coverage. There's no value in that. The protocol doesn't reward it. You're effectively just
sucking up hardware. And what we start to see people do as they want to try to scale that out
and build these bigger networks is they go work with friends. They go work with community. They
go to those coffee shops. They'll walk door to door and say, hey, do you want to deploy this
hardware? I'll split some tokens with you. Whatever that model looks like. And that's how we're
seeing these really driven community members go and deploy coverage. But it always comes
back down to that story of what is the value that's providing? Am I deploying these in the
right places? Et cetera, et cetera. Sure, you could go put gateways out in the middle of the
field, but the network is not going to incentivize that activity.
Maybe to add to that, like, I think that, you know, one thing that Joey said there around
sort of individual agency, right? When you put up a hotspot, you're not only providing coverage
for yourself and your devices, you're also providing it for your neighbors, maybe your
customers. And that is something that, you know, I actually did. So you mentioned Bitcoin
and you run a Bitcoin miner and you're losing money on it. You know, it is, there's still
something about like self-sovereign networks and there's still something that's kind of
why we got into any, or that's why I got into any of these things in the first place.
And, you know, that's why I worked on some Bitcoin things before working on Helium. And
that's, I think there's something about you running your own node where you're securing the
network. And, you know, sure, it's a very expensive piece of hardware. And so I totally
understand that that's, it's tough when you think about like the money that you put into
it or the power that you're putting into it and all of that. But you are securing the
network. And, you know, that's the same thing that's happening with discovery mapping, with
mapping that happens in the Helium network. These are individuals who, you know, happen to
be subscribers of a service on the network who are asserting to the network that, that
they want more coverage in new places. And that they are, you know, in these points of
congregation, there aren't like perfect databases for where people are. And then, you know, that
changes over time. Like these, you know, we call them footfall databases. Like we want an
actual footfall Oracle to come into the network. And I can talk about that for hours probably.
But like, you know, the idea is that let's bring more data to these networks to tell them where
people really are. Because, you know, I live in Northern California, we have a ton of, you
know, incredible technologies being built here. And yet we have parts of cities that
just have terrible internet, like, and how is that even okay? These are this whole this
kind of network, Helium specifically, and other kind of defense in general, really sort of
bring that individual agency back to, to, to building infrastructure.
Man, I love that. So last question for me, and I'm going to pass it to some of these
hands. How, where do we purchase? I know, Joey, you've sent me some awesome links in
the past, but for the people listening, where can they purchase these gateways? And what's
So on the IoT side, there's a whole wide range of manufacturers that are, you know, make those
gateways available. We keep a list on helium.com, and it's helium.com slash mine. And I believe the
mobile network gateways are also there. But if you want to go direct to the source for the mobile
network wifi gateways, there's currently one retailer, and that is Nova Labs via the Hello
Helium domain. So if you go to Hello Helium.com, it's both the place where you could do the mobile
plan, as well as pick up these gateways. And that ecosystem will grow. That is the current state for
the wifi gateways. And then on the CBRS side, you know, I earlier touched on a little bit of the
difference between those two networks. There's a couple of CBRS gateway providers out there. Again,
I'll, I guess, point to the helium.com slash mine. Those gateways are a bit more expensive. That
hardware can reach a little farther. It's a little more bespoke to that protocol. It's one of the
benefits of wifi is that basically commodity hardware now. But yeah, that's, that should be
basically all of the touch points for picking up the gateway.
Beautiful. Well, thank you, Joey. And we can get to Ayesha from there.
Yeah. Thanks, Noah. I have a few questions. Okay. In a Medium article, I came across information about
SenseCore, a water management system that incorporates a water monitoring device known as the Kraken.
Could you elaborate on how SenseCore leverages helium's IoT network and the wireless protocol?
Additionally, could you highlight the advantages that SenseCore provides to users in comparison to
other IoT-based water management systems, such as the solutions offered by Wabilab and Mirage,
if you're having to be familiar with them?
