside your area.
So that is a perfect example,actually even a better example
than the residential for that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, that's well.
Let me ask a question on that,then.
I appreciate you letting meinterrupt you.
I do that from time to time.
So, that being said, though,this doesn't work with just any
Wi-Fi device, right Like I can'tgo and take a Meraki network
and just go ahead and turn thison in some way, shape or form
and have it start doing it.
What does it take for me as anoperator?
So, first, the question is dowe, does it work with any device
(13:28):
?
If not, what device do I needin order to support it?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
that is awesome and actually we recently launched
what we call a brownfieldinitiative.
What that means?
It means that when we startedthis, like about a year ago, we
launched our own devices, we canstill purchase.
There's a hospital that is liketwo, like this is the indoor
version, is the outdoor version?
Uh, planted, perfectly, plantedon on queue, uh, and but if you
(13:54):
happen to have a wi-fi a wi-firather, uh specifically, which
is passpoint enabled or capable,so we're talking about prosumer
.
If you devices like ubiquity,aruba c, cisco, meraki, juniper,
mist, and if you have thosedevices, you actually can follow
(14:18):
their directions in our websiteto how to enable what we call
this carrier-grade Wi-Fi offload, and effectively we can.
In the blockchain lingo, theycall it data-only hotspot.
What in the blockchain lingo?
They call it data-only hotspot.
What a data-only hotspot is isa hotspot that earns for the
amount of traffic that getstransferred over, and it
differentiates from thefull-blown, full-fledged healing
(14:42):
hustle because these guys, theyactually have an additional
level of blockchain integrationwhich allows them to earn even
without data being passed.
And this is because, withoutgetting into any details the way
you want to think about rewardsin the Helium ecosystem.
There are two buckets.
One is what we talked about themore usage through your what we
(15:05):
call a mini cell tower, likethrough your hotspot, the more
you earn.
But there's also this bucketwhich is called proof of
coverage, which is the idea ofif I can trust the location of a
hotspot in a certain area.
You actually the chain alreadyrewards you, regardless of if
there is traffic or not.
So these devices above my headhere earn both what we call POC
(15:29):
proof of coverage as well asdata rewards.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Okay, now that's the question how much does it earn?
Because there's so here's thething.
And so, with you know, there'sa couple of different groups out
there in the marketplace thatare doing this.
Now you guys were very, if notthe first, maybe the first.
Guys were very, if not thefirst, maybe the first, I'm
assuming the first, yeah, yeah.
But then you've got x net andyou've got, you know, other
little things that are poppingup here and there that are doing
(15:52):
the same thing.
You all were the first toannounce a big integration with,
with carrier offload, and now xnets turn around and they've
done that as well.
And there's been rumors, there'sbeen gossip about who's paying
off what and how much you getper gig, and so on and so forth.
Is that a set fee that you allreimburse via?
And talk me through the tokencomponent of this.
(16:13):
So someone comes over to myhouse and they download 100 gigs
of data let's call it 20 gigs.
Like someone, my mother-in-lawcomes over and she's shopping
online and downloadinghigh-resolution images of bags I
don't know and she downloads.
Let's say she does shoppingonline and downloading high
resolution images of bags, Idon't know and she downloads.
Let's say she does 20 gigsworth of transfer on here.
What does that look like to meat the end of it?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So there are multiple components.
I'll try to break it down insimple ones, so they actually
one of the biggestdifferentiation I think that
Helium started from thebeginning long ago is this idea
of like there is a communityactually voting on how and then
how the network functions, andthere is this concept of HIP,
which is the Helium ImprovementProposal, and that's where all
(16:58):
this information about how thechain pays is set up.
In the specific case of Helium,the price for the gigabyte is 50
cents a gigabyte in the States.
Now does this mean that if youhave those 20 gig you will get
all the rewards?
Then there are otherdiscussions on the buyer side of
the network that will includethings like caps or per user
(17:23):
caps or per monthly caps.
That will actually changedepending on which carrier
utilizes the network.
So I don't want to.
It wouldn't be correct if Ijust say that all those 20
gigabits would be like 50 cents.
I would say majority of thecase is yes, but in general
there are other rules or thedata buyer of the network, which
are the carriers, will apply tothat to shape what is the
(17:45):
traffic pattern.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Okay, so I'm not going to just get 10 bucks off
my mother-in-law, but possibly,possibly Now, then that you can
see the difference.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
One thing I wanted to say is that if you head over to
our Helium coverage planner,you can see actually how much.
That's the other part aboutblockchain.
Everything is transparent soyou can actually see what other
hospitals are earning.
So you know that if you're at arestaurant in Manhattan, you
can see what other restaurantsin the area are actually earning
deploying hospitals.
So you can have an idea.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So that is usually the best proxy for this type of
discussion.
Yeah, and it's awesome to seethat because then you can
actually see it, and I'massuming there's some.
In a downtown area likeManhattan versus in McAllen,
texas, there's going to be adifference in the amount that's
paid, whether that's up or down.
I don't know.
I've got to go look at it.
Is it worth more in Manhattan,where it's more robust, or is it
worth more in McAllen, wherethere's nothing?
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
It depends.
It can be both.
It can be a proposition on bothends.
It can be that it helps yourecover where capacity is under
strain, the strain, or it canhelp to when there isn't enough
yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So then the next question is then how is that
paid out to me?
And thank you for this is Ididn't know.
I didn't think we're going todo a primer on on helium, but
hey, here we are right.
So then, how is that?
How is that paid out to me?
How do I receive those funds?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
oh, those are, uh, right now they get paid into
helium tokens, helium mobiletokens, um, so that amount gets.
There is this function withinthe network called oracles.
Those are like services thateffectively translate the real
world into the blockchain world,and so daily you'll get so when
(19:19):
you onboard the hotspot, youactually connect your Helium
wallet to the Helium blockchainwallet so that there is
accounting that gets done on adaily basis and a daily, what
they call epoch.
So daily those rewards getcalculated and they get sent to
(19:40):
your wallet.
