The successful migration of Helium to Solana is not only a technological victory, but also a victory for development. By introducing a $5 unlimited plan, Helium Mobile is disrupting the traditional telecommunications industry and proving the immense potential of a high-performance, low-cost decentralized network.
Background of Helium's migration to Solana
Helium, a blockchain-driven wireless network, has successfully migrated from its own layer one blockchain platform to Solana this year. During this migration process, a representative NFT was minted for each physical hotspot node running on the Helium network, totaling over 991,000 Solana NFTs.
This migration is the most significant use case of Solana's new state compression feature (cNFT), which allows creators to mint a large number of NFTs at a relatively low cost. The Solana Foundation stated that this process reduced the estimated cost of minting one million NFTs to approximately 113 SOL, compared to the cost of 253,000 SOL without compression technology.
Cost comparison of compressed NFT technology
Helium introduces $5 unlimited plan
In this context, Helium has taken an important step by introducing a $5 unlimited plan, which includes unlimited calls, texts, and data, lowering the average phone bill in the United States by 95%. This is undoubtedly a disruptive move in the telecommunications industry. The innovation of Helium Mobile lies in its integration of the Helium Mobile network built by people with the largest nationwide 5G network of partners, achieving a unique dynamic coverage model.
By utilizing a network owned and operated by individuals rather than large corporations, this network can significantly reduce costs to provide mobile services with unprecedented pricing. Subscribers can also help the Helium Network community strategically deploy network coverage by choosing to share their location data, and in return, they have the opportunity to receive MOBILE token rewards.
Miami: The first city
After the beta testing phase, Helium Mobile chose Miami as the first city to launch its services. This decision was based on factors such as community voting and existing coverage to ensure that Helium Mobile provides the best service to subscribers. This not only allows Helium Mobile to gain organic growth through word-of-mouth in its customer base but also effectively reduces the overall cost of acquiring new customers.
Conclusion
The decentralized world is providing a mobile network landscape that is different from the current situation, making connectivity both affordable and accessible. The success of Helium's case reveals the strong capabilities and vast potential of Solana. By building applications based on Solana, we can not only achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement but also involve more people in the process of building the network and share its benefits. This model will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the traditional telecommunications industry, and we look forward to seeing more innovations and breakthroughs.