I don't know if I'm familiar with the two that you mentioned, but unless I'm, I'm just not mapping
that in my head correctly. But as far as SenseCore goes, they're, they're a great organization. I
encourage everyone to go sort of check them out. They build a sensor that you can strap to your water
pipe as it comes into your house or in commercial settings, the same thing. And it gives you insights
into whether leaks are happening, if there's high, you know, irregular usage, all this stuff
gets mapped over the IoT network and recorded into dashboards of their choosing or your choosing. I think
they keep that open-ended. And we've seen some really neat reports from them where they've picked
up, you know, leaky hoses, leaky water faucets, all sorts of stuff like that. And it's all through
this deployment of a relatively inexpensive sensor, especially when you compare it to the cost of
water leaking. And it uses LoRaWAN because it is a, you know, Helium's LoRaWAN network, because it is both
easy to deploy those gateways if there's not already coverage, but it also has the benefit of the
redundant coverage of all of the neighbors. And it's a very inexpensive sensor because it can have a
relatively small battery. It can be small. You don't have to have a car battery sitting next to
the thing, keeping it powered or solar panels or any of that other stuff. So you could effectively set
one, forget about it for years, and it'll continue to do its thing. So it sort of touches on some user
experience pieces that are really critical in that space. Pushing this just a little bit more broadly,
we do see LoRaWAN deployed for a lot of metering applications. So there's utilities that use the
network. I believe there's some folks directly using Helium for, I don't know if we've actually
published all that stuff yet. So I won't say too much, but there's some folks using it for metering
directly using the Helium network. And this is like the meter that's on the side of your house,
whether it's metering gas or water or electricity, all of those applications are great candidates
for a network like this. I hope that answers your question. Yeah, you answered. Okay. Considering
that the Helium network and the Helium mobile handle users data, I would like to inquire about
Helium's compliance with data privacy regulators, such as GDPR and CCPA, to ensure the protection of user
data in accordance with the global privacy standards. Yeah, I'll touch on the IoT networks. That's
largely where I work. On the IoT side, all of the data that is transferred over the LoRaWAN network is
encrypted. So from the device all the way to the end user, the network or the network participants have no
visibility into the payloads that are being transferred. So if I pressed a button on my desk, and
somebody in Europe owned that button, they'd be the only one to know about it.
The infrastructure is globally distributed. So anyone who is using the network can deploy their own
what's called LoRaWAN network server to own their own devices. They don't have to do that through Helium.
We also operate some services for folks to come in and try things. But largely what we're seeing is
folks going and deploying their own gate or their own infrastructure to bring their devices online.
Or they'll go to a public provider and address that public provider with onboarding those devices and
that data security. But effectively, the Helium network in this story is a big pipe between the two.
Got it. Does the Helium network infrastructure have the capability to seamlessly integrate with a
wide range of third party environmental and other smart sensors and devices, ensuring compatibility
and efficient data transmission?
Yeah. So anything, again, I'll talk on the IoT side. Anything that is a LoRaWAN compatible device
can work on the Helium network. So it supports both Class A and Class C devices. If you're, you know,
looking at specifications, that that means something to you.
We have a number of existing IoT operators, LPWAN operators, as I like to call them,
that use the Helium network for roaming. So I mentioned Deutsche Telekom through IoT creators,
directly resells IoT coverage. But we also have folks who have their own gateways deployed on this
LoRaWAN protocol that then go and roam onto the Helium network for additional coverage or more redundant coverage
in the areas or applications that they are operating.
Joey, do you want to talk about Helium bridge as well? That's kind of an interesting thing to think about other kinds of devices.
Oh, yeah. So this is a, that was not on the top of my head, but it is a cool one.
And as protocols go, LoRaWAN is very specific, but there's a lot of other protocols out there.
And so one of the really neat projects that we've seen in our community is that this team built a device
that can take data from non LoRaWAN devices. It effectively does the translation for you of,
of the frequency and message, and then sends that over the IoT network. And so this enables devices,
in the specific case, it was weather stations that normally would require a base station,
and were not smart devices, to now relay that data over the internet and effectively become smart devices,
and let people have insights and dashboards and access, access to that data in a, in a very different
way that wouldn't have normally existed before. And that opportunity exists as a bridge between
Bluetooth and LoRaWAN, or there's a bunch of industrial protocols that sensors get deployed all the time.
There's bridges for those that, that bring that data and makes those devices smarter because they can
directly access the internet through the IoT network.
Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Last thing for me, I was wondering, are users able to monetize their data
through Helium network? I mean, are users able to share or license their data to companies and researchers?
Yeah, so the gateway operator never owns the data. And this kind of goes back to that type that I was
talking about. However, there's applications that are built on the network where folks are making that
data available. So I know streamer as a project has done some work where folks go and deploy sensors,
and then they can make that data available through streamer and people can subscribe to know the
weather at John's house, you know, as a, as a very basic example. We also see projects like weather XM.
I already mentioned demo and there's some others where they've created their own token models around
deploying sensors, leveraging the Helium network that report that data. And then they make that data
available either through privileged APIs or open APIs. Hivemapper is actually another one to note in that
regard. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for answering all of my questions.
They're great questions. Thank you. Thank you, Aisha. Captain Levi.
Yeah, thanks, Noah. Hi, guys. I'm actually just going through this ecosystem now. I have a couple of
questions I want to ask. So I am on your live map now. And over here, I am seeing a few new dots. Some dots
are in concentrated places. Sorry, some dots are quite concentrated in some areas of this global map,
while others are not as concentrated as much. Considering the fact that it's actually long range,
I am guessing that if, I don't know if to call it packets of data or transmission packets,
in this case, are sent from, say, somewhere in Northern Africa, Tunisia, because that's where I can see
a couple of dots. And then will the other hotspots be able to receive set packets or signals
in Lagos, Nigeria, as I am seeing here? Because unlike places where I'm seeing here in, like,
Italy and Greece, there are multiple hotspots where the signals can actually hop until they reach their
location, unless I'm not really getting how this lower-end technology works.
