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Together, We Rise: Building The People’s Carrier

At Helium Mobile, we’re building the next-generation carrier you deserve – The People’s Carrier.

Amir Haleem

• 5 min read
Together, We Rise: Building The People’s Carrier

The Problem: Big Telco is Weighing Us Down 

It’s been over 40 years since the first cell towers were built, yet there’s been little progress and innovation to propel us all forward to a more connected future. Bills keep going up, customer service is awful, and indoor coverage is getting worse. Not to mention, we still have no control over our privacy and how our data is being used. Big telco just got busted, again, for selling our location data without our permission. I’ve lost track of how many times this has happened.

More and more, people depend on access to the internet, yet the legacy players have failed to keep up with the growing demands and have repeatedly abused their monopoly positions. 

The current telco model is not sustainable and leaves consumers with no choice. We all deserve better. That’s why we’re on a mission to shatter the status quo with a radical new approach that will break us free from big telco and put power in the hands of the people.

Enough is enough.

Our Approach: The People’s Carrier 

At Helium Mobile, we’re building the next-generation carrier you deserve – The People’s Carrier. What does that mean? Glad you asked. 

The People’s Carrier puts power and ownership in the hands of the people by combining two key ingredients: crypto + community.

Community 
The heart of The People’s Carrier is community. Helium Mobile is built on a network that is owned and operated by the people, the Helium Network. With a Helium Mobile Hotspot, anyone can monetize their real estate, power, and bandwidth to provide coverage for their community without having to wait for the big guys to build expensive towers. Simple to set up, Hotspots can be deployed at your home, business, or local shop. For providing coverage and connecting nearby Helium Mobile subscribers, you can earn MOBILE token rewards. 

By leveraging coverage that is built by the people, we’re able to deliver an unbeatable phone plan that drastically saves on costs while keeping our subscribers seamlessly connected. With unlimited talk, text, and data for only $20/month, our subscribers benefit from an affordable plan that rewards you and your community just for using it. No contracts, no gimmicks, no asterisks with minimum commitments. Helium Mobile subscribers will always use Hotspots where there is coverage and will utilize our partner network, T-Mobile, where Hotspot coverage is not available yet.

Crypto
The backbone of The People’s Carrier is a new crypto economic model that helps fuel network growth at a fraction of the cost of legacy carriers and empowers anyone to own a piece of the $1.8 trillion telco pie that’s been gatekept by big telco for decades. 

With a Hotspot, you can earn MOBILE token rewards for building network coverage and for connecting nearby Helium Mobile subscribers. As a subscriber, you can earn rewards through Discovery Mapping by opting in to share your location. This data is anonymized and shared with the Helium community to show where new coverage is needed the most. These MOBILE token rewards can also be used to pay your monthly phone bill, buy Hotspots, phones, and more. Plus, unlike legacy carriers, selling your data to third parties is not part of our business model. 

Whether you help build the network with a Hotspot or get connected with our phone plan, you can now own a piece of the telco industry and be part of revolutionizing how we all connect through this new model.

1 Year Since Beta

Just 1 year ago, we announced Helium Mobile Beta and unveiled our vision to put connectivity in the hands of the people. The launch of Helium Mobile Beta was the start of what is now an incredible journey to make our vision a reality, and we couldn’t have done it without the community and this crypto economic model.

To recap some of the milestones over the past year, here are the best of highlights:

Fast forward to today, and we now have over 90,000 Helium Mobile subscribers, more than 10,000 Helium Mobile Hotspots deployed across the US, and an unstoppable movement fueling more participation in their own communities. We’ve also seen firsthand how a city can thrive with people-powered connectivity and affordable access to the internet, thanks to the success of our Pilot City, Miami. 

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has followed the journey and joined us from Beta to Miami and now nationwide. Your feedback, testing, and support have shaped what Helium Mobile has become today and where it’s going tomorrow.

What’s Next

While we’ve accomplished quite a lot over the past year, we’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s possible for Helium Mobile. Looking ahead, we will continue to drive the adoption of our phone plans, as well as the deployment of Helium Mobile Hotspots across the US and beyond. 

Moreover, we are committed to being at the forefront of innovation and empowering others in the space to join us. This means that we will enable other companies to build compatible Hotspot hardware to accelerate the growth of the Helium Network and enable other carriers to utilize this growing, people-powered network for their own subscribers. By coming together to solve challenging problems, the sky's the limit for what we all can achieve. We look forward to sharing new and exciting developments with the community over the coming weeks.

Join the Movement

The People’s Carrier is not just another carrier – it's a movement that empowers you to rise above the status quo and participate in upending a broken legacy industry. With The People’s Carrier, the future of telco is created and owned by people worldwide, from rural areas to bustling cities and everything in between. Instead of getting connectivity from a giant monopoly, imagine a world where you and your neighbors can provide coverage for your community and reap rewards for those efforts. Together, we can make connectivity more affordable and democratize access to the internet, information, and opportunity. 

Together, We Rise. 

Here’s How You Can Participate: