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Helium Roaming Services

Helium Roaming Services enables public and private LoRaWAN network providers around the world to leverage Helium’s ubiquitous coverage.

With over 630K Hotspots in 166 countries and growing, the network sees a massive amount of non-Helium packets. When network providers enter a roaming partnership with Helium, this traffic can be forwarded via the Helium Network to partners, increasing their level of service and coverage.

Any compatible device can send data to their home network through Helium-compatible Hotspots without the need for device configurations or firmware updates.

Getting Started

  • Create an Account- Contact a Helium Network Advisor to create the initial Helium Roaming Services account (sales@nova-labs.com). Initial setup requires an Organization name, and an email address for the administrator. As part of the initial account creation process, Net ID ownership must be verified for the roaming partner.
  • Add Users- An administrator can add other user accounts with various roles as needed.
  • Purchase Data Credits- Data Credits (DCs) are needed to pay for packets sent on the Helium network and can be purchased with a credit card or burning HNT.
  • Configure Network Integration- Specify the home network server address and port, input roaming device join credentials, and define how many packets to purchase for devices.
  • Set up Alerts- Set up email alerts to send to different user roles based on a number of conditions including Data Credit balance, user management, or payment methods.

Users & Organizations

Administrators can add invite users to Organizations via email. Users can be given different access levels using roles (administrators, managers, and read-only users).

Adding Users

User roles include:

  • Administrators can perform all actions
  • Managers have the same permissions as administrators, but cannot add organizations, manage users, or Data Credits
  • Read-only users cannot take any actions

To add a new user

  • On Console navigate to the Users page, and click + Add User. A pop-up appears.
  • Type the email of the new user, and select their desired access level.
  • Hit Submit. An emial invitation is sent that allows a user to join the organization.

Managing Organizations

Organizations allow users to manage multiple roaming servers using the same account. An Organization is a virtual container with its own users, Data Credit balance, and configurations.

Note: Data Credits can be transferred among Organizations, see Purchasing Data Credits.

To add a new Organization

  • On Console navigate to the Organizations page, and click + Add Organizations. A pop-up appears.
  • Type the unique name of the Organization.
  • Hit Submit, the Organization appears.

Data Credits

Data Credits (DCs) are needed to pay for packets sent on the Helium network. Every 24 bytes sent in a packet costs 1 DC which equals $.00001.

Purchasing Data Credits

Obtaining Data Credits is the same as on the Helium Console focused on device management and onboarding. Users can use a credit card (recommended method) and sent up a recurring payment or burn HNT. For a video tutorial of how to purchase Data Credits on Console, check out our Tips & Tricks video here.

In addition to purchasing Data Credits, users can transfer Data Credits among Organizations under the same account.

To transfer Data Credits (same account only with multiple Organizations): click Data Credits, and hit Transfer DC to Org. On the pop up, enter the quantity of Data Credits to transfer and receiving Organization. Click Make Transfer.

Further reading: how Data Credits fit into Helium Tokenomics here.

Configurations

There are a number of configurations required to successfully roam on Helium including:

  • Configuring the Home Network Server address and port number
  • Adding roaming device join credentials
  • Specifying how many packets to purchase for devices

Configuring Integrations

To configure the Helium Roaming Service with a LoRaWAN Network Server a user needs to provide the address of the Home Network Server and the port number.

On Console, click Configuration and enter the Address (for example yournetworkserver.com) and port number (for example 1700) of the Home Network Server

Adding Device Credentials

Any device that roams on the Helium Network needs to be added to the Configuration page.

Join credentials can be added using multiple methods. Click Configuration, and to:

  • Add an individual device: choose +Add Join Credential and enter the device DevEUI and APP EUI
  • Import devices with a CSV file: choose use CSV File. To structure the CSV file add app_eui, dev_eui in the header row, followed by rows of the corresponding values.
  • Use a wildcard: Rather than adding each device, DevEUI’s mapped to a single AppEUI can be added using an asterisk wildcard *. Choose +Add Join Credential and enter * for the DevEUI field along with the specific AppEUI. Each new AppEUI requires a new entry.

Purchasing Multiple Packets

The Multiple Packets feature provides the ability to pay for additional packets (if available) for redundancy and location triangulation purposes.

To enable multiple packet purchase, click Configuration, and enter the number of desired packets. Note: additional packets can only be purchased if multiple Hotspots "hear" and send the same packet. By default only 1 packet is purchased.

Alerts

Email alerts can be set up for a number of conditions related to Data Credit balance, user management, or payment methods. User types (e.g., Administrator or Managers) can be specified to receive alerts.

Setting Up Alerts

To set up email alerts: click Alerts, choose alert and user role to receive alerts.

Sample JSON

Here are some sample JSON payloads that roaming partners can expect to receive on their roaming endpoint.

{
    "MessageType": "PRStartReq",
    "PHYPayload": "0x8041FD26E0800B0001932DE4E3AAC35CD0",
    "ProtocolVersion": "1.1",
    "ReceiverID": "0x000000",
    "SenderID": "0xC00053",
    "SenderNSID": "",
    "TransactionID": 336746616,
    "ULMetaData": 
    {
        "DataRate": 4,
        "DevAddr": "0xAABBCCDD",
        "FNSULToken": "0x3131334C6D4A7167434376765464585032467450564E616B5A5871576A7A6E4A6F76715863665A69664D745046796A666463623A45553836383A353838313637383235",
        "GWCnt": 1,
        "GWInfo": [
            {
                "DLAllowed": true,
                "ID": "0xCD70F2C5E437B2BB",
                "Lat": 44.8594,
                "Lon": -0.586,
                "RFRegion": "EU868",
                "RSSI": -127,
                "SNR": -8.5
            }
        ],
        "RFRegion": "EU868",
        "RecvTime": "2022-06-09T15:45:42Z",
        "ULFreq": 867.7
    }
}

{
    "DLFreq2": 869.525,
    "MessageType": "XmitDataAns",
    "ProtocolVersion": "1.1",
    "ReceiverID": "0x000000",
    "Result": {
        "ResultCode": "Success"
    },
    "SenderID": "0xC00053",
    "TransactionID": 7627
}
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