Abai, you want to touch on this from a HIP 101 perspective, really quickly?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think HIP 100, yeah. So it's like these questions are made for us. I love it.
I think you guys, this community is awesome. And it's great to talk to you guys. So recently,
in the Helium ecosystem, one of the things that we noticed is a lot of the area, we've been sort of
looking around at the map and trying to understand, you know, what are the impediments for folks for
deploying coverage, specifically lower-end coverage. Lower-end coverage is great in, as you said, in Europe
and in the United States, but it's pretty, it has really not gotten into Africa. And one of the things
that we realized was, and we kind of knew that this was going on, but one of the things that we realized that
we could do is we could sort of specify the frequency plan for Africa in a sort of in a wide
way. So some of the countries in Africa have decided that they want to support a certain
frequency plan. And this isn't like Wi-Fi because Wi-Fi is a global standard and most countries are
bought in on the global standard. It'll get interesting with Wi-Fi 6, but that's kind of a tangent. But like
in general, you know, Wi-Fi is pretty standard everywhere in the world. With Lorwan, however,
there are many countries in the world that don't have a standard frequency plan. And that comes,
that's for a variety of reasons. And so one of the things that we proposed to the community
was that we standardize the frequency plan for the entire continent, and starting with all the
countries that haven't been specified yet. And, you know, we worked with folks who are actually
deploying applications in Africa, and also worked with the ATU, which is an African telecom union,
and with the ITU, which is sort of this international organization that thinks about things like
frequency plans and spectrum and things like that. So what's been great as we sort of proposed this to
our community, that we sort of override the standard, well known frequency plans. And at least for now,
we are going to launch all of Africa under one frequency plan, or most of the countries in Africa
under one frequency plan. There's a couple of different technical things that need to happen
with the network, configuring the network to support that. But I hope in the next few weeks,
like there will be a standard. This is something that, you know, was demand from our community.
And, you know, I am looking forward to this. I think my favorite example of a Loroan use case
is actually in with a community member who decided to just build this on their own.
They, there's a particular issue with wildlife and livestock where, you know, if a piece of,
if like, you know, cattle or other livestock end up in the sort of wildlife preserve,
they might get eaten. And so, you know, some farmers are obviously like frustrated about that.
And, and they, you know, they want to make sure that their livestock doesn't get affected by,
you know, things that are on the border fences. And so that's, so they were able to build a sensing
application, basically to understand how close wildlife is to livestock and making sure that they can,
like, stay far away. And, you know, if they need to redirect cattle or something like that,
like they can, they can go do that proactively rather than having to be really, really frustrated
when, when, you know, maybe a lion eats one of their cows. And so it's, I think like those really
practical applications have a pretty significant impact on, you know, very normal people. And,
and this is like a normal part of life to try to manage their own, their own property and their own
cattle. Right. And that's, I think it's crucial to, to be able to build these very, very large,
ubiquitous and affordable networks to sort of enable these kinds of applications that are,
you know, somewhat mundane to, you know, you and me, but like really,
really important to the people that are on the ground.
Okay. Thanks for, thanks for emphasizing and clearing that up.
Anyways, just, just in case you see a new green dots, you probably know this from me.
Um, uh, here's the thing. Oh, here's the thing. The next question I actually have in this regard,
It really lose audio. Oh my God. I thought, I thought I was rugging.
I think everyone was waiting for someone else to say something. Okay. Uh, Captain Levi,
are you there, man? This is, see, this is why you guys need healing network in, in Nigeria.
This wouldn't be, this wouldn't be an issue.
Uh, I mean, I, I, I usually always collect the wifi, but then it called a skin man.
I forgot I was on cellular. Sorry guys. Um, am I coming to you all right?
Yeah, perfect. Okay. Uh, sorry about that. Um, I was actually talking about the fact that, uh, I,
I kind of look, you understand why, uh, um, Starlink actually has, um, quicker download speed
than upload speed because it's kind of similar to, um, how satellite dish, um, work, uh, how TV
satellites work. Uh, looking at it is just a little bit of modification that actually made it
to be able to be, um, really good when using, um, internet service. Um, the next, the next question
I actually have regarding this in this regard is that I'm, I'm just checking all the, um,
so gigahertz frequencies and I kind of understand why, um, um, lower end technologies, uh, lower end
frequency is actually useful in a use case. Uh, someone made mention of a device that you can
actually stick to a package and then track it using, um, this technology while I am still wrapping
my head around how it works, uh, considering the fact that is, if you break down the internet into
its smallest bits, it's just signals being sent and received across devices. Uh, can I actually
in theory, um, track a package going anywhere, especially in considering the fact that in
this low frequency areas, in this low head areas, how would I be able to be able to understand that?
