Can a startup that has been in existence for a mere 8 years persuade users to drop $1,000 (or more) to deploy a do-it-yourself 5G mid-band CBRS network that will provide coverage in the U.S. for owners of the latest 5G phones?

That’s the ambition of Helium, a startup that was set up by CEO Amir Haleem and Napster founder Shawn Fanning.

The company does have experience inducing users to build DIY networks, being the first to create a wireless peer-to-peer IoT network to serve sensors, trackers, and multiple types of devices. There are substantial differences, however, in creating a user-deployed IoT network utilizing unlicensed spectrum and setting up a 5G network that needs a major operator’s co-operation in order to run smoothly.

Helium has delivered extensive IoT connectivity across cities and towns in the US and now much of the rest of the world. The company utilizes customer-installed hotspots to enable links for low power wide area (LPWA) sensors and devices. Helium has said that only 50 to 100 hotspots would be needed to cover most cities.

Helium introduced its IoT hotspots in the US early in June 2019, starting its rollout in Austin, Texas with 1,000 units. Initial hotspots were priced at $495 each. The company now has a variety of manufacturers providing the IoT routers.

In the U.S., the hotspots run on the unlicensed 915 MHz band and use the startup’s “LongFi” protocol, which is based on LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) specification. Each hotspot has a range of 1- to 10 miles, depending on how rural or urban the living situation is. The hotspots can support any LoRaWAN IoT device.

In slightly less than two years since launch, Helium has over 46,000 hotspots currently operational in 75 countries and over 5,000 cities around the globe. There are now a variety of hotspots using different frequencies available. The European Union models transmit on unlicensed 868 MHz band, while hotspots for China run on 470 MHz. You can find out what frequency a Helium hotspot will run on in your country here.

There is a nice incentive for deploying the IoT LoRaWAN hotspots. Helium owners can earn money from the IoT service. Users who operate the Helium hotspots can make HNT cryptocurrency, which can be converted into dollars. The value of HNT tokens fluctuates, as all cryptocurrency does, but not as wildly as infamous crypto like Bitcoin and Dogecoin.

The ambitious next phase in Helium’s DIY network is to roll out a CBRS mid-band 5G gateway that can be deployed by the customer and enable carriers to use the Helium network to augment their 5G coverage.

At the moment, only the very latest Apple and Android smartphones can access a 4G CBRS signal. As their next step, a host of carriers aim to build out a 5G service on the CBRS band.

On April 27 this year, Helium partnered with FreedomFi to produce a 5G 3.5 GHz Citizen Band Radio Service (CBRS) gateway that will be available later in 2021.

The crucial difference between existing Helium IoT hotspots and the forthcoming 5G gateway is that Helium and FreedomFi will need to cooperate with one or more American mobile network operators or virtual network operators, if the 5G project is to take off and earn cryptocurrency for Helium users.

Helium and FreedomFi are well aware of this fact.

Helium is “talking to a tier one U.S. carrier” about allowing their customers to roam on the Helium 5G hotspots, Frank Mong, Helium’s chief operating officer told EE Times on April 28. “We are currently working with several mobile network operators in the USA,” FreedomFi says in a FAQ on its 5G gateways. “As much as we’d like to, we cannot tell you their names… We hope to announce at least one of these partnerships publicly prior to starting shipments of Helium-compatible FreedomFi Gateways in September 2021.”

So it’s a waiting game to see which operator — AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or some cable player, or a smaller MVNO — signs up for this, or if any company will. For all involved, it’s a more risky proposition than supporting IoT devices in narrow bands of unlicensed spectrum.

Still, hopefully we’ll see some kind of agreement by September!

One of the other major differences is the expected cost of the equipment that consumers will need to install to serve the 5G offload requirements. Users will require the FreedomFi gateway, which costs $500, as well as an antenna (or antennas) in order to operate as an entire 5G system.

The CBRS antennas start at $500 each, and rise in price to $5,000. A gateway and antenna combo will cost at least $1,000, if not more, to get a user started on the 5G offload trail.

These DIY 5G small cells will work best with multiple CBRS antennas installed outside and up high. So, becoming a Helium 5G offload player is a more spendy proposition than dropping the $325 to $429 you can blow today on a Helium IoT hotspot.

There will undoubtedly be plenty of wireless wonks who will be eager to get on the DIY 5G train. Obviously, we don’t know exactly how many yet, but The People’s Network’s first efforts with IoT show that there are folk interested in providing a DIY wireless network. And what’s hotter than providing 5G coverage right now?

Will there be enough people interested in investing in 5G, though? We don’t know how many people would have to become involved in deploying 5G antennas to get widespread CBRS coverage out to users in the U.S. We’ll have to wait to see.

We can get some idea of which operators might be interested in CBRS 5G offload, following the results of the FCC’s 3.5 GHz Priority Access License (PAL) auction in September 2020. Verizon spent $1.89 billion on 557 PALs in 157 counties in the US. Dish Network was also a major spender in the auction, bidding as “Wetterhorn Wireless” and spending $912.93 million on 5,492 PALs. T-Mobile spent $5.58 million on 8 PALs in 6 counties. There was also a plethora of smaller bidders for the licenses across the U.S.

To start with, the PALs only cover 4G LTE deployments, but movement is increasing on the 5G front. This May, the FCC granted special approval to Verizon to test out pre-commercial 5G CBRS equipment. Verizon is expected to use CBRS spectrum to ramp up its ongoing densification strategy in urban markets.

The September 2020 auction gave Dish roughly 20 MHz of mid-band 5G spectrum across the entire country. Dish is expected to roll out its initial 5G network in major cities in the U.S. by the end of the third quarter, 2021.

Clearly, there are a lot of elements that need to fall into place before 5G CBRS services come into being.

Still, Helium’s 5G plan could speed up the rollout of the new technology by putting some of the expense for equipment and deployment on users, who would gain HNT cryptocurrency in return for shouldering the initial costs of 5G.

We’ll have to hold our breath to see what happens in the first phase of Helium’s 5G plans, which are more far-reaching than the DIY IoT network that the company got started with in 2019.

Helium’s Mong tells me that the company is planning to launch initial “5G city pilots” in the U.S. by the end of the year. The 5G project will continue into 2022 and beyond, as Helium looks to expand into different countries with different 5G frequencies.

Dan Jones is a veteran reporter who has covered many segments of the communications market.

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