So that's where you see them,and then you can claim it.
You can do whatever you wantand as of today, that each yeah
and each token as of today, thatthose are in mobile healing
yeah, and each token, as oftoday, is at five dollars and 79
cents.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I just looked it up.
I got a little glitchy on there.
So on each one, hnt is the codefor it, and on those it's it's
five dollars and 79 cents pertoken, so you earn a fraction of
the tokens, depending on howmuch you do, and then, uh,
that's awesome, okay, so so thenthis is where you guys are,
this is this is where it's attoday.
I mean, what's give me a like acurrent state of it, because a
(20:13):
lot has been happening.
The helium mobile launch wasbig.
You guys, there's a stadium nownamed after you all, right in
california, I think.
I saw that.
There's like a huge like uh,yeah, we have a partnership yeah
, that's what we did I mean Iwish there was a stadium, not
really, but like we, more likewe are, we are partnering with
the usc, uh to trojan and to be,like you know, to be, our brand
(20:35):
ambassador yeah, and then youguys gotta have these incredible
graphics with the logos, youknow, looked up, you know, blown
up like helium balloons where,where are you at today and where
do you think you all are goingto be, without sharing too many
secrets In the next three months?
First, hold on, don't answer ityet.
Let's talk about adoption.
What does this look like froman adoption perspective?
(20:57):
Because I remember one of theearly statistics in Helium was
it was the largest, it was thefastest and it was the largest
fastest built network ever knownto man, or something like that.
There was some statistic abouthow quickly it grew, because you
would go on the map and youwould look at okay, well, is
there coverage in my area?
And there wasn't down here forthe longest time.
(21:18):
But then you would zoom out andyou would see, oh my God, spain
just like erupted, you know.
So talk to me about adoption.
Where are you guys at today andwhat does your trend on
adoption look like?
Is it picking up At whatmagnifier or multiplier?
What does it look like for youguys right now?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Well, so right now we have about in the United States
alone.
We launched about a year agoand with the hotspots, with the
mobile hotspots, and we areabout 20,000 units deployed and
growing.
We are growing at a stageacceptable, by 100, 250 a day if
you look at the planner.
So I'm expecting that toactually accelerate for many
(21:56):
different reasons.
One of them is that in the USin the past three months like
you start mentioning what we didwe actually opened up the
network also to carriers.
So now you have two of thethree big MNOs in the country
which I can name but, and acouple of them.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I can name them.
I can name them.
It's AT&T and T-Mobile.
For anyone listening, he's notconfirming or denying that, but
everybody knows that Verizon isnot playing nice with anybody
right now.
Everybody knows that.
So you can't say it, but I cansay it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We have MNOs and we have MVNOs in the network.
They use the network and sowhat happened is that the growth
actually accelerated because ofthat.
Actually, you can go in ourwebsite, the helloeliumcom slash
stats, so you can see our statsof carrier offload for the
different carriers.
You can see the growth there.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So that's, why.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I'm saying we're going to see problem
acceleration there.
That's the first thing you willsee.
The second adoption veryimportant for us is in Mexico.
We, early this year, weannounced a partnership with
Telefonica, which is thisgigantic operator that probably
everybody knows.
Yeah, that's awesome, we have abrand called Movistar in Mexico,
and what we did was exactlythat was the idea of how can we
(23:10):
complement their cellularcoverage in specific areas.
So we pointed the, we zoomed ininto Mexico City, oaxaca and
the community went out and builtcoverage, built coverage over
there.
So that partnership.
I'm very excited to see whatit's going to be.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
You know something along.
Something with that that I loveis that I live right.
I don't know if you know whereI live.
If this is the state of Texas,I live right on the border with
Mexico.
Monterrey is two and a halfhours away.
I mean it's closer.
Monterrey is closer to me thanCorpus Christi and San Antonio
is, and so there's a lot, youknow.
Half the time my phone pops upsaying welcome.
Half the time my phone pops upsaying welcome to Mexico
whenever there's a new carrierupdate and Movistar, it's right
(23:49):
across the border and it doesn'tknow any boundaries.
So for me, from aninternational perspective and
you think about resort townslike Aspen, like Vail, like any
of the big ski towns you havethis huge influx of Mexican
nationals that come across hereto shop or to contribute trade
or vacation or whatever it is.
This is such a cool thing forthem to be able to roam on the
(24:10):
Helium network from one to theother without ever even thinking
about it.
So that whole idea or conceptof an international plan now
takes a different shape becauseof it.
That deal with Telefonica andMovistar is awesome, man.
Kudos to you guys on that.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well, I mean, we're still in again.
It wouldn't be any different.
I mean, it's a staged approach,so we're excited to get into
the next stage.
But it's so cool to see twothings.
One is that you can.
You mentioned something aboutspeed and velocity.
It's so interesting.
Oaxaca, for the ones that don'tknow, is a UNESCO site
protected by the UNESCO inMexico.
(24:47):
Beautiful old town, unesco siteprotected by the UNESCO in
Mexico, beautiful old town.
With that comes the difficultyof deploying new towers in
traditional ways.
So how do you augment theconnectivity for mobile user in
a place where you cannot put youcan't even penetrate a wall or
put up a tower.
Yeah, so the way you do it, youdo it this way and what we did
in a matter of like again acouple of months, we had like
(25:09):
150 200 hospital being deployedin that stage and and now you
can have there's videos ontwitter of us like testing it
back in april which we go aroundand we get like a consistent
throughput of like 300 megabitsas you roam around that's
awesome, so awesome what you hadbefore, which is like this this
like connectivity wasn'toptimal because of the
(25:30):
limitations.
So that is one use case, and Ithink it would be very
interesting to see how it playsout in Mexico.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
So then the next question is from a network
perspective, from what you doand what you oversee over there.
Granted, there's lots that goesinto the partnership agreements
and whatever the contracts arewith the different carriers to
do that, but what does your joblook like?
I mean, you're overseeing thosecontracts.
From a network perspective,tell me what you do, man.
What does your day-to-day looklike in your role?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So day-to-day.