Okay. Yes. I am actually seeing this package. Should it reach places where there isn't very much,
um, uh, hotspots in a talk, so to speak.
Yeah. Uh, so there, there's kind of a couple angles of your question there. Um, the, the sticker
that we were talking about directly uses the, the IOT network, um, and it currently doesn't leverage
other protocols, but it is a possibility that it could. Um, but in the current state, it would need
helium coverage nearby or, you know, within proximity in order to reload those messages over.
Um, if you had no helium gateways deployed, then that device would not work. Um,
the, you know, you mentioned Starlink and some of these others, um, it, it tends to be a bit
prohibitive for, uh, a small low power device like that sticker to leverage space-based networks.
Uh, there is Laura ran in space. There are companies that provide that service,
but they tend to focus on ships going across the ocean and things like that. Uh, it, it's just not
the right application for more terrestrial settings where deploying physical infrastructure on the
ground is an option. Um, so this is kind of, kind of, it kind of comes back to my earlier statement,
which is like, why are people deploying these networks? Uh, and it, it's really about providing
that coverage. Uh, so, you know, Noah, you're talking about your, you run your Bitcoin miner
and you lose money on it. Um, the, the helium network, like when you run a helium gateway,
you know, not only are you participating in the crypto space of, of this network, but you are providing
coverage. You're building a service that your neighbors can use, companies can use, um, that
package that's getting delivered to your doorstep is maybe, you know, someday going to use. Um,
and so that's, it's a bit of a different angle when it, when you think about how these things and why
these things are being deployed.
I actually still do have a ton of questions, but I think I'm going to have to let you guys go now.
But one last thing from my side, uh, Joey, I, I, I, I'm kind of impressed with your, would I say
impress, um, I'm mesmerized rather by your, um, banner picture on your Twitter page. So, um, is that,
is that a log file or is that a bandwidth compression algorithm?
That is, uh, that is a log file. You're looking at my Twitter header picture. Uh, and so that's
actually, uh, I, I run a, a DIY gateway. You can run data only gateways on the helium network and you
can build them from any LoRaWAN hardware. Uh, and so what you're seeing there is actually just a bunch
of packet logs of stuff coming through that gateway. Uh, and that's just, that's just traffic around me.
That was pretty cool to see that coming through. And there's even more than there used to be when
I took that screenshot. Yeah, I can actually be pretty quiet.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. If you're looking at timestamps, it's, uh, they're wider apart. I see
several a second now. Well, it's actually mesmerizing. Uh, I can actually relate to that fact.
I really appreciate you guys for coming up. I hope to see you guys soon, um, with proper questions
regarding the tech that I'll, I'll probably, um, get in some devices, see if I can understand it
and get some devices online. Um, I wish you guys the very best. And I really hope that,
you know, this ecosystem keeps staying bullish on what, thanks again, Noah. What's the use?
Yeah. Thanks for the awesome questions. Hey Noah, I've got a jump unfortunately,
but if Joey can stick around, I think, uh, we can, uh, keep going. Sorry guys.
Yeah. No worries. Um, thanks for coming on. It was great to finally connect with you on our podium
and Joey, thanks for staying a little bit longer. I'm going to get to just,
looks like we have three more hands. Um, and then we can wrap things up afterwards.
Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks. Bye for coming on. He's very busy. He's our CEO.
Uh, so we'll go let him do his important work. Absolutely, man. It was great to have him on.
Uh, yeah. Mr. Rahmat, you're next, sir. And then we can get a dragon and we can go to Mark. And Bori,
I see you. I've tried bringing you up multiple times. I don't know why it's not letting you up.
Yeah. Thank you, Noah. Okay. I came across information that to protect your community,
Helium Foundation has decided to stop listing a hotspot makers that are non-compliant with the
foundation request. And several makers were also removed from the list. So I'm curious about the
operational status of these devices. Uh, are these devices which are already owned by the user's
function? Uh, yeah. So there, there's some details here early on in the network. Um, I, I'm going to
do a little backstory and I'll answer your question here. So early on in the network, uh, Helium Inc now
in Nova Labs, uh, was the only manufacturer of gateways. And there's a lot of reasons why we moved away
from that model. Um, but particularly. We moved to this model where any manufacturer of LoRaWAN
hardware can come to the network and build certified, you know, proof of coverage, Helium network
capable hardware. Um, and so we saw a huge influx there, you know, 30 or more manufacturers of
hardware that you could go choose from, I think at one point. Um, and the quality of customer service
and things like that was, was a mix. Um, and I, I'm sure somebody in this audience has some story of
just now getting a gateway or something two years later. Um, and that that's really unfortunate.
And we don't want to see that in an ecosystem that is community built. Um, and so what you were seeing
in the comms around removing some manufacturers was that, uh, the helium foundation respectively
taking a stance of saying, we basically don't recommend somebody go to buy gateways from these
manufacturers. They may still have hardware in stock. They would be entirely capable of operating
on the helium network. Um, heart firmware updates are still coming through for those pieces of hardware.
