May was a big month for us. We announced the Helium decentralized machine network and had positive press from publications like MIT Tech Review, and Internet of Business.

In addition, we launched our Telegram group and at the time of writing went from 0 to over 4000 users in less than a month.

The group has asked a number of questions, but since this is a Technical FAQ, we chose questions focused on the technology. Enjoy!

Where can I read more about your development plan? I’m interested in how the project will evolve.

Keep an eye on our GitHub repos as we post open source work there. You can also see the evolution of the current projects.

Would you call this an infrastructure project? Is the Helium Blockchain private?

It’s closer to infrastructure. It’s a public blockchain.

Do you guys have a prototype?

We have working hardware in our SF office for the new gateway and module and will soon have a private testnet online. For latest developments check out our GitHub repositories. You can see our current generation hardware — which is in production with 1000s of developers and companies, but won’t be part of the mining operations and new network — here.

Can end devices communicate directly with each other or do they have to hop over the Helium Gateway?

All compatible devices communicate via gateways. There is no direct communication or meshing in our network.

Will all gateways need to be connected to internet? Or is some sort of mesh/hybrid possible?

Gateways have to be connected to the internet at all times. You can use Ethernet, WiFi or cellular to create the internet connection.

Which frequencies does the Helium Gateway use? Also are you evaluating other freq. in different countries?

We use sub-ghz unlicensed spectrum which varies country by country. The hardware will work in all countries and the gateway is an SDR so it should be alterable in software (for example, we should be compatible with other sub ghz frequencies like 779–787 used in China). However, we are initially focused on a key set of geographies and their regulations.

What is the operating system for the gateway? Is there enough headroom to run custom processes?

We’re building Linux images using Buildroot, so it’s not a conventional distribution. Between blockchain and SDR it will be pretty fully provisioned.

If I order lots of gateways do I need to set them up in different locations or is setting them up in one location fine? According to what I read you want to stop big mining pools from dominating the mining in Helium.

You can set as many up as you like, but remember there is a stake required per gateway and the scoring algorithm favors gateways to mine that aren’t packed together in a single location. In other words, the more spread out the gateways (while still within range of each other), the higher the probability they will be chosen to mine than if they were closely packed.