Nova Labs, previously known as Helium, will be launching the first blockchain-backed 5G cellular services with T-Mobile. If Nova Labs CEO Amir Haleem follows through with this plan, Nova will implement the Helium 5G networking system into the T-Mobile cell-service provider; this will give Helium a boost to its credibility and how far they can truly go to peruse their end goals.
The Helium network is unique because miners are able to buy hardware to connect to a home internet modem, broadcasting your internet services to others locally. Servicing your internet will lead miners to ultimately earn crypto through LoRaWan or long-range radio wireless access networks. Within a few years over one million LoRa Hotspots covered 10% of the globe! While this sounds like a great achievement there were inevitable problems to come. Some hosts claimed to only make about 15$ a month, you would only get rewarded when people actually transmitted data over your hotspot. Unfortunately, not many devices are looking for these hotspots or connecting to them.
Amir Haleem had tweeted “getting the infrastructure out there was the first step. Realistically there’s only been *usable* coverage for the last 6-9 months,” and added, “convincing users to rely on a network built by individuals is non-trivial, and the coverage was spotty.”
This isn’t stopping Nova Labs though. Nova Labs is cranking up its ability and will launch its Helium 5g brand as a new cellular service that is going to be accessible on the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). With help from invested partners like GigaSky, Freedomfi and a handful of others, Nova Labs plans to use its hotspot approach to have users buy 5g compatible hardware (with packages ranging from $999 all the way up to $5,000), install it at their home, and then download an app to access the system. Large institutions help with different types of services, for example, GigaSky provides the app service and Freedomfi provides the sale of the hardware. With the hardware hooked up to a modem, users would broadcast services for anyone in range of an LoRA. The plan for the future of Helium 5G is to cover all of T-Mobile’s dead spots. Currently, there are about 3000 hotspots in 900 cities, a far cry from one million non-5 G compatible hotspots.
If you have a hotspot setup using Helium’s services, anyone using the hotspot and transmitting data will earn you crypto (MOBILE), but factors like how good your hardware/hotspot device is, where it was placed(indoors or outdoors) and if anyone is paying for the service to use it in the first place will affect how much you can actually earn. That’s not the only downside at the moment.
Critics like lead analyst and writer Sascha Segan say this isn’t really even 5G yet. “The Helium 5G network is instead a 4G LTE CBRS network, which right now has significant advantages over 5G but doesn’t have the 5G moniker Helium and its partners wanted for marketing.“ He states the companies decided to pitch themselves as 5G simply for marketing and all partners are currently only offering 4G LTE services over the CBRS. Segan also performed an experiment where he walked around New York City and tried to detect when he was actually on the Helium 5G service and not T-Mobile. The results of this experiment were unsatisfactory due to not being in the range of a usable signal.
So far there’s three big problems that surround the company being lack of active 5G capable hotspots, issues with the range of your transmission and few people who even know about it and have service. Early prospects for Helium 5G might just be slightly overblown, for now. There is however a new partner, NMTD, which has plans to launch 5G active hotspots transmitting 5G. Projections of these hotspots will most likely come by 2023 with people still needing to buy the hardware to be a transmitter and miner of MOBILE.