So day-to-day.
I mean, we're still a startup,so it's hard to pin one thing it
depends on.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
what is the dumpster that is on fire?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I mean, we're still a startup so it's hard to pin one
thing.
You're like yes, I do all ofthe things.
It depends what is the dumpsterthat is on fire when you wake
up.
It might be that there is someKubernetes cluster that needs to
be helped.
I mean not that I do thatmyself.
We have an amazing teaminternally that does that.
Kudos to them.
But no, generally I think thereis a lot of obsession current
(26:33):
obsession to grow their usage onthe network, meaning coverage
is important.
But the difference, one of thebiggest things that we learned
really quickly between IoT andmobile and Wi-Fi is that IoT is
just a bigger range, so you canthe coverage story.
It's easier in a way becauseyou can just cover much more
(26:55):
with one single unit.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
With Wi-Fi it's much more targeted, so that whenever
you have this hit or float dealsand all that, you really want
to make sure that you coverplaces where it matters.
And so the way we try to shapethat coverage, try to
incentivize the right behavior.
This is one of the things thatI focus a lot internally to try
(27:19):
to make sure the network grows,not just for the sake of growing
, but it grows where usage canactually be met.
So where is demand meets supply?
That's number one.
Number two is actually one ofthe things that we're doing and
I'm not taking all the credit atall.
That is Joey Padden.
That is one of the best personin the entire industry and I'm
(27:41):
biased and I'm proud to bebiased to say that because it's
an amazing person to have on theteam.
We are really trying to bringthis concept of quality of
service for Wi-Fi in a differentspot.
So we're really trying to bringthis concept of quality of
service for Wi-Fi in a differentspot.
So we're actually very activein places like the WBA to
utilize this network to bubbleup metrics of utilization to
carriers so that now thiscarrier of flow is less of a
(28:02):
blind exercise in which you losethe users once it connects to
Wi-Fi and becomes more of a trueconverged layer with cellular,
so that you actually, at realtime, the carrier can design
when to offload and when not tooffload based on many details
Not just the coverage or thecapacity of their cellular macro
, but also what is going to bethe QoS of the Wi-Fi that you're
(28:24):
connecting to.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, so being able to get those metrics upstream is
awesome.
I honestly did not know thatyou guys connecting to yeah, so
being able to get those metricsupstream is awesome.
I honestly did not know thatyou guys did that.
What a cool way to increase.
You know, if you've listened tothe podcast, you always hear me
say quality of experience.
Quality of experience it's likethat's what my whole life
revolves around on.
But being able to interpretthat and understand that and
report that back to the carriersso that they understand what it
(28:46):
looks like from the client side, it's, that's incredible.
That's awesome.
So what?
Okay, so, man, it's awesome.
So then, what, like?
What else do you guys havegoing on?
I mean, this is this is today,november 2024.
This is where y'all are at.
What do we have to look forwardto?
What's going on with heliumfrom a growth perspective?
You know how and and how can weget involved if we want to get
started, if anyone listening tothis this wants to get started,
(29:08):
what's the first step that theyneed to do?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
So I would say I just say we talk a lot about the
growth of the network side andthe usage.
So definitely, if you want toget involved, I would say, if
you do have access to areaswhere a lot of people congregate
everybody has a favorite dinerthat it goes to every week.
Everybody has a favorite dinerthat it goes to every week.
So go talk to the owner and say, especially if you have, like,
(29:31):
poor cellular coverage inside,because that's one of the
biggest value proposition also,it's sure, there is the mining
and there is, you know, there isthe earning part that plays a
role.
But, honestly, we have so manyconversations that we did a
couple of case studies thatprobably come out soon, in which
you know, as a business owner,like a restaurant, if you have
poor cellular coverage indoorcellular coverage and now you
(29:54):
have a solution like that, thatactually helps.
Now, just in itself, that is ahuge value for the owner because
you don't have to share yourpassword.
People are already directlyconnected.
As they enter the restaurant,they can upload a picture of
their food, so it puts you onthe map.
So, if you have any place thatyou know in which cellular is
not great in terms of indoor andyou want to fix, that's one way
(30:17):
.
Just get one of these devices.
Or, if the owner already has aPasspoint enabled, like one of
these prosumer devices that Imentioned before, that's one way
of getting involved.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
The second wave is actually to become a subscriber,
like becoming a Helium Mobilesubscriber, as I say, is
significant saving on your bill,on your monthly bill, and you
actually get to experience thisfirsthand with all the greatness
of our T-Mobile partnership.
On top of that, you get thisaccess to the Helium network.
(30:52):
That's awesome.
By the way, another thing thatyou can do.
I want to mention it for asecond.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
No, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Another cool feature that we have inside the Helium
mobile is that when you say,when you have in front of you
that map of the entire UnitedStates, sure you can take a
guess of where do you thinkcoverage will be needed the most
.
But one of the things that webuilt into the Helium mobile
platform is that if subscribersdecide to share their location
(31:18):
with a Helium network, so it'san opt-in, which is already a
big differentiator compared towhat it's not automatically
opt-in.
Automatically opt-in.
You have to opt-in, you have toopt-in.
The moment you opt-in, youactually share the location with
the Helium network.
The location gets aggregatedand now we have heat maps of
where coverage is happening andwhere people are.
(31:40):
We call this discovery mapping,so that actually the blockchain
rewards you for that behavior.
That's awesome.
Rewards the subscriber forsharing their location
information with the chain.
Not only you can have the $20 amonth plan, you can actually
also earn mobile tokens, helpingout the growth of the network.
As a subscriber you can alsoearn potential.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, man, that's awesome.
Listen, I appreciate you takingthe time.
We're running up on the bottomof it here.
I appreciate you taking thetime to have this conversation
with us.
It's such a fun thing and Ifeel like for so long I felt
like I was just on this littleisland with me and a couple of
people that knew it.
But then once you tap into theonline communities and you get
on Discord and you get on X andyou start to really dive into it
, you see people have deployedthis absolutely everywhere.
(32:25):
So, mario, that was awesome.
