- AT&T is collaborating with Helium to expand the number of Wi-Fi hotspots available to AT&T’s wireless customers
- It’s a vote of confidence in Helium, which uses a novel decentralized approach
- The initiative improves Wi-Fi offload management through QoS monitoring
AT&T is expanding the number of Wi-Fi hotspots available to its customers in a collaboration with Helium, the decentralized wireless network that uses crypto currency to reward hot spot providers.
It’s a significant deal for Helium, which is on a mission to “empower the people” by building a wireless network using Wi-Fi hotspots – one hotspot at a time. People who install Helium hotspots in their places of business or other public spaces are rewarded with Helium tokens each time the hotspot gets used.
AT&T’s collaboration isn’t coming entirely out of the blue. It’s been working with Helium on a trial basis, according to Mario Di Dio, general manager of network at Helium. AT&T is an active member of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), which fosters standards like Hotspot 2.0, also known as Passpoint, which enables seamless Wi-Fi roaming.
What makes this Wi-Fi deal different
One of the key technical advantages underpinning AT&T’s deal with Helium is the ability to measure quality of service (QoS) on the fly. That’s enabled in part through the RADIUS protocol that allows carriers to get a picture of the quality of service at the Wi-Fi access point.
For example, if a customer walks into a coffee shop with an AT&T phone and connects to a Helium hotspot, the speed, congestion rate and other metrics are sent in quasi real time – about every 5 minutes – to the carrier. The operator can then decide to keep the phone on Wi-Fi or move it to the cellular network for a better experience, according to Di Dio.
That’s the ultimate in convergence – being able to follow the user experience across multiple networks, he said.
“We are the first in the market that provides that type of metrics to the carriers,” he told Fierce. “The concept is really about going from an uninformed offload strategy to an informed converged connectivity strategy.”
Of course, Helium is looking to officially announce more carriers to its network. In February, the company unveiled a partnership with Movistar, Telefónica’s mobile flagship carrier in Mexico, to bring the Helium network to 2.3 million subscribers in Mexico.
AT&T's firm Wi-Fi strategy
In the U.S., it makes a lot of sense that AT&T would be the first to officially partner with Helium on this. AT&T experienced a massive, unexpected surge in wireless data traffic after obtaining the exclusive on the first iPhone back in 2007. The operator then turned to Wi-Fi in a big way to offload traffic, acquiring Wayport in 2008 to boost its Wi-Fi footprint and ease pressure on the mobile network.
Consequently, AT&T generally speaking has been more Wi-Fi friendly than, say, Verizon over the years.
“AT&T and Helium are leading the way in setting Wi-Fi quality metrics standards through their work in the WBA while also growing the available Wi-Fi footprint available to mobile users,” said Timothy Tweedle, AT&T Mobility principal interconnection agreements manager, in a statement provided to Fierce.
“Helium Network offers more Wi-Fi locations for AT&T users to seamlessly connect when they are on the go,” Tweedle said.
AT&T has about 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.S. and Helium boasts more than 90,000 hotspots deployed in the U.S. and Mexico.
“The network has been growing steadily,” Di Dio said, noting the network serves more than 600,000 users a day and counting.
With that kind of growth, we can only conclude there’s nowhere to go but up.