the telecom industry is in the middle of a massive shift
for macro (outdoor) coverage, Starlink is coming with DTD/DTC (direct to device/cell). telco's are not yet sure what to make of it. does it actually work? how's the performance? telco neckbeards are skeptical, but I would generally not bet against Elon given how well Starlink works in general. possible that the model of building celltowers is dead forever if Starlink DTD works well
for indoor coverage, the state of the art used to be something called DAS (distributed antenna system). basically a network of fiber-connected cellular antennas connected to one or more base stations. many arenas, casinos, conference centers, airports, etc are outfitted with DAS. typical deployment costs are in the millions or tens of millions of $. you've probably noticed the phenomenon when you're at a conference or busy event that you have full bars of service, but zero data flowing. that is almost certainly a DAS system with the base station over capacity
venues who are looking to upgrade or replace their DAS systems are now looking at WiFi options instead. particularly WiFi 7. why? now that Passpoint is ubiquitous, allowing phones to automatically connect without a separate authentication system/portal, and the majority of WiFi congestion issues are solved via massive amounts of 6GHz spectrum, you get the same or better performance as a DAS system for a fraction of the cost
"but everywhere already has WiFi" you say - this is exactly the point. most indoor locations already have WiFi systems of some kind, but there is still no federation of credentials and authentication that allows people to automagically connect. I don't want to see a list of 50 WiFi networks that are password protected, or pay $10 to access some shitty portal system
@helium is sitting perfectly at the intersection of both of these major shifts. satellite/dtd/dtc will never work well indoors; like celltowers, only worse. and DAS systems are being ripped and replaced with much more efficient WiFi systems. we have spent years building the groundwork for a global unified layer of connectivity and now is the time. customers wander in to these locations and their phones connect to the WiFi network via our Passpoint-enabled systems. connected customers = happy customers = more time spent in the venue = more $ spent in the venue
you are going to see more and more large scale venues move to Helium over the coming months
the ticker is
$HNT