I appreciate you sharing thatwith us.
About Helium what a fun way toget started.
If you're interested, justGoogle, look up Helium, go to
Helium Mobile.
If you want to subscribe totheir plans, look at what they
have going on.
It's a phenomenal product, um,and and it helps you, you know,
save a little bit of money, butat the same time, it really
feels like that whole internetrevolution where you're helping
something get started again.
(32:45):
So thanks for listening to thewaves podcast.
We'll see you next week, ournext on our next episode.
Until then, drop a like asubscribe, bring the little
alarm, send me an email.
If you have any questions orcomments, please let me know.
But thanks for listening towaves.
Okay, that's done on therecording.
Hey everybody, it's Drew Lentz, the Wireless Nerd,
and I've got a very specialguest today.
We've been lining up somereally fun interviews, and so I
want to expose a little bitabout what's happening in the
industry as a whole to everyonewho's around, and maybe
introduce you to people that youmight not already know, and so
with that, mario, I'm going tolet you introduce yourself real
quick, man.
Who are you?
Why am I talking to you today?
What's going on, man?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello on, man.
Hello drew good morning well,okay, so thank you for having us
.
So so my name is mario didio.
I'm with, uh, I'm the generalmanager of network at nova labs,
which is the company behind thehelium network, which is this
interesting decentralizedwireless uh technology.
You know been in the industryfor about 15 years, used to work
uh work at Kepo Labs for a long, long time, so I'm definitely a
(00:50):
fan of telecommunications.
That's what I've always doneand I love connectivity and this
idea of what's in the futureand how we provide connectivity
to people.
I think it's a thing that willshift and change as technology
evolution goes along, and Ithink we got something really
interesting with the Heliumnetwork.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
And it's great to explore it here, interesting to
say the least, man.
I mean what you guys are doingis crazy and check this out,
totally not planned.
There's a box sitting here onthe side look at this thing,
look at this.
What do you know about that man?
You know if, if I look aroundin my office and and and I look
(01:35):
at the, I look at the toys thatI've collected over the years
when helium was first introduced, the opportunity was so
incredible.
It was like, oh my God, they'redoing, wait, they're doing what
?
And so the concept and correctme if I'm wrong, let's start at
the beginning, right?
The concept is that if I havean internet connection here at
(01:55):
my house and I want to share myinternet connection with anyone
who comes over to my house, yougive them a key, you give them a
passphrase, you onboard them insome way, shape or form so that
they can get connected to yournetwork, but they end up just
using your network for whateverit is and you just give them
your bandwidth, no big deal.
And a lot of times, if you livein a community where there's an
(02:19):
adjacent building or anadjacent neighbor, an apartment,
a house, whatever it is, thosepeople also have access to your
network if you have an opennetwork.
So wouldn't it be cool if youcould take that and monetize
that in some way, shape or form?
You could make it so thatpeople?
This is the first concept, right, was that?
How do you take your networkand allow people to access it so
(02:39):
that everyone has unfetteredaccess anywhere they go and
create this web of open access,but for the people that are
paying for the pipes, get sometype of way to compensate them.
And that first type of way tocompensate them was that HNT.
It was a helium token, likepre-Solana, right, it was that
helium token.
So, starting there, with thatin mind, you all have gone in a
(03:03):
number of different directionsand there's a lot of really
great things that have happened.
Now to naming stadiums.
After you all, like, I mean,you know, after that first
little part, where did it gofrom there and did you come in
at that phase, or when did youget involved in Helium?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So, basically, you know, like Helium, like you said
, we started a long time ago ourCEO, founder.
Amir Alhim and together withFrank Mong, our CEO, and others
and Abai Kumar, which is the CEOof the foundation, started a
long time ago with this idea,like you said, of what can I do?
How can I create a networkwhich, instead of being owned by
(03:41):
a single company or a fewcompanies, it's actually owned
by the company.
It means that, like you said,you have your internet
connection, you connect thisdevice.
We call it hotspot in thelingua, and those are devices
that create a connection.
So in 2018 and 19 and 20, itwas about iot, so it was a laura
a laura one uh connection thatcreated and that network grew.
(04:05):
It grew internationally, allthe way to like to get to a
million hotspots deployedglobally and you know there's
messages it's exchanged forInternet of Things in that
network, which is still well andin line.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So look at this.
So here's a rack wireless.
You can't see it's not focusingtoo well, but if you look, I
drew the.
I drew the helium logo on thisone because I was comparing it
to some other lorawan devices.
So this rack wireless.
When I use this to track mygolf cart around the
neighborhood, so then when my 12year old daughter decides to go
over to the neighbor's houselike real first world problems
(04:41):
right, so I could, I could trackit, and it was the idea that
you could use this network to dosomething low cost and
innovative to spawn creativity.
I skipped I totally.
I mean, I'd forgotten about theIoT component.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's how it started , right, yeah that's how it
started and it's exactly whatyou said.
They were like it started beingan internet or that you know,
namely, still didn't havemeaning.
There were a lot of use casesthat needed to be created, and
were created as they go.
So that's what was amazingabout the IoT side of the story.
So what happened is that about,I think three or four years ago
(05:18):
, the founders?
There were two things happeningin the industry.
Of course, the 5G wave was infull swing, and so the idea was
like is that possible torecreate the same type of
mechanism?
And, by the way, just for closethe loop on IoT, everything is
powered by a blockchain, whichis the back.
(05:38):
Then was the healing blockchainin terms of what they call
layer one.
Now today is on Solana, which isone of the other top blockchain
protocols and the idea was canI reproduce this blockchain
incentive mechanism to createcoverage, what they call
decentralized wireless back theninto the mobile industry more
(06:02):
of like our devices that we useevery day?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, and I think there was that middle part where
it was like okay, well, how dowe do that with Wi-Fi, like what
can we do from a Wi-Fiperspective to make that happen?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Right, and so what happened is that we started with
5G and mobile and started withCBRS.
The device that you justpointed at before is a Freedom 5
gateway.
