Helium

Helium is a decentralized wireless network

Components

• WHIP - Narrowband wireless protocol, cheap, long range, low power, open source,
• Hotspots - provide wireless coverage, connect devices and routers
• Devices - connect to hotspots using WHIP
• Routers - internet deployed apps, recieve traffic from devices (via hotspots) and route them where they need to go. HA routers provided by the network but you can run your own

Concepts

• Proof of coverage - For proving hotspots are proving wireless coverage to an area
• Proof of serialization - To achieve time consensus, used to validate proof of coverage is real
• Proof of location - For proving hotspots are where they say they are, uses TDoA (whitepaper pg 12)
• Helium Consensus Protocol - Based off HoneyBadgerBFT, miners submit proofs which translate to scores for miners, best miners get elected to consensus group

Other Concepts

Full Node vs Light Client - full nodes have full history (routers), light clients only have a moving window of history (hotspots)

Useful Resources

• main site
• helium explorer (on my hotspot)
• whitepaper