Uh, there's sort of alternate paths for maintaining that firmware needed. Um, but the, the critical piece
is that onboarding those gateways, uh, requires a data credit allocation. This is, uh, uh, you know,
a network safety piece to make sure that, uh, gateways come online that are actually sort of bound to people
and, and, and weird things aren't happening there. Uh, and so certain manufacturers were being slow
or delinquent on making sure that the fund was available to bring those gateways online. Um,
and so at the foundation, we, we rolled out some features for the helium wallet app and some other
things like that, uh, that let people do that onboard, even if the maker, uh, hadn't held up their
end of things. Um, and then we continue to communicate with those makers to make sure that
that onboards are being added, even if they aren't on those lists anymore. Um, so it's a, it's a bit
of a nebulous topic. I mean, it's a little bit political, but that's a bit of the high level of
what's going on there. Um, and so I'll close this out by saying, if you're interested in picking up a
hotspot, the best resource to go look at is that helium.com slash mine page.
Got it. Thank you for the clarification. Okay. One more thing. I was wondering,
is there any grant program established by the helium foundation to maybe provide support for
other projects seeking, uh, to leverage helium technology in practical real world, uh, use
cases and scenarios? Uh, yeah, again, great question. Uh, initially we ran a grant program. Um,
we are currently not operating, uh, an active grant program, but that is something that may come back
at some point in the future. Um, there's, uh, if you go and sort of look back through the history,
there's a lot of really neat articles and reports of previous grantees that have done some, frankly,
very impressive things. Um, I, I want to, I was nerding out over Laura based satellites, uh, last night
with some folks. Um, I won't go into the weeds on all of that stuff, but suffice to say that the grant
program is not currently active, but we do have a bunch of resources for folks to come in and,
you know, contribute or learn or build businesses, leveraging the network. Uh, and we're always
trying to grow that stuff. Um, so if you have ideas, uh, you know what, I'll, I'll throw another
resource out there. Uh, hello at helium dot foundation is our, our internal email. Anyone can send an idea or
question or anything like that over there. Uh, and we've got a couple of folks who keep an eye on
that, uh, myself included. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your shoot it over. Yeah, sure.
Thank you so much for your time. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Rahmat. Um, I think we have dragon,
Mark and Bori. Thank you, Noah. Um, I first deployed my, uh, device in 2020 in the middle of COVID.
And, uh, since then it has already paid for itself, paid for a new device and also paid for the phone
that I'm talking to you on. So thank you helium for putting this beautiful technology out there into the
world. So that was one. And, uh, the second thing I wanted to check was like, uh, we understand that
all hardwares are not made equal. So is there a specific device or a manufacturer, uh, that outperforms
the rest that are there in the market? Uh, yeah, let me touch on that. That second question. The,
uh, on the LoRaWAN side of things, they, they are kind of all a little bit equal. Um, they, the, the,
the hardware has a very specific job, which is to hear payloads over the air and relay those back
through the network. Um, and that's something that's solved really well by the hardware that
these manufacturers are deploying. And a lot of them are using, uh, the effectively identical
reference design from this company, Semtech, which is the sort of steward of the LoRaWAN protocol.
So when you're looking at hardware, you don't really need to concern yourself too much with,
you know, this one has more RAM or this one's got a Raspberry Pi five instead of a three or things like
that, because they will effectively do the same work. Um, in fact, when I'm evaluating gateways that
I want to use myself, I go for the one that's just going to use the least amount of power.
Uh, and even saying that that's a, that's splitting hairs. We're talking about two and a half watts
versus three watts. Um, so they're, they're very low power devices. They're, they're pretty easy to
deploy in that regard. Um, I, I have some personal favorites. I'm not gonna, you know, throw out one
over the other, but, uh, if you go and check out, um, there's the Helium Foundation Dune page. Um,
there's a, there's a whole team there with some dashboards. There's a maker dashboard. Uh, you can
see a little bit, uh, I forget who asked the question. I apologize, but was asking about maker
on boards. Um, you can see the manufacturers that are doing a really good job of keeping that funded.
You know, we consider those generally trustworthy manufacturers, um, uh, or jump into the Helium
Discord. Uh, I think it's discord.gg slash Helium. Uh, and you can sort of ask around in the public
channels there and folks will give you their recommendations. Um, I'm going to use a second
to just say that nobody in that discord will DM you. We've had a terrible increase of scams and,
and people getting rubbed from fake accounts. So just keep BPV safe out there. I know this
audience knows how to handle a wallet, but it still happens. Sounds good. Thank you so much,
Captain. Over to you, Noah. Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. Thank you, Dragon. Come back
anytime. That was, that was a great question. Um, I think it's Bori and Mark, and then we can wrap
things up. Yes. Hi. Do you hear me? Yes. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Um, first of all, I want to send my
congratulations to the Helium team for their excellent work. I'm very happy with you guys.