So there was this company,funded by Boris Reski, which is
(06:47):
our general manager of wireless,so Nova, and Joey Padden, which
is our VP of architecture'mvery fascinated by the this idea
of convergence of mobilestandards.
So there is cbrs, but it isalso wi-fi, so we started
working on wi-fi, yeah, so, okay.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
So I mean that was what an interesting time.
And then now, so, so now it's,it's uh compensating people for
compensating people for usingWi-Fi.
Now, with CBRS, you know, and Idon't.
You know, there were a coupleof partners, I guess at the time
on the Wi-Fi side I'm trying tothink of who it was.
There were helium, there werehotspots that you could enable
(07:17):
helium on.
Do you remember like was thatbefore you or was that like a
Wi-Fi hotspot?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But there was still basically what you could do.
You could effectively createIoT hotspots.
You can bring your own device.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, yeah.
And then you all have equipmentthat you all sell, right?
Exactly so there's Wi-Fiequipment for that that allows
you to mine token by leveragingyour existing Wi-Fi service.
That's the Wi-Fi side, but theexciting stuff's in CBRS, right?
The exciting stuff is inoffload for CBRS and enabling Go
ahead.
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But, as I said, as we started going into that realm
of CBRS and Wi-Fi for carryingdata.
This is news that we've beenhitting the news a couple of
times already in the past coupleof weeks.
We're actually focusing more onWi-Fi, and why?
Is because, if you follow theindustry trends, there is this
(08:14):
technology enablement thatprobably some of the technical
people that follow you they knowabout this passpoint of open
roaming.
Never heard of it.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Just kidding.
Just kidding the word that youdo.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Just kidding, just kidding.
Effectively, what it is is theability to, like you said,
segment your Wi-Fi network in away that it can be accessible
securely and safely by anybody,with a simple integration that
does not require you to ask forthe password and whatnot.
So we started to dig in thosetrenches a lot, and what we find
(08:47):
out is that not only there is alot of interest, there is
actually a growing interest inPasspoint and what they call
carrier offload.
What carrier offload means?
It means that there are nowways for carriers like AT&T,
mobile Verizon to effectivelyautomatically bring their users
(09:08):
into the Wi-Fi network in aseamless way using Passpoint and
complement their macro network.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So let me ask you this then there's a break off
there between an MVNO MobileVirtual Network Operator, and
the term MVNO is when you havefor lack of a quicker way to
explain it.
You've got AT&T, t-mobile,whoever it is, and they have all
their infrastructure, they havetheir tower sites, everything
is set up.
But a Mobile Virtual NetworkOperator, an MVNO, offers
(09:37):
services that they purchase andwholesale from those carriers
and they get to use their sameexisting infrastructure, and
these are companies likeTracfone.
Boost Mobile was a big oneuntil they started carving out
their own 5G.
You've got Mint Mobile.
You have all these MVNOs thathave been able to push a
marketing campaign and resellservices on those towers as a
mobile virtual network operator.
(09:59):
Where does this fall into that?
Because this isn't atraditional MVO in the sense
that you're using theinfrastructure for the most part
.
But is there an MVNO play therewith what Helium's doing?
How does that world work?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There absolutely is, and that's why, actually, when I
say initially I look after moreof our network unit inside Nova
.
There is another network unitwhich actually we do have an
MVNO, our own MVNO.
It's called Helium Mobile.
It was launched in partnershipwith T-Mobile and what our
Helium Mobile MVNO does utilizesthe network in this way, like I
(10:38):
just described, so that,effectively, if you buy the
Helium Mobile plan which, by theway, a little bit
Self-advertisement- Go for it.
Go for it.
How much is it?
It's $20 a month for a limiteddata tax and call, and it's by
far the cheapest unlimited dataplan in the state.
Why?
It's because of this concept.
(11:03):
Many, in strategic locationswhere it matters, we are able to
lower down our own costs andthe result of that, we can lower
down the price for the end user, for the end subscriber.
So the way it works if you arean MDNO, if you are a Helium
mobile subscriber, as soon asyou're close to a Helium hotspot
(11:27):
, you'll be automaticallyconnected to it and you start
using data, and the owner of thehotspot gets rewarded for the
amount of data they gettransferred over their own
hotspot.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Okay, and then it does work as an MVNO on.
You said T-Mobile, is that whoyour partner is?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Which means that when you're not in the hotspot in a
hotspot coverage, you use theT-Mobile micro network.
So it's just like a regularT-Mobile customer.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
When you're close to the hotspot, you connect to the
hotspot.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
So everybody who has an interest in this right.
The idea is that if you getyour friends to sign up for
Helium Mobile, then not only dothey get to use the T-Mobile
service and again that's from afeatures and devices perspective
it's anything that will work onthat equipment, right?
So iPhones and Samsung Galaxiesand all that other stuff still
(12:22):
works on it.
But now when they come over toyour house they're going to roam
under your network and you getto mine token because of it.
Is that part of the marketingplan?
It's like, hey, everybodyshould jump on this so that when
you're in my house I getcompensated for it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, well, there is that.
But there is also theinteresting play, which is, you
know, places like restaurants,coffee shops, small shopping
malls, small retail stores,restaurants, coffee shops, small
shopping malls, small retailstores those are perfect places
to place one of these hotspotsbecause, organically, you will
capture traffic from peoplestopping by your shop or passing
(12:57):
by or, you know, stoppinginside your area.
So that is a perfect example,actually even a better example
than the residential for that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, that's well.
Let me ask a question on that,then.
I appreciate you letting meinterrupt you.
I do that from time to time.
So, that being said, though,this doesn't work with just any
Wi-Fi device, right Like I can'tgo and take a Meraki network
and just go ahead and turn thison in some way, shape or form
and have it start doing it.
What does it take for me as anoperator?
So, first, the question is dowe, does it work with any device
(13:28):
?
If not, what device do I needin order to support it?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
that is awesome and actually we recently launched
what we call a brownfieldinitiative.
What that means?
It means that when we startedthis, like about a year ago, we
launched our own devices, we canstill purchase.
