Helium and T-Mobile launch 5G mobile service
IoT blockchain Helium and T-Mobile team up on a decentralized 5G network.
IoT blockchain Helium and T-Mobile are teaming up on a decentralized 5G network. Can the project shake off the recent controversy?
On September 20, the founders behind the IoT network Helium announced a partnership with mobile operator T-Mobile. Together, they want to build a decentralized 5G network called Helium Mobile. It bills itself as the world's first "crypto-carrier".
The service is slated to launch in early 2023 in the U.S. Both T-Mobile and Helium will provide high-quality mobile internet to users' smartphones. Like traditional mobile carriers, there will be multiple plans. These will be available for as little as five dollars per month, potentially making them much cheaper than current rates. Users will also be able to mine so-called MOBILE tokens.
Helium Mobile even promises: the bigger the network, the lower the costs. At first glance, that sounds like a promising vision. The iVd project, however, has faced controversy in recent weeks.
Allegations against the founders
The idea of a global, decentralized Internet of Things (IoT) network earned Helium the reputation of a "People's Network." Yet a recent Forbes business magazine report leveled serious accusations against the blockchain's founders. They allegedly hoarded a large share of HNT tokens at launch. According to Forbes, a quarter of the tokens were mined by insiders in the first months of the blockchain.
Not the most people-centric image for a project built on a network of nodes run by individuals. The Helium concept is indeed promising. Through its own "proof-of-coverage" consensus mechanism, users prove they’re providing bandwidth via their devices. In exchange, they mine HNT tokens and help the network offer global connectivity without centralized infrastructure.
Declining rewards
Helium has grown tremendously. And in theory, growth should benefit individual nodes. But in recent months users have complained of shrinking rewards when mining. The project’s Reddit forum is full of posts from users earning little to no HNT. The modules used to provide bandwidth, however, often cost several hundred U.S. dollars. For many node operators, long-term profitability is uncertain. Tech entrepreneur Liron Shapira has been sharply critical of the project.
Shifting to Solana
Amid the debate over shrinking rewards, the project announced its plan to move its infrastructure to the Solana blockchain. Large parts of the Helium blockchain, including the token, governance, and the proof-of-coverage consensus mechanism, would run on Solana. Helium’s developers hope this will boost the protocol’s scalability and interoperability.
But Solana has lately been known more for network outages than advanced scalability. Technically, the Solana mainnet is in beta. Further outages could disrupt the operation of Helium’s future network. It raises the question of why Helium’s developers would expose their own functioning blockchain to that risk.
In any case, the community was unanimous about the switch: 81 percent voted yes. They presumably expect the IoT project to rebound. Despite rising headwinds, Helium still has the potential to become a leading Web3 application. The project, like many young blockchain ventures, battles the usual startup teething problems. The vision is promising, but the tech isn’t fully ready yet.
The T-Mobile partnership could give Helium a push toward mass adoption. But the project must stay true to its users.
