I understand this initiative is connected with the Solana network [1] somehow? "What’s a Cryptocarrier? Glad You Asked" [2]

There was a rage about Helium protocol recently. If I remember well it was moving from low speed IoT to mobile [3] and Algorand blockchain key people trying to push Helium to Algorand instead of Solana [4]

[1] https://solana.com/

[2] https://blog.hellohelium.com/whats-a-cryptocarrier-glad-you-...

[3] https://decrypt.co/110319/helium-founder-why-crypto-wireless...

[4] https://github.com/helium/HIP/issues/471

The move to Solana is something I hadn't heard of before, and is absolutely par for the course with this project: technically deficient, badly planned, based in hype and bullshit.

Is this their third or fourth pivot? I've lost track.

They lost me at “crypto carrier”

rightfully so. Means it'll never actually be a thing.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Never trust a project with its own token.

BTC has it's own token.

Precisely.

See "The Billion Dollar Network No One Uses" by YouTuber Coffeezilla [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDhU295bUv4

The Internet as we know it today was empty when it first started.

Helium mobile is a mobile phone carrier which provides coverage via decentralized 5g cell sites. This is unlike traditional cell carriers which either own the cell site infrastructure or rent access to it from an often larger carrier.

Participants who host a 5g cell site on the network are rewarded in project specific crypto tokens. Similarly opted in mobile subscribers who verify the cell sites are also rewarded in tokens. [1][2]

A coverage map of the IoT network and mobile network (see the menu) can be seen here: https://explorer.helium.com/

And a little more info on the network incentives is talked about in this blog post: https://blog.helium.com/mobile-proof-of-coverage-the-road-ah...

1: https://blog.hellohelium.com/you-asked-we-answered/

2: https://youtu.be/cDhTOiJ1Qtk

Do you remember the Fon Wireless endeavor [1]? It failed in the past, it doesn't mean it will fail now and using crypto for rewards seems a good idea in this case to reduce the friction in payment systems. It would be good to analyze more fundamentals. In this case I see crypto as a second success factor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fon_Wireless

It’s not easy to place and install cell towers because they need to have good lines of sight to their area of coverage and they require a lot of power and installation expertise. Helium’s “box on your shelf” model where they got thousands of crypto enthusiasts to buy little boxes that pay out cryptocurrency for connecting to the network might have some plausibility of possibly working for ultra low bandwidth IoT use cases, but is physically incompatible with the demands of an actual high bandwidth cell phone network.

It looks like this is just an MVNO on top of t-mobile- MVNOs are basically where an existing cell phone company pays a small commission to someone who can sign up users. Sort of like an affiliate link. In this case, Helium is using this relationship to imply that they have built an actual cell phone network, which is probably very far from the truth.