There's a hospital that is liketwo, like this is the indoor
version, is the outdoor version?
Uh, planted, perfectly, plantedon on queue, uh, and but if you
(13:54):
happen to have a wi-fi a wi-firather, uh specifically, which
is passpoint enabled or capable,so we're talking about prosumer
.
If you devices like ubiquity,aruba c, cisco, meraki, juniper,
mist, and if you have thosedevices, you actually can follow
(14:18):
their directions in our websiteto how to enable what we call
this carrier-grade Wi-Fi offload, and effectively we can.
In the blockchain lingo, theycall it data-only hotspot.
What in the blockchain lingo?
They call it data-only hotspot.
What a data-only hotspot is isa hotspot that earns for the
amount of traffic that getstransferred over, and it
differentiates from thefull-blown, full-fledged healing
(14:42):
hustle because these guys, theyactually have an additional
level of blockchain integrationwhich allows them to earn even
without data being passed.
And this is because, withoutgetting into any details the way
you want to think about rewardsin the Helium ecosystem.
There are two buckets.
One is what we talked about themore usage through your what we
(15:05):
call a mini cell tower, likethrough your hotspot, the more
you earn.
But there's also this bucketwhich is called proof of
coverage, which is the idea ofif I can trust the location of a
hotspot in a certain area.
You actually the chain alreadyrewards you, regardless of if
there is traffic or not.
So these devices above my headhere earn both what we call POC
(15:29):
proof of coverage as well asdata rewards.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Okay, now that's the question how much does it earn?
Because there's so here's thething.
And so, with you know, there'sa couple of different groups out
there in the marketplace thatare doing this.
Now you guys were very, if notthe first, maybe the first.
Guys were very, if not thefirst, maybe the first, I'm
assuming the first, yeah, yeah.
But then you've got x net andyou've got, you know, other
little things that are poppingup here and there that are doing
(15:52):
the same thing.
You all were the first toannounce a big integration with,
with carrier offload, and now xnets turn around and they've
done that as well.
And there's been rumors, there'sbeen gossip about who's paying
off what and how much you getper gig, and so on and so forth.
Is that a set fee that you allreimburse via?
And talk me through the tokencomponent of this.
(16:13):
So someone comes over to myhouse and they download 100 gigs
of data let's call it 20 gigs.
Like someone, my mother-in-lawcomes over and she's shopping
online and downloadinghigh-resolution images of bags I
don't know and she downloads.
Let's say she does shoppingonline and downloading high
resolution images of bags, Idon't know and she downloads.
Let's say she does 20 gigsworth of transfer on here.
What does that look like to meat the end of it?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So there are multiple components.
I'll try to break it down insimple ones, so they actually
one of the biggestdifferentiation I think that
Helium started from thebeginning long ago is this idea
of like there is a communityactually voting on how and then
how the network functions, andthere is this concept of HIP,
which is the Helium ImprovementProposal, and that's where all
(16:58):
this information about how thechain pays is set up.
In the specific case of Helium,the price for the gigabyte is 50
cents a gigabyte in the States.
Now does this mean that if youhave those 20 gig you will get
all the rewards?
Then there are otherdiscussions on the buyer side of
the network that will includethings like caps or per user
(17:23):
caps or per monthly caps.
That will actually changedepending on which carrier
utilizes the network.
So I don't want to.
It wouldn't be correct if Ijust say that all those 20
gigabits would be like 50 cents.
I would say majority of thecase is yes, but in general
there are other rules or thedata buyer of the network, which
are the carriers, will apply tothat to shape what is the
(17:45):
traffic pattern.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Okay, so I'm not going to just get 10 bucks off
my mother-in-law, but possibly,possibly Now, then that you can
see the difference.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
One thing I wanted to say is that if you head over to
our Helium coverage planner,you can see actually how much.
That's the other part aboutblockchain.
Everything is transparent soyou can actually see what other
hospitals are earning.
So you know that if you're at arestaurant in Manhattan, you
can see what other restaurantsin the area are actually earning
deploying hospitals.
So you can have an idea.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So that is usually the best proxy for this type of
discussion.
Yeah, and it's awesome to seethat because then you can
actually see it, and I'massuming there's some.
In a downtown area likeManhattan versus in McAllen,
texas, there's going to be adifference in the amount that's
paid, whether that's up or down.
I don't know.
I've got to go look at it.
Is it worth more in Manhattan,where it's more robust, or is it
worth more in McAllen, wherethere's nothing?
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
It depends.
It can be both.
It can be a proposition on bothends.
It can be that it helps yourecover where capacity is under
strain, the strain, or it canhelp to when there isn't enough
yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So then the next question is then how is that
paid out to me?
And thank you for this is Ididn't know.
I didn't think we're going todo a primer on on helium, but
hey, here we are right.
So then, how is that?
How is that paid out to me?
How do I receive those funds?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
oh, those are, uh, right now they get paid into
helium tokens, helium mobiletokens, um, so that amount gets.
There is this function withinthe network called oracles.
Those are like services thateffectively translate the real
world into the blockchain world,and so daily you'll get so when
(19:19):
you onboard the hotspot, youactually connect your Helium
wallet to the Helium blockchainwallet so that there is
accounting that gets done on adaily basis and a daily, what
they call epoch.
So daily those rewards getcalculated and they get sent to
(19:40):
your wallet.
So that's where you see them,and then you can claim it.
You can do whatever you wantand as of today, that each yeah
and each token as of today, thatthose are in mobile healing
yeah, and each token, as oftoday, is at five dollars and 79
cents.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I just looked it up.
I got a little glitchy on there.
So on each one, hnt is the codefor it, and on those it's it's
five dollars and 79 cents pertoken, so you earn a fraction of
the tokens, depending on howmuch you do, and then, uh,
that's awesome, okay, so so thenthis is where you guys are,
this is this is where it's attoday.
I mean, what's give me a like acurrent state of it, because a
(20:13):
lot has been happening.
The helium mobile launch wasbig.
You guys, there's a stadium nownamed after you all, right in
california, I think.
