The Future of Wireless: How Helium Is Building a Global Decentralized Network

Mario Di Dio joins us now, the CEO of Helium Network, a decentralized wireless network.

Mario, great to have you on the program today.

First and foremost, for people at home wondering, what is Helium?

Well, it's a good question, of course.

So, you know, when you look at the telecommunication industry, right, they are spending billions of dollars in things like towers and real estate.

And this is on top of like Spectrum, for example.

There is an actual pressure of reducing the CE and OPEC spend because the model is not sustainable, especially when you see things like the mobile demand that continues to go up with new apps and AI agents that require more data.

So helium is doing what wire for wireless, essentially what Airbnb did for hospitality.

We are adding more capacity exactly where it's needed and Everyone can participate in the, in this buildout because they are, because those people are physically close to where the connectivity gaps are, and we can do that with a quality first approach for the, for the carriers.

So what it means, it means that thousands of people and companies have already deployed what we call helium hotspots to add coverage to their neighborhood or their coffee shop, restaurant, conference center, and so on, and millions of people, they are already millions. of people today already use the helium network to their carriers like AT&T in the US or Telefonica Movistar that Helium has a relationship with, and they don't even realize it, which is even the coolest part.

So if you're, if you're coming inside a conference center, you're you're entering a coffee shop and your phone doesn't drop the call and your video call doesn't stop, well, that's a seamless connectivity experience, the helium and this decentralized buildout model is made impossible.

So why is decentralized wireless infrastructure the future of wireless itself, Mario?

Well, when you look at the traditional model, uh, the traditional model is more of a 20th century model.

It's very vertically integrated where the carrier owns everything.

The centralized means the people who know where the gaps are at the local level can improve their coverage, they can earn from that, from that use, and carriers can use that footprint to expand their coverage.

So it's much more of a 21st century model.

And it's all about shared infrastructure, so it's more cost effective for the carrier and, you know, the future, I mean we've seen it all over the places with satellites, the future is about connectivity across different networks, so you connect from a satellite down to a cellular network and then to Wi Fi.

So helium allows for all that to seamlessly integrate and it's pretty exciting to see how the model is evolve into in this new era of telecommunication.

So Mario, is this really a crypto story or is it an infrastructure story that just kind of happens to use blockchain technology?

Oh, that's a great question.

So, um, look, for the millions of users that connect to the helium network on a daily basis, they don't even know that there is a token that drives it.

So it is an infrastructure story that uses, our businesses use, uh, digital assets to, for as a growth efficiency. tool.

So, but, however, that is independent for things like market cycle, for example, and the, the usage is real and, and we are building this in a way to disrupt the industry so we use these technologies like blockchain, like quality, and like crypto to create a different engine and disrupt the model while creating.

In coverage which is seamless for the millions of people that use it, so it is an infrastructure that use digital assets to create a, a, a value proposition that is clear for everybody and it is transparent, it is almost magical in a sense.

Mario Di Dio, CEO of Helium Network, it is great to see you, my friend.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday and enjoy your weekend.