Helium's Brazil Gambit: A New Blueprint for Industrial-Scale Connectivity?

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – December 10, 2025

The world of telecommunications is defined by massive capital expenditure, centralized control, and decades-long infrastructure projects. But a recent announcement from decentralized wireless firm Helium signals a bold challenge to that paradigm. Through a new joint venture with Brazilian company Mambo WiFi, Helium is bringing its "people-powered" mobile network to South America's largest economy, a move that could serve as a blueprint for rewiring connectivity in emerging markets globally.

This isn't just another market entry; it's a high-stakes industrial experiment. Helium's model eschews the traditional approach of building cell towers, instead relying on a distributed network of small, low-cost "Hotspots" deployed by individuals and businesses. The partnership with Mambo, announced at the recent Solana Breakpoint conference, provides an instant foundational layer of 40,000 existing Wi-Fi access points across Brazil. The strategic question is whether this decentralized, crypto-incentivized approach can succeed where traditional models have struggled, bridging a digital divide that leaves millions of Brazilians under-connected.

Deconstructing the Decentralized Telco Model

At its core, Helium's strategy is a radical departure from the top-down infrastructure builds of giants like Vivo or TIM. Instead of spending billions on cell towers and fiber optic cables, Helium outsources network construction to the public. Individuals or businesses purchase and operate Hotspots—small devices that function as mini cell towers—to create pockets of wireless coverage. In return for providing this service and validating network integrity, operators are rewarded with cryptocurrency tokens.

This model transforms passive consumers into active network participants, creating what the company calls a "people-powered" network. In the United States and Mexico, this approach has already spawned a network of over 120,000 Hotspots serving nearly two million daily users. The primary function is carrier offloading: when a subscriber of a partner mobile carrier (like Telefónica in Mexico) moves into an area with Helium coverage, their phone can seamlessly switch to the decentralized network, reducing strain and cost for the primary carrier.

"Our collaboration with Mambo represents a significant milestone in expanding the Helium Network internationally,” said Mario Di Dio, GM of Network at Helium, in a statement. “Together, we’re tackling the telco market in Brazil and pioneering a new model where people-powered networks deliver affordable, reliable coverage at scale."

This approach effectively decentralizes the cost and labor of network deployment. It aims to be faster and more capital-efficient, capable of filling coverage gaps in dense urban areas or remote regions that offer a poor return on investment for traditional telcos. The partnership with Mambo WiFi is a strategic masterstroke in this context, providing an immediate, expansive footprint to build upon, rather than starting from zero.

Brazil: A Market Ripe for Disruption

Brazil presents a perfect, if challenging, testbed for this innovative model. The country boasts 188 million internet users, yet a stubborn digital divide persists. More than 100 million people still rely on shared or public Wi-Fi for primary access, and while 94.7% of urban households are connected, that number drops to 84.8% in rural zones. High service costs remain a significant barrier for nearly a third of unconnected households.

This is the gap Helium and Mambo aim to exploit. Mambo WiFi, a SaaS company specializing in managed Wi-Fi for businesses and public venues, already has a deep footprint. Their 40,000 access points are located in high-traffic areas like airports, shopping centers, and even Rio de Janeiro's bustling Central do Brasil transit hub.

“Our 40,000 access points will serve as a foundation for the Helium Network, enabling local carriers to adopt this people-powered model to close Brazil’s longstanding connectivity gap,” noted Katie Angelo Pierozzi, Co-founder and CEO of Mambo WiFi.

By integrating these existing points into the Helium ecosystem, the joint venture can immediately offer a substantial coverage map to potential carrier partners. The strategy is to demonstrate value quickly, encouraging Brazil's major carriers to adopt the network for offloading, thereby reducing their own infrastructure costs while extending their reach. This is particularly relevant as Brazil aggressively expands 5G and sunsets older 2G/3G networks, creating a dynamic environment where new coverage solutions are critically needed.

The Gauntlet of Competition and Regulation

Despite the promising strategy, Helium's path in Brazil is far from clear. The venture faces a formidable and complex competitive landscape. Beyond the incumbent giants, over 11,000 small, local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have proven incredibly effective at deploying fiber networks in remote communities that larger players ignore.

More significantly, satellite internet, led by SpaceX's Starlink, is making an aggressive play for Brazil's unconnected populations. With rapidly falling hardware costs and monthly plans as low as US$10, Starlink has already connected hundreds of thousands of customers in the most remote parts of the country, including the Amazon. While satellite serves a different use case than a cellular offload network, it is a powerful competitor for the title of "connectivity solution for the underserved."

Furthermore, the "Hotspot Economy" at the heart of Helium's model carries its own set of challenges. The success of the network relies on incentivizing thousands of Brazilians to buy, deploy, and maintain hardware. This introduces variables like the volatility of cryptocurrency rewards, the upfront cost of Hotspots, and the potential for network gaming, where dishonest operators exploit the system for profit without providing real coverage. While Brazil's telecom regulator, ANATEL, has shown a progressive stance by opening spectrum for unlicensed use and funding innovation, a novel decentralized model will inevitably face scrutiny and require careful navigation of national and local rules.

A Global Playbook in the Making?

Helium's move into Brazil is more than a regional expansion; it's the first major international test of its global ambitions. Alongside the Mambo partnership, the company launched an "International Waitlist," inviting communities and organizations worldwide to register their interest in deploying the network. This signals a clear intent to create a replicable playbook: enter a new market, partner with a local entity with existing infrastructure, build out a community-driven network, and then integrate with national carriers.

If successful, this model could fundamentally alter the economics of global telecommunications infrastructure. It could empower communities to build their own connectivity solutions and create a new class of micro-entrepreneurs who earn income by maintaining a piece of the digital world. The quantifiable benefits would be twofold: lower infrastructure costs for carriers and more affordable, accessible connectivity for end-users.

The venture in Brazil will be a closely watched barometer for the future of decentralized industrial technology. Its success or failure will provide critical data on whether a crypto-powered, community-driven network can truly compete with entrenched, centralized systems at scale and deliver on the promise of connecting the next billion users. The transformation of the industrial landscape often begins with a single, audacious experiment, and for the world of wireless, Brazil may just be that pivotal stage.