I saw that.
There's like a huge like uh,yeah, we have a partnership yeah
, that's what we did I mean Iwish there was a stadium, not
really, but like we, more likewe are, we are partnering with
the usc, uh to trojan and to be,like you know, to be, our brand
(20:35):
ambassador yeah, and then youguys gotta have these incredible
graphics with the logos, youknow, looked up, you know, blown
up like helium balloons where,where are you at today and where
do you think you all are goingto be, without sharing too many
secrets In the next three months?
First, hold on, don't answer ityet.
Let's talk about adoption.
What does this look like froman adoption perspective?
(20:57):
Because I remember one of theearly statistics in Helium was
it was the largest, it was thefastest and it was the largest
fastest built network ever knownto man, or something like that.
There was some statistic abouthow quickly it grew, because you
would go on the map and youwould look at okay, well, is
there coverage in my area?
And there wasn't down here forthe longest time.
(21:18):
But then you would zoom out andyou would see, oh my God, spain
just like erupted, you know.
So talk to me about adoption.
Where are you guys at today andwhat does your trend on
adoption look like?
Is it picking up At whatmagnifier or multiplier?
What does it look like for youguys right now?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Well, so right now we have about in the United States
alone.
We launched about a year agoand with the hotspots, with the
mobile hotspots, and we areabout 20,000 units deployed and
growing.
We are growing at a stageacceptable, by 100, 250 a day if
you look at the planner.
So I'm expecting that toactually accelerate for many
(21:56):
different reasons.
One of them is that in the USin the past three months like
you start mentioning what we didwe actually opened up the
network also to carriers.
So now you have two of thethree big MNOs in the country
which I can name but, and acouple of them.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I can name them.
I can name them.
It's AT&T and T-Mobile.
For anyone listening, he's notconfirming or denying that, but
everybody knows that Verizon isnot playing nice with anybody
right now.
Everybody knows that.
So you can't say it, but I cansay it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We have MNOs and we have MVNOs in the network.
They use the network and sowhat happened is that the growth
actually accelerated because ofthat.
Actually, you can go in ourwebsite, the helloeliumcom slash
stats, so you can see our statsof carrier offload for the
different carriers.
You can see the growth there.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So that's, why.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I'm saying we're going to see problem
acceleration there.
That's the first thing you willsee.
The second adoption veryimportant for us is in Mexico.
We, early this year, weannounced a partnership with
Telefonica, which is thisgigantic operator that probably
everybody knows.
Yeah, that's awesome, we have abrand called Movistar in Mexico,
and what we did was exactlythat was the idea of how can we
(23:10):
complement their cellularcoverage in specific areas.
So we pointed the, we zoomed ininto Mexico City, oaxaca and
the community went out and builtcoverage, built coverage over
there.
So that partnership.
I'm very excited to see whatit's going to be.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
You know something along.
Something with that that I loveis that I live right.
I don't know if you know whereI live.
If this is the state of Texas,I live right on the border with
Mexico.
Monterrey is two and a halfhours away.
I mean it's closer.
Monterrey is closer to me thanCorpus Christi and San Antonio
is, and so there's a lot, youknow.
Half the time my phone pops upsaying welcome.
Half the time my phone pops upsaying welcome to Mexico
whenever there's a new carrierupdate and Movistar, it's right
(23:49):
across the border and it doesn'tknow any boundaries.
So for me, from aninternational perspective and
you think about resort townslike Aspen, like Vail, like any
of the big ski towns you havethis huge influx of Mexican
nationals that come across hereto shop or to contribute trade
or vacation or whatever it is.
This is such a cool thing forthem to be able to roam on the
(24:10):
Helium network from one to theother without ever even thinking
about it.
So that whole idea or conceptof an international plan now
takes a different shape becauseof it.
That deal with Telefonica andMovistar is awesome, man.
Kudos to you guys on that.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well, I mean, we're still in again.
It wouldn't be any different.
I mean, it's a staged approach,so we're excited to get into
the next stage.
But it's so cool to see twothings.
One is that you can.
You mentioned something aboutspeed and velocity.
It's so interesting.
Oaxaca, for the ones that don'tknow, is a UNESCO site
protected by the UNESCO inMexico.
(24:47):
Beautiful old town, unesco siteprotected by the UNESCO in
Mexico, beautiful old town.
With that comes the difficultyof deploying new towers in
traditional ways.
So how do you augment theconnectivity for mobile user in
a place where you cannot put youcan't even penetrate a wall or
put up a tower.
Yeah, so the way you do it, youdo it this way and what we did
in a matter of like again acouple of months, we had like
(25:09):
150 200 hospital being deployedin that stage and and now you
can have there's videos ontwitter of us like testing it
back in april which we go aroundand we get like a consistent
throughput of like 300 megabitsas you roam around that's
awesome, so awesome what you hadbefore, which is like this this
like connectivity wasn'toptimal because of the
(25:30):
limitations.
So that is one use case, and Ithink it would be very
interesting to see how it playsout in Mexico.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
So then the next question is from a network
perspective, from what you doand what you oversee over there.
Granted, there's lots that goesinto the partnership agreements
and whatever the contracts arewith the different carriers to
do that, but what does your joblook like?
I mean, you're overseeing thosecontracts.
From a network perspective,tell me what you do, man.
What does your day-to-day looklike in your role?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So day-to-day.
So day-to-day.
I mean, we're still a startup,so it's hard to pin one thing it
depends on.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
what is the dumpster that is on fire?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I mean, we're still a startup so it's hard to pin one
thing.
You're like yes, I do all ofthe things.
It depends what is the dumpsterthat is on fire when you wake
up.
It might be that there is someKubernetes cluster that needs to
be helped.
I mean not that I do thatmyself.
We have an amazing teaminternally that does that.
Kudos to them.
But no, generally I think thereis a lot of obsession current
(26:33):
obsession to grow their usage onthe network, meaning coverage
is important.
But the difference, one of thebiggest things that we learned
really quickly between IoT andmobile and Wi-Fi is that IoT is
just a bigger range, so you canthe coverage story.
