Understanding Helium 5G: The Challenge and Expert Advice - Gristle King (2024)

Over the course of the past year, we’ve all learned how to max­i­mize the deploy­ment of a LoRa Heli­um min­er. It’s been a fun run as we sort­ed through the vital parts of a high earn­ing deploy­ment:

• Loca­tion (Local Density)
• cLoS (Clear Line ofSight)
• Anten­na Elevation
• Anten­naType
• Cables & Install Details

Now we’re faced with a new chal­lenge: How do you deploy a 5G Hotspot? I asked a cou­ple of experts to walk me through what 5G is (NOT 5 GHz, by the way) as well as how they’re think­ing about find­ing the very best loca­tions to deploy a Heli­um 5G min­er. Some of you learn best by video, so here it is. For the rest of ya, I’ve writ­ten it all out below. No mat­ter how you learn, let’s divein!

I’ll start with who I talked to, Den­nis and Jere­my, with Travis Teague from Heli­um just lis­ten­ing in an unof­fi­cial capacity.

For the past 6 years, Den­nis (@Rhyyo_IOT on the Heli­um Dis­cord) has been run­ning an IoT com­pa­ny, most­ly based around LoRa. On the path to grow­ing his LoRa net­work he stum­bled into 5G and began build­ing and deploy­ing 5G net­work coverage.

Jere­my (@rollinson on the Heli­um Dis­cord) has been work­ing in wire­less for 20 years. From the very begin­ning, when WiFi went into enter­prise solu­tions, he’s been fas­ci­nat­ed with mov­ing infor­ma­tion with­outwires.

He’s run com­pa­nies pro­vid­ing anten­nas and cables, been hired to set up the net­works for wire­less cam­eras at big events (Lol­la­palooza, the NFL draft), and made WiFi do all kinds of things it was nev­er intend­ed to do. Even­tu­al­ly he jumped into CBRS (Cit­i­zens Broad­band Radio Ser­vice) because he want­ed to use it at events for point of sale and access control.

Yeah, those are geek terms. Don’t wor­ry too much about ’em now, just focus on the fact that these guys have a col­lec­tive TON of applied expe­ri­ence in the 5Gspace.

When Heli­um announced 5G and Free­dom­Fi, both Jere­my & Den­nis jumped in, and have been extra­or­di­nar­i­ly help­ful on the Heli­um Dis­cord #5g-cbrs channel.

Ok, now that you know who these guys are, let’s dig in to the questions.

What Is5G?

Is it 5 Ghz?Nope.

5G is a stan­dard, not a fre­quen­cy. The G stands for Gen­er­a­tion, so 5G = the Fifth Gen­er­a­tion of wire­less standards.

The 5G stan­dard cov­ers all kinds of fre­quen­cies, from 900 MHz up to 80 GHz. The com­mon thread is how all these fre­quen­cies “talk” to each oth­er. Yes, I’ll use some non-radio-geek approved jar­gonhere.🙂

The idea of mul­ti­ple fre­quen­cies on one plan isn’t new. 4G (what we all have had on our phones) does­n’t come on one fre­quen­cy. It’s spread across a bunch of ’em. This is a com­mon mis­take for those of us not famil­iar with the tech­ni­cal aspects of radio fre­quen­cy bands. 4G is not 4 GHz. Relax, we’re going to cure our igno­rance together.🙂

Dif­fer­ent fre­quen­cies “do” dif­fer­ent things. In gen­er­al, the low­er the fre­quen­cy the longer the dis­tance it’ll cov­er but the less infor­ma­tion it cancarry.

What you’re famil­iar with in the world of LoRa is (in the US) 915 MHz, which can go hun­dreds of kilo­me­ters but only car­ries a tiny amount of data; say, a 10 dig­it grid coor­di­nate from a track­ing device.

At high­er fre­quen­cies, way up in the 60 GHz range, you can blast full huge-data high-def video about 1,000′ with a clear line of sight. Build­ing, trees, rain, even a per­son in the way can block that signal.

Ok, so with the 5G stan­dard a lit­tle more clear, let’s talk about the Free­dom­Fi Hotspot, which will allow you to par­tic­i­pate in a few bands of the 5G standard.

What IsCBRS?

CBRS is a USA-only “thing”.CBRS is a ded­i­cat­ed fre­quen­cy band from 3.55 — 3.7 GHz that’s open to any­one in the US as long as they have com­pli­ant equip­ment. Yes, it’s not fair that oth­er coun­tries don’t have access to the HNT earned from 5G data flow. I’m pret­ty sure they’ll fig­ure it out soon. As of Decem­ber 2021, Amer­i­ca has the drop on this. No, I don’t make the rules. Vote the bums out! Ok, off my soap­box and back to5G.

