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Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina this fall, causing more than 100 deaths and about $60 billion in damage, according to a state government report.
As the storm worsened, Mark Phillips, vice president of business development for Nova Labs, had an idea. Helium — which is building a network of hotspots that beam wireless coverage — could repurpose its technology to provide cellular connectivity in North Carolina, where more than 20% of Helene-affected cell sites have gone out of service, according to an FCC report.
Phillips messaged Abhay Kumar, CEO of the Helium Foundation, saying they should create a wireless hotspot for disaster relief. They had a prototype within 48 hours. Phillips and others at Nova Labs (the development company behind the mobile services company Helium Mobile) and Helium then began building the kits, while also trying to get their hands on Starlink terminals that connect to the satellite-powered Internet provider, supported by Elon Musk. .
Starlinks has an order book, but through a connection Phillips was able to secure twenty terminals within four days. Put together and connected to a power source, Starlink and Helium technology create the “Helium hotspot beacon” – a miniature off-grid cell phone tower that uses Starlink for network backhaul and a Helium hotspot for radio connectivity to phones.
Helium sent a pair of these beacons to North Carolina as the state’s wireless infrastructure continued to collapse. The most widely used deployment took place in Hendersonville, NC, after an organization called Land of Sky sent an email requesting a beacon. They installed the hardware in a local park and received over 20,000 unique connections from locals. In total, the beacons received approximately 24,000 connections.
Because Helium hotspots offer cellular services and not just Wi-Fi, anyone within 1,000 feet of the deployment could automatically connect to the service, just like with their landline provider, Phillips told me.
The saga highlights an advantage of decentralized physical infrastructure, a sector known in crypto circles as DePIN.
When natural disasters strike, it’s possible for existing mobile carriers to deploy mini cell towers – and US mobile phone incumbents are doing so amid California’s ongoing wildfires. But these solutions are expensive and somewhat inflexible, requiring large trucks to drive around with small towers.
Helium offers portable kits that are plug-and-play for mobile service. If widely deployed, the hotspot beacons could make America’s wireless networks much more resilient to natural disasters.
Helium has offered 10 hotspot beacon kits to authorities in Southern California, Phillips said.