It's easier in a way becauseyou can just cover much more
(26:55):
with one single unit.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
With Wi-Fi it's much more targeted, so that whenever
you have this hit or float dealsand all that, you really want
to make sure that you coverplaces where it matters.
And so the way we try to shapethat coverage, try to
incentivize the right behavior.
This is one of the things thatI focus a lot internally to try
(27:19):
to make sure the network grows,not just for the sake of growing
, but it grows where usage canactually be met.
So where is demand meets supply?
That's number one.
Number two is actually one ofthe things that we're doing and
I'm not taking all the credit atall.
That is Joey Padden.
That is one of the best personin the entire industry and I'm
(27:41):
biased and I'm proud to bebiased to say that because it's
an amazing person to have on theteam.
We are really trying to bringthis concept of quality of
service for Wi-Fi in a differentspot.
So we're really trying to bringthis concept of quality of
service for Wi-Fi in a differentspot.
So we're actually very activein places like the WBA to
utilize this network to bubbleup metrics of utilization to
carriers so that now thiscarrier of flow is less of a
(28:02):
blind exercise in which you losethe users once it connects to
Wi-Fi and becomes more of a trueconverged layer with cellular,
so that you actually, at realtime, the carrier can design
when to offload and when not tooffload based on many details
Not just the coverage or thecapacity of their cellular macro
, but also what is going to bethe QoS of the Wi-Fi that you're
(28:24):
connecting to.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, so being able to get those metrics upstream is
awesome.
I honestly did not know thatyou guys connecting to yeah, so
being able to get those metricsupstream is awesome.
I honestly did not know thatyou guys did that.
What a cool way to increase.
You know, if you've listened tothe podcast, you always hear me
say quality of experience.
Quality of experience it's likethat's what my whole life
revolves around on.
But being able to interpretthat and understand that and
report that back to the carriersso that they understand what it
(28:46):
looks like from the client side, it's, that's incredible.
That's awesome.
So what?
Okay, so, man, it's awesome.
So then, what, like?
What else do you guys havegoing on?
I mean, this is this is today,november 2024.
This is where y'all are at.
What do we have to look forwardto?
What's going on with heliumfrom a growth perspective?
You know how and and how can weget involved if we want to get
started, if anyone listening tothis this wants to get started,
(29:08):
what's the first step that theyneed to do?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
So I would say I just say we talk a lot about the
growth of the network side andthe usage.
So definitely, if you want toget involved, I would say, if
you do have access to areaswhere a lot of people congregate
everybody has a favorite dinerthat it goes to every week.
Everybody has a favorite dinerthat it goes to every week.
So go talk to the owner and say, especially if you have, like,
(29:31):
poor cellular coverage inside,because that's one of the
biggest value proposition also,it's sure, there is the mining
and there is, you know, there isthe earning part that plays a
role.
But, honestly, we have so manyconversations that we did a
couple of case studies thatprobably come out soon, in which
you know, as a business owner,like a restaurant, if you have
poor cellular coverage indoorcellular coverage and now you
(29:54):
have a solution like that, thatactually helps.
Now, just in itself, that is ahuge value for the owner because
you don't have to share yourpassword.
People are already directlyconnected.
As they enter the restaurant,they can upload a picture of
their food, so it puts you onthe map.
So, if you have any place thatyou know in which cellular is
not great in terms of indoor andyou want to fix, that's one way
(30:17):
.
Just get one of these devices.
Or, if the owner already has aPasspoint enabled, like one of
these prosumer devices that Imentioned before, that's one way
of getting involved.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
The second wave is actually to become a subscriber,
like becoming a Helium Mobilesubscriber, as I say, is
significant saving on your bill,on your monthly bill, and you
actually get to experience thisfirsthand with all the greatness
of our T-Mobile partnership.
On top of that, you get thisaccess to the Helium network.
(30:52):
That's awesome.
By the way, another thing thatyou can do.
I want to mention it for asecond.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
No, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Another cool feature that we have inside the Helium
mobile is that when you say,when you have in front of you
that map of the entire UnitedStates, sure you can take a
guess of where do you thinkcoverage will be needed the most
.
But one of the things that webuilt into the Helium mobile
platform is that if subscribersdecide to share their location
(31:18):
with a Helium network, so it'san opt-in, which is already a
big differentiator compared towhat it's not automatically
opt-in.
Automatically opt-in.
You have to opt-in, you have toopt-in.
The moment you opt-in, youactually share the location with
the Helium network.
The location gets aggregatedand now we have heat maps of
where coverage is happening andwhere people are.
(31:40):
We call this discovery mapping,so that actually the blockchain
rewards you for that behavior.
That's awesome.
Rewards the subscriber forsharing their location
information with the chain.
Not only you can have the $20 amonth plan, you can actually
also earn mobile tokens, helpingout the growth of the network.
As a subscriber you can alsoearn potential.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, man, that's awesome.
Listen, I appreciate you takingthe time.
We're running up on the bottomof it here.
I appreciate you taking thetime to have this conversation
with us.
It's such a fun thing and Ifeel like for so long I felt
like I was just on this littleisland with me and a couple of
people that knew it.
But then once you tap into theonline communities and you get
on Discord and you get on X andyou start to really dive into it
, you see people have deployedthis absolutely everywhere.
(32:25):
So, mario, that was awesome.
I appreciate you sharing thatwith us.
About Helium what a fun way toget started.
If you're interested, justGoogle, look up Helium, go to
Helium Mobile.
If you want to subscribe totheir plans, look at what they
have going on.
It's a phenomenal product, um,and and it helps you, you know,
save a little bit of money, butat the same time, it really
feels like that whole internetrevolution where you're helping
something get started again.
(32:45):
So thanks for listening to thewaves podcast.
We'll see you next week, ournext on our next episode.
Until then, drop a like asubscribe, bring the little
alarm, send me an email.
If you have any questions orcomments, please let me know.
But thanks for listening towaves.
Okay, that's done on therecording.
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