Thank you. Um, I have two questions. The first one is, um, I'm from, from Puerto Rico. Uh,
do you plan to bring the Helium mobile system, um, the, the telephone service to Puerto Rico? Uh,
science T-Mobile in Puerto Rico is the same provider as in the United States. You know that?
Perfect. Uh, well, so I can't speak too much on the plans of Nova Labs.
Who operates Helium mobile. Uh, I, I do expect it is in their roadmap to scale beyond the United States.
Uh, there's certainly opportunity for it. There's clear demand for deploying those gateways.
But one of the other things that Abai was touching on is that the Helium network is a open network. Um,
any telco could come and do the same thing that Helium mobile has done. Um, if they want to become a
carrier on the Helium network, that is, that is totally an option. So if you have friends for
telcos in Puerto Rico that want to do that, that is, uh, you know, open door, hello at Helium foundation
again. Um, but as far as the Helium mobile offering, uh, I, I actually know as much as you do in terms of
the, the rollout plan goes there. Oh, that's great. So, um, um, I'm, I'm gonna advise some,
some, uh, laws that help you here. Um, in addition of that in Puerto Rico, there are several laws that's,
that exempt you on new business from paying taxes. So that's good to know. Um, so if you are a
foreigner and invest on the Iceland with new business, they, uh, cut the, the, to pay taxes.
So you can take mind off that. Um, the second question is I always check every day, uh, the Solana
network, uh, on Solscan. I always, um, keep looking the, the holders and all of that. And I saw
Binance have so much Helium, um, currency, the, the, the, the HNT, um, coin. And I just wanna know
if we'll be, there are a real listing on Binance. Uh, yeah. So for context, you know,
the Helium token was previously listed on Binance and, and they had to remove that listing for their
own reasons. Uh, I, I don't know anything, uh, in terms of plans for what they might be planning to do
that could be related to the tokens that they have, uh, for the old listing or truly anything.
Okay. So, okay. No problem. Thank you for that. Um, um, I'm very happy with the project
here in Puerto Rico. The market is so big on crypto and we have too much, uh, people behind, uh, investing
on Helium. So thank you for that. I want to send greetings to my group on WhatsApp X 20. So we are
close to the goal guys. Don't give up. Thank you. Nice. Shout out. Cool. And you heard it here
first. Apparently I'm moving to Puerto Rico because they're tax friendly, right? Yeah.
It does not sound like a bad place to be. Bro, I'm here. I'm here. We're waiting for you.
Awesome. Thank you, Bori. Mark.
Yeah. Hi guys. Uh, it's maybe the hard question for the last. So I'm Mark Pestiansky. I'm actually,
yes, we, we, we, we run a similar, we have similar goals. Uh, we've actually, uh, launched
our EMG super app in Nigeria and to be connecting, connecting people and, uh, and banking people
as well through our Defy, um, app and, uh, offering, um, internet services, uh, connectivity,
bundled services, and some, some very low end, well, low end, uh, 4g equivalent devices that we
could actually, uh, offer at a very lower price due to some distributors that are targeting that market.
Uh, but I'm not here to show my project. Uh, you know, I'm here to, so just ask, uh, just,
uh, I missed the first part, but, uh, just of the, of the show and, and yeah. And, and, uh, look, uh,
it's about, um, working together and seeing how, how he, how we can actually, uh, you know, help and,
and, uh, and connect the young connected as they say, because it's, uh, you know, I've seen in web three,
we're actually web two company. I've been, you know, running it for, for 15 years. And then the last
three years in web three, we're building out, uh, the EMG super app. Uh, it, it's, uh, I've seen a lot
of projects that, you know, uh, not to name a few, but you know, world mobile token and them,
uh, they've, they've done a great job and, and, uh, fantastic ideas and stuff. But the,
the actual fact is that they have about 50,000 users of, you know, running nodes of web three
users in Tanzania. And after three years and a huge, you know, raise they did, they, they didn't
really help any people to, to be connected. And for Nigeria, you mentioned, you know, the,
the problem in Nigeria that, uh, that I see is that there's 60% of people don't have,
uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, 3g equivalent phones even. So the, the, the, the idea of running
gateways and nodes is, is, uh, is, is, uh, is, uh, you know, it's, it's a great idea of course, but
in, in reality and on, you know, on the ground, it's very difficult for, for people to, to afford
running those, you know, if it's going to cost seven, 10,000 or $5,000 when they, when
they, unfortunately they can't open a bank account, they can't get a device that's going
to be, you know, that's going to be able to do like, they can't get a smart device.