Why is CBRS spe­cial? It’s not like WiFi, where any­one can just blast out a sig­nal. On CBRS, the radio gets on the net­work, “phones in” and says “Here I am. This is what I can do. Tell me what fre­quen­cy I can have, tell me what trans­mit pow­er I can have.” The net­work responds with a set of guide­lines that say, “Stay in this lane, at this pow­er”, and the radio is off to the races in it’s own lit­tle space, unin­ter­rupt­ed by oth­er CBRS radios.

All of that hap­pens with very lit­tle to no human involve­ment. You don’t have to buy ded­i­cat­ed spec­trum. You don’t have to bid bil­lions of dol­lars at an FCC auc­tion just so you can get on the radio. Every­body gets to play in that space, because every­one is forced to play by the rules automatically.

CBRS is also recent; it just became avail­able in Jan­u­ary 2020. So, ded­i­cat­ed spec­trum, no human inter­ac­tion to argue over band­width, and brand spankin’ new. That’s what’s special.

The Free­dom­Fi CBRS offer­ing will car­ry a lot of data a very short dis­tance, and almost any­thing sol­id will block the signal.

The Free­dom­Fi will also (prob­a­bly) even­tu­al­ly allow you to con­nect in to oth­er fre­quen­cies. For now we’ll stick with the CBRS fre­quen­cyband.

Where does that leave you, the Hotspot deploy­er? Well, before we get to iden­ti­fy­ing the per­fect 5G deploy­ment, let’s talk about one more impor­tant thing, which is the 3 part split of a 5G Heli­umsetup.

What Are The Parts Of A Helium 5G Hotspot?

• Hotspot /Miner
• Radio
• Anten­na

Let’s start with the min­er, or Hotspot. This is the thing that minesHNT.

For most of us in the Heli­um Net­work, the oth­er Hotspots we’ve bought (Nebra, RAK, Sense­Cap, Bob­cat, etc) have includ­ed a radio and an anten­na to pro­vide LoRa cov­er­age. This is where the Free­dom­Fi is different.

The Free­dom­Fi allows you to split out the min­er, radio, and anten­na in order to “future proof” your par­tic­i­pa­tion in Helium.

Ok, so you’ve got your Hotspot. Next, you have the radio. In the case of the Free­dom­Fi min­er, a radio will allow you pro­vide cov­er­age in the 3.5 — 3.7 GHz spec­trum (as well as oth­ers in the future.) Con­fus­ing­ly, the radio can come with an anten­na, or it can be sep­a­rate from an antenna.

Last, you have the anten­na, which you can upgrade. I know, I know, I can already hear you gear-geeks sali­vat­ing at the thought of upgrad­ing your anten­nas. I’ll warn ya, this time it ain’t going to be cheap. For a high end badass 3.5 — 3.7 GHz anten­na you’re look­ing at north of $10k.

Still, you don’t HAVE to have that anten­na. You can spend $1,000 and prob­a­bly be good. The pri­or­i­ty with Free­dom­Fi min­er is the same as with the cur­rent LoRa miners:

• Loca­tion is where you make yourmoney.
• Instal­la­tion is where you spend your effort.
• Anten­nas and gear are where you play withtoys.

Now, with the Free­dom­Fi it’s a lit­tle con­fus­ing, because the Free­dom­Fi min­er includes a LoRa radio but not the CBRS radio. You’ll have to add a CBRS radio and an anten­na. In some cas­es the anten­na is includ­ed with the radio. Con­fus­ing if you don’t know about the split. Easy when you knowhow.

How Much Will A Helium 5G Deployment Cost?

So, what’s it going to cost? At a (rea­son­able)guess:

Gate­way (Hotspot): $1,000

Indoor Radio (with anten­na): $1,500

Upgrad­ed Radios: $2,500 — 5,000

Fan­cy Anten­nas: Pen­cil in $7,000 as your startpoint

Cable, Con­nec­tors, Bits & Bobs: Plan on anoth­er $100–300

Now, it’ll get inter­est­ing (and expen­sive) fast, because you can buy mul­ti­ple radios, each with their own anten­na, that can report to one Hotspot.

What Is The Ideal Location For A Helium 5G Hotspot?

