AT&T Partners with DePIN WiFi Provider Helium Network

Decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) protocol Helium has partnered with AT&T Wireless to provide the telecoms giant’s customers access to Helium’s network of more than 90,000 decentralized hotspots.

Helium’s Mobile Network provides WiFi services to cellular devices, including Helium’s own cellular network and now AT&T customers.

When a device comes within range of the WiFi hotspots, which can be owned by anyone, it automatically connects to the Helium network. The hotspots are often deployed in high-traffic areas like restaurants, coffee shops, malls, convention centers, downtown areas — wherever people congregate.

When that happens, hotspot owners earn HNT, Helium’s native token. “The owner of the hotspot will be rewarded proportional to the amount of traffic that the AT&T subscriber is transferring on the hotspot,” said Mario Di Dio, Helium’s General Manager, Network, in an interview with The Defiant.

As for the mobile users connecting to WiFi, they won't even realize that they're touching crypto, he said. They won’t even know that they have switched from AT&T’s cell network to WiFi-based connectivity.

“They are utilizing a service which is crypto powered without realizing it, just reaping the benefits of it,” Di Dio said. “For any technologist, that's what matters. You want to become invisible. We all like to brag about our technology, but you reach scale when this becomes invisible.”

Helium moved onto the Solana blockchain in April 2023.

The reward token

Along with its Mobile Network, Helium also has a much larger Internet of Things (IoT) network with 375,000 hotspots. These use separate hardware from the mobile network’s “mini-cell towers.”

Both use HNT, the governance and utility token of the Helium network. The token is used to reward hotspot deployers for providing wireless and WiFi coverage and to enable payments for data transfers.

HNT is burned to create Data Credits (DC) which are used to pay for network services like sending data onto the network. That also has the effect of reducing the supply of HNT, “ensuring value aligns with network usage and demand,” a Helium spokesperson told The Defiant.

The last SEC fight

Nova Labs, the development company behind Helium, was one of the last crypto companies sued for selling unregistered securities by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Biden-era Chairman Gary Gensler.

On April 10, the current SEC — which is broadly considered pro-crypto, in sharp contrast to the agency under Gensler — allowed Helium to end the suit for a $200,000 civil settlement without admitting any wrongdoing. The SEC dismissed its suit with prejudice, meaning Nova and Helium cannot be sued for securities violations for the 2019 issuance of its HNT token again.