OP here. I think Helium(*) is super interesting. They are building an access network for LoRa by using crypto coins to incentivize people to deploy base stations. You essentially get crypto coins for every packet that passes through your own base station. And anyone who wants to use the network pay for access using crypto coins.

The idea is that if you are designing and selling a product, say, a dog collar, you can build Helium(*) capabilities into your product by including a LoRa chip in it. Your customers can then use the Helium(*) network to communicate with the dog collar, for example to locate a missing dog. The fees for this service then flows to the people that have deployed the base stations that facilitate this communication.

To me, this seems like a great way both to build an access network and to get people invested in (and excited in) the process. There are now also a bunch of companies who are taking advantage of this network for their products.

(What we at Thingsquare is doing, and what is discussed in the article, is a little different from what Helium(*) is doing. We are providing a single-purpose network for one system/product, such as a street lighting system. That entire system is connected using its own mesh network, and that mesh network is typically not used for anything but that product's communication needs.)

*: Helium recently changed their name to Nova Labs but I'm not sure exactly how that will effect the naming of the Helium network: https://blog.helium.com/elevating-the-helium-network-with-ne...

I think many people don't realize the scale of the helium network. It is absolutely massive, and people are also using it.

https://explorer.helium.com/

Zoom in on your neighborhood and look at the number of nodes.

Here's my small town in Northern Maine: https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/hex/882b1a06a5fffff

There are three hotspots available for a relatively obscure IoT network. Not only that, if you look at the data tab on these, they're actually getting use. Really cool.

I would be curious to read about use cases from people who use the helium network as a network. When I previously looked online all the information I saw was about people setting up the miners and didn't see anything about what using the network is actually like.

I was disappointed to see that the network seems intended for transmitting very small amounts of data. For example, by my messing around with their calculator, transmitting a gigabyte of information would cost ~400 dollars.

Lora is for low data rates, such as sensors, location trackers, IoT applications. If your town has a Starbucks, you most likely have coverage right now.

The network gets global utilization processing about 40M packets a day. Not big in terms of dollar $ yet, but people are indeed using it. Definitely nobody is suggesting you watch YouTube or even send emails with it.

If a packet is 24 bytes then 40 million packets a day is slightly less than a gigabyte of data a day. Seems like really low throughput for a global network that extends to every town with a Starbucks.

Do you have a source for the 40m packets number? Does that include the packets that the miners send to each other for proof of coverage?

I'm having trouble imagining the uses for an expensive, slow, unreliable, bespoke network that's limited to the areas with helium miners nearby. If you have an example of someone using this I'd love to read more.

About usage, this tech has historically been used for industrial enterprise applications, like sensors, valves, environmental data. A large scale network has never been available to individuals so there aren't many consumer facing applications. I think the first big ones will be very cheap package tracking.

The 40M figure is pure data from roaming partners and end usage. Here's a tweet https://twitter.com/DeWiGoSite/status/1508492610435903490?t=...

You can measure this yourself at etl.dewi.org

Exactly, LoRA provide surprising range ( in miles ) but very narrow bandwidth

Do you have a link for that? I can only find Blockchain stuff under that name

I think that's what they're referring to, www.helium.com.

"Mining HNT with Hotspots is done via radio technology, not expensive or wasteful GPUs. … Hotspots work together to form a new global wireless network and undertake ‘Proof-of-Coverage’."

"Tokens & Data Credits: The network uses two units of exchange: HNT, a new cryptocurrency, and Data Credits. Proof-of-Coverage: Our novel proof-of-work algorithm enables Hotspots to be rewarded trustlessly. Helium LongFi: LongFi combines the low-power, long-range LoRaWAN wireless protocol with the Helium Blockchain."

I get the impression is it's to create a cryptocurrency motivation for providing good network coverage. I don't get how it works but assume, like all things involving blockchain, there are externalities or unintended effects that make it not a good solution.

Yes, it's an economic mechanism to build wireless networks. There are definitely externalities as you say. However what I find amazing is they successful built the network when all other traditional means of doing so had failed. See the recent bankruptcy of sigfox.

Helium is the quintessential example of Blockchain doing obvious social good when all traditional means of accomplishing the same goal had failed.

I can't quite figure out from the site: I provide some connectivity to the network, but don't I have to worry about anonymous traffic like as if I were running a tor exit node? Seems to me that should be a big concern.

All Lora traffic is encrypted from origin to intended end server. Not to mention the protocol is for low power long range usage.

I wouldn't call TheThingsNetwork "failed", and it's the same: open LoraWAN network, except without blockchain incentives.

Helium reached a scale orders of magnitude larger in 1/5th the time. As TTN is a community effort it can't really fail in a traditional sense, but it has been lapped several times over at this point.

Similarly to Bitcoin, miners are paid by a combination of minting HNT (which halves over time) and fees paid by network usage. I'm very curious to see how this will play out over time. If network usage / fees don't increase over time while HNT issuance drops, will miners stop mining? Would the revenue still be enough to incentivize long term maintenance? Unlike Bitcoin, if miners stop mining, that directly reduces the value of the network due to a decrease in coverage. Is there a possibility of a spiral, where network usage drops due to reduced network coverage, and then miners stop mining due to the drop in usage?

I've not really dug into the details as to what solutions Helium has, but it is quite interesting to see how this experiment will play out.

All great questions. Helium mining is unique in that operational expense is close to zero, once setup, it's actually more trouble than it's worth to turn off. In many cases, turning off literally means climbing a tower. Power and bandwidth costs a cup of coffee a month. Capex is shrinking as the network matures and lower power hardware can do the same job as previously beefier units.

A much more realistic risk is sudden insolvency of a specific vendor (who are also responsible for maintaining firmware). There are about 30 approved vendors, growing monthly, but some have a larger share of the mining pool than others. The community is anticipating long term business risks and devising mechanisms to prevent a sudden loss of a large percentage of nodes due to business risk.

I firmly believe there is a significant flywheel developing here and I recently left my FAANG job to build in this ecosystem.