Natural disasters can wreak havoc with communications systems. That was certainly the case when the small town of Wimberely in Texas was hit by massive flooding in May of 2015. When emergency response teams arrived, the first order of the day was to set up a command center in the church. The problem was AT&T service had been compromised, and coverage inside the building was very weak to non-existent.
Cel-Fi PRO to the rescue
Armed with a Cel-FI PRO smart signal booster, a CellTeks team arrived on the scene to solve the problem. “The signal was so weak, we were only able to find one spot within a 20,000 sq. ft. area that we could get enough signal to use the Cel-Fi PRO,” says Hershel Craig, VP of Business Development.
That spot where the network unit was placed was a shelf in a corner of the library. “We didn’t have a window, but were able to get enough signal to make it work,” he says.
The coverage unit was placed in a classroom that was diagonally opposite. Since it was a temporary situation, the Cel-Fi unit was suspended by a hook from a mounting hole in the drop ceiling.
Easy come, easy go for CellTeks
“We were surprised to get the coverage distance we did,” Craig says. “The alternative would have been to install a BDA (bi-directional amplifier) but there would have been a couple of thousands of dollars difference in cost and would have taken up to 10 man hours to install. Cel-Fi was so simple to install, we didn’t need to have technicians out there to run cables. And when it was all over, we just unplugged the Cel-Fi and took it out.”