And you mentioned something about Starlink. Um, I, I, uh, I just saw that recently that
he launched, uh, this, the, the, the new satellites for a certain region where you actually can be
directly satellite to sell. But, uh, yeah, I mean, just, uh, you look, uh, interested to
collaborate, uh, to talk and, and see, see, you know, sorry, it's the last question. It's
probably the, the hardest, but, uh, yeah, how, how, how is it that, that you will be able to,
you know, or what is the sort of plans that, that you can connect a lot of people there
in Nigeria specifically? Cause that's, that's where I'm interested to, to actually launch
and we're planning to have about 200,000, um, users by giving them a free connectivity for a month.
We're, we're going to be working with a local, uh, operator like MTN and getting, uh, so they,
six months ago, they, they, uh, they released a license for MVNOs. So mobile virtual network
operators, you guys are familiar with that, um, are, can operate now. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my question.
Yeah. Cool. Yeah. There's, there's a lot in there. Um, I guess one of the things I'll touch on really
quickly is, uh, it's, it's unfortunate when projects get behind the wrong numbers. Um,
and so at the, the helium foundation, we really do try our best to lean on the most conservative
numbers. So if people ask me how many gateways are online, I always round down. It's just,
you know, which is still a massive number on IOT network. My number is 300,000 gateways online.
There's actually, uh, 350 ish thousand active gateways on the network. Uh, and those are active
doing the thing, uh, providing coverage, um, that, and I, I think it's really important to
focus on that, that baseline. Um, and so, you know, talking about big numbers, that's,
that's an important thing to keep in mind. Um, you know, flipping over to this,
like, how do we work together piece, uh, there's a, there's a concept in all of these networking
protocols, this idea of convergence, uh, and, you know, doors open. Hello at Helium Foundation,
we should talk. Uh, but, uh, sure, sure. Nobody, nobody wants to think about who is providing their
coverage, um, or who is running the fiber to do the, you know, that, all that stuff is,
is just technical jargon for most people who are trying to just make something happen.
And the, I, you know, not that it's physically even possible, but the idea that you could mash
up Amazon sidewalk and air tag, you know, tracking and Helium and cellular all into just one little
magic box and just have connectivity. That's like, that's the dream, right? You don't have to think
about which network you're using. Uh, and so there's a lot of really smart people that are
thinking about this concept of convergence. Um, and it's, it's more possible on some of these
cellular networks. Uh, frankly, just due to the hardware that's in your phone these days,
there are so many radios in your phone and they are all doing that convergence work for you.
Uh, and so I've talked about CVRS, I've talked about wifi, you know, there's your carrier frequencies,
all of those are different radios in your phone. Um, and so they all have to work together,
the organizations themselves, you and me, and, you know, T-Mobile and, um, and, and all of the
other carriers in the world have to work together to make this happen. And it's to the benefit of the
user, the person that's signing up for the cell phone plan that doesn't want to think about dead
zones and all that other stuff. Yeah. Thanks. Uh, a hundred percent. It's about the end user.
It's about, uh, you know, actually, uh, being able to connect people that really need it. Right. And,
uh, yeah, I mean, look, uh, great, great space and, uh, sorry, I missed a lot of it. Um, there,
there's a lot of work still that, uh, needs to be done and, and that, those areas. And I would,
you know, from just again, again, from, uh, from my point and I'll reach out to you guys,
I think I have some context through IBC. I'm working with them now as well, the, the Marine
Nafal group, but, uh, to, to reach out to you guys, but you know, they're the, the, the more we
work together, the more we can actually connect people and, and, uh, you know, give, give them the
real life, uh, usage of this, uh, connectivity, which they need instead of, uh, you know, just, just
for the, for the sort of web three, uh, you know, techie guys who, who actually, uh, have, have these
devices that, that, uh, that can, uh, you know, handle it. Otherwise it's, it's, uh, very limited, um,
if you don't have that smartphone, you're not going to be able to be, uh, doing a lot of things
on your phone. So, so, uh, yeah, but, um, yeah, thanks. Thanks for, uh, and I'll reach out. Thanks.
Thanks. Sounds great. And I want to just touch on one little piece that you said, which is that
these networks are not for web three. Um, web three gets to participate, which is really cool, but
this is, uh, onboard for your friends, your family, your neighbors, your coffee shop attendees.
Uh, they get to come on, they get to use these networks. They get to have a seamless experience.
Um, they have the opportunity if they're on Helium mobile, all of those people actually have a Solana
wallet and they may not even know it, but they're actively participating in the Solana ecosystem just by
being a cell phone subscriber. Uh, so, you know, it's the, the golden goose of, uh, user onboards
is sort of coming in through these applied deployments of, of things that people want.
Um, yeah, I understand that, but you need a, you need a high-end phone for that. You need a high-end
phone for that. And you, you can't, you need to get the, you need to get the network somehow. And, and, uh,
and if you, if you don't have that high-end phone, and I, and I mentioned the number 60% of, of, uh,
people, which is 200 million population in Nigeria specifically, uh, don't have a, don't have even
three G equivalent phones. So that's, that's, you know, that's, that's, you know, we've got a long,
long, long work ahead of us, but, um, yeah, thanks.