We are not in LoRa land any­more. We’re in a very dif­fer­ent space, with a dif­fer­ent set of require­ments. You’re not going to com­pete with the Tel­Cos (Tele­phone Com­pa­nies like AT&T, Ver­i­zon, etc) out­side. They have bet­ter equip­ment, big­ger bud­gets, and bet­ter locations.

No more lone­ly moun­tains with the wind whip­ping past and the city laid out at your feet. We’re doing down, dawg. We’re going underground.

Under ground is where you can edge in with very spe­cif­ic deploy­ments that meet exact­ly what you need in order to fun­nel a ton of radio traf­fic through YOURradio.

Step 1: You want to find a place with poor wire­less cov­er­age. An under­ground bar, a large indoor space, any­where where the bars on your phone just don’t pop up because sig­nal is blocked.

Step 2: Find a place with a lot of peo­ple. You need high traf­fic. You need peo­ple using their phones like crazy in order to pass enough data through your radio toearn.

Step 3: Find the own­er of that space and work a deal where you pro­vide high speed wire­less inter­net access. Maybe you pay for their inter­net. Maybe you just buy them a beer. Or 900. How­ev­er you do it, the basic val­ue prop is that you pro­vide great phone cov­er­age and their cus­tomers are hap­py with it. Trust me, just try it. Talk to people.

So, How Much Will My Helium 5G MinerEarn?

The absolute most you earn per radio will be in the neigh­bor­hood of US$60/hr. That’s the high end, at a great spot. You prob­a­bly won’t earn thatmuch.

5G data looks like it’ll get paid out at $.50/GB processed.

Just for per­spec­tive, cur­rent car­ri­ers that don’t have their own tow­ers pay up to $2 GB/wholesale. So. $.50/GB looks pret­ty darn tempt­ing to Mint, or DISH Net­work. Just FYI, you should prob­a­bly be pay­ing atten­tion toDISH.

What About Reward Scale?

Well, if you assert this Free­dom­Fi Hotspot in a loca­tion, yes, it will affect the reward sale at that loca­tion. That won’t, as far asI know, affect your earn­ings; just PoC earn­ings. Obvi­ous­ly that’s under intense debate right now, but for the amount, assume that you putting a LoRa capa­ble min­er into a loca­tion will have an effect on PoC reward scale.

What’s the Range of a 5G FreedomFi Hotspot?

Indoor radio/antenna setups will be reach­ing about 1,000′. I’d pen­cil in 500′, but that’s me being con­ser­v­a­tive. Test it,yo.

Out­door setups con­nect­ing to a phone are more like 2,000′.

What Kind of Internet Connection Do I Need To Provide?

Peo­ple will use all the band­width you give ’em. If you’ve got 10 GB fiber back­bone, use it. The bet­ter net­work you build, the more peo­ple will use it. The low point will prob­a­bly be around a GB up & down, sym­met­ri­cal. Any loca­tion that pro­vides busi­ness inter­net (vs res­i­den­tial) will be able to han­dle the full through­put of 1 CBRSradio.

The more upstream you can pro­vide, the better.

QUICK CONNECTION TERMS:

Back­haul = Internet

Uplink/upstream — Traf­fic flow­ing from a user’s phone into the radio. Think of upload­ing avideo.

Downlink/downstream — Traf­fic flow­ing from back­haul to a user’s phone/device.

Usu­al­ly, there is far more down­stream traf­fic than upstream.

Array — Spread­ing band­width across dif­fer­ent radios and antennas.

WISP — Wire­less Inter­net Ser­vice Provider

Spec­trum Access Ser­vice — The back­end that runs the entire CBRS net­work so they don’t step on each oth­er. This is the rea­son WISPs aren’t going to over­run your Heli­um deployments.

Car­ri­er Neu­tral — The enti­ty who process­es any sig­nal from any car­ri­er. We (Heli­um com­mu­ni­ty) are car­ri­er neutral.

How Do I Test Wireless Signal?

The easy and cheap way is with an app on a new­er Android phone.

A Pix­el 4 and above is fine, Sam­sung S10 and new­er, or any­thing that has LTE band48.

Use the app Net­work Cell Info Lite (the free ver­sion isfine),

For through­put test­ing, use nperf.com

Where Can I LearnMore?

The best place for the lat­est info is prob­a­bly over on the Heli­um Dis­cord 5g-cbrs chan­nel. If you have ques­tions about 5G, please post to com­ments. I’ll find out the answers and either respond to the ques­tion or update this document.

Here’s to your 5G success!

p.s. While you wait for your 5G min­er, take a look at what you can learn about cur­rent LoRa setups and the tools to max­i­mize your Hotspot deploy­ments here.