SureCall

SureCall, Inc. develops, manufactures and sells cellular signal boosters and in-building coverage systems that amplify 3G, 4G LTE and 5G signals from all major North American carriers. Its catalog spans three segments: residential boosters for homes, cabins and small offices (Flare 3.0, Fusion Professional, Fusion4Home, Fusion5s 2.0); vehicle boosters for cars, trucks, RVs and over-the-road applications (Fusion2Go 3.0, Fusion2Go MAX, Fusion2Go XR, Fusion2Go Ultra, FusionTrek, N-Range); and commercial/enterprise systems including the Force8, Force5 2.0, 5X MAX and Fusion5X 2.0 boosters, the SignalMax hybrid-fiber DAS and the SpeedLink 5G C-band booster. The company also sells accessories such as indoor and outdoor antennas, splitters, mounting hardware, an RF signal meter and a SignalFinder 5G C-Band handheld site-survey meter.

On the enterprise side, SureCall provides building surveys, RF design, distributed antenna system deployment and installation support for facilities ranging from small spaces up to 500,000 sq ft, targeting offices, hospitals, hotels, warehouses, manufacturing plants, schools and university campuses, government buildings, retail and large venues. Enterprise systems include features such as automatic gain control, remote cloud monitoring and multi-carrier support including C-band frequencies. Products are FCC certified and, per the company, covered by a three-year warranty with U.S.-based customer service.

Founder Hongtao (Hong) Zhan is president and CEO. The company states it filed its first patent in 2001 and has been issued more than 12 patents with 9 pending, including work on wideband (five-band) boosters and Extended Range Technology (ERT), which relocates the amplifier to the roof to eliminate a cable run, and 2XP Technology with uplink power doubling.

Founding story

Hongtao Zhan, the son of two professors in Northwestern China, studied at China's top engineering school before earning a master's degree and PhD at UCLA. He joined Cirrus Logic in Silicon Valley in 1997, left in 1999 for a startup that was sold within a year, and used the proceeds to found SureCall in 2001 as the dot-com bubble deflated. His initial concept was a larger system in which a signal booster was only one component; finding the broader idea hard to implement and sell, he brought the signal-boosting piece to market as the company's first product, a single-band booster that plugged directly into a cell phone.

Business model

SureCall manufactures its own signal booster hardware and sells it to consumers and businesses, complemented by design and installation services for enterprise deployments. It runs channel programs including a Certified Installer Program with free two-level training and design support for integrators, and a retail/reseller partner program with training, certification, dedicated support and installation support.

Revenue comes from sales of signal booster hardware, antennas, meters and accessories at published list prices (roughly $50 to $1,000 for consumer and small-business products), quote-based enterprise systems such as SignalMax Fiber DAS and SpeedLink 5G C-Band, and reseller/retail channel sales including through Amazon.

Traction

SureCall says its boosters are used by hundreds of thousands of home, vehicle and business owners across North America and lists NASA, the U.S. Forest Service, Duke University and Chrysler among users