Thank you, Mark. Uh, we have one last question from Alex and then we will wrap it up.
Hi, how are you? Um, I have two questions. I'm not sure if you touched on this. I did miss the
beginning of the space. Uh, my first question is, has there been any progress on the handoff between
T-Mobile's network and CBRS? And then my second question is, Amir had mentioned there was going to be
some, uh, major news, uh, in January. I was wondering if that was related to the encrypted SIM,
or if we're still a way to get an announcement.
I don't know what Amir has in mind. I think the encrypted SIM stuff, they, uh, they wanted to roll
that out, frankly, for, uh, that, that SEC, uh, blunder that we saw very recently. Um, to touch
on that really quickly, the idea is that you can use the private key of that Solana wallet that I
mentioned to make sure that your SIM doesn't get swapped and somebody doesn't log into your Twitter
account and, uh, post Mooney type things. Um, uh, for your other question, though, about CBRS and, uh,
cellular handoff, uh, context here is the cell phone that the user in cell phone lingo, it's the UE,
uh, that the user, I don't know what that stands for. Lost it from the head. Interface?
But, uh, E, E, UE, uh, anyway, um, it, uh, it struggles a little bit on that handoff. The,
the software is not perfect there. Um, and so what we have seen on the Nova Labs team,
the ones working on this carrier again, uh, is they've done some really clever work around
programming the SIM in such a way where, because that SIM knows where it is, it can intelligently
wake up that radio and, uh, join or leave the CBRS coverage. Uh, so there is, uh, a public beta
happening for those handoffs. Uh, and that's, that's effectively the state of it today. Uh,
so I'm, I'm hopeful to see that come into the broader Helium mobile plan. Um, but they are working
through the details on that. So is that something that's currently not active? Because I am a Helium
mobile subscriber and I also have a CBRS radio deployed and my phone, it's an iPhone 14 pro.
It won't connect, uh, via CBRS.
Yep. Yeah. So I'm in, I'm in the same boat as you. I'm not on that beta. Uh, if you want to try it out,
you can, uh, I don't know what the best venue is. Um, you could jump into the discord channel and ask how
you sign up again, be very careful of people trying to scam you. Um, or you can do the in-app
support through the Helium mobile app and ask how to join that beta. Um, but it is a public beta and
they should be able to include you on that. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Alex, Joey. It's been an absolute pleasure, man. I think last time we talked for
an hour and then for the last 30 minutes, we had audience questions. And when you guys come on,
some of the most random people that typically don't come up and ask questions on our podium,
come up and ask questions. So I think it's, uh, it's a testament to your community and to how involved
people are not just with the token, but more importantly, the network. Cause all the questions,
I don't get many token questions. It's a lot more about the network and the infrastructure.
So it's really cool to see, and it's really cool to see it developing in real time. And you guys have
come leaps and bounds since last time we spoke. So if you have any concluding thoughts,
go ahead and share them now. Otherwise it's been a pleasure. Yeah. Uh, well, I'm going to say
testament to your audience here. These have been incredible questions. Uh, I couldn't have asked for
just a better participation from everyone. So, uh, thank you for everyone that came up and asked
questions. Um, I will give the sort of usual plug here. Um, if you're not following the Helium account,
there's the Helium at Helium account, and then there's the at Helium foundation, FNDN, uh, account.
And so we post from both of those fairly regularly. Um, and of course, go follow a by, uh, I post, uh, just
nonstop about IOT stuff. So only follow me if you want all that nonsense. Um, uh, and then check out
Hello Helium. Uh, it's, it's really cool. We've seen massive growth happening on that, uh, subscriber
base. Uh, and it's pretty cool to see people discovering a $20 a month unlimited plan and just
realizing that they've kind of been had, uh, paying 60, 70, 80, a hundred dollars a month for a cell phone
plan. Um, so it's great to escape that, uh, you know, fully number portable, all that fun stuff.
And on the foundation side, really excited to see other people sort of come into that ecosystem.
Uh, keep using the IOT network, keep deploying, keep those gateways going. Um, this is all part of
a bigger picture thing. So Noah, I, I'm so happy to be able to come back on. This has been a great,
um, great time to come in and sort of share some updates. Uh, there's just been so much going on.
So, um, yeah, this is, this is fun. Thank you so much, Joey, and look forward to having you guys
back on next year, uh, or maybe later this year, because things are moving fast and MobiMedia
community. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's pretty remarkable. We haven't even, I don't think it's
been a year since we last spoke. I think it's maybe been seven months and to see the progress
in seven months has been amazing. So, and things in tech move exponentially. So the next seven months,
uh, might even be bigger. MobiMedia community, thank you so much for joining. Remember that everything
you hear on these broadcasts is meant for educational purposes only. Nothing is financial advice,
so be safe out there and we will see you all on the next one soon. Take care. Thank you, Noah.