How Helium plans to bridge the connectivity gap in LatAm

Decentralized mobile infrastructure company Helium (Nova Labs) is planning to grow in Latin America with its cost-effective network offload solution for telecom network deployment.

The company has an agreement with Movistar México to deploy hotspots in unconnected areas, expanding the mobile operator's coverage.

"The way traditional telco infrastructure is built has a lot of costs associated – you need cell towers, spectrum and very expensive operations and management," Mario Di Dio, general manager of network at Nova Labs, told BNamericas.

Helium is building a network of mini cell towers (hotspots) installed in private, non-residential areas such as coffee shops, restaurants and shopping malls. These hotspots offload traffic from mobile networks to fixed or satellite networks, with some directly connected to Starlink. 

The mobile operator pays for data transfer, while hotspot owners receive blockchain-based rewards in proportion to the amount of data they transfer from carriers. 

"The carrier, instead of paying for this big expensive asset, is paying for access," Di Dio said. "Blockchain is what makes it possible to do in a scalable way."

Helium has deployed 62,000 hotspots, most of them in the United States. Half are standard hotspots, while the other half are Wi-Fi hotspots converted to work with the Helium network. The solution is based on the OpenWifi standard developed by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP).

In the US, Helium has partnered with six carriers, including mobile network operators and MVNOs, and has nearly 400,000 daily active users.

In Mexico, Helium completed a pilot program in Oaxaca, a Unesco World Heritage site where regulations limit the deployment of traditional mobile tower infrastructure. The company has already certified outdoor hotspots for installation in Mexico and is in the final stages of certifying indoor hotspots.

By connecting to the Helium network, Movistar reduces roaming costs and improves user experience. 

Helium has also established business relationships with several MNOs and MVNOs in Mexico, though their names remain undisclosed for confidentiality reasons. Di Dio stated that the company expects to announce another business partner in Latin America later this year.

Helium is also exploring expansion into Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile, targeting countries with well-developed wired infrastructure (fiber or cable) but slower 4G and 5G deployment.

In Mexico, the company aims to scale its network from 1,000 hotspots to several tens of thousands this year, within the 300 expansion zones covered by the Movistar agreement.

Another growth strategy involves licensing its technology. Helium has already licensed hotspot technology to a company for commercialization in the United States.

"Our model is not to create profits and revenue with a hotspot. Sure, we will do that in the short term because we're the ones selling [the hotspots], but [our model] is really about acting as an intermediary between the carriers and the network," Di Dio said. 

"That's why we're very open to licensing the technology to anyone who wants to create hotspots, and why we're encouraging the conversion of existing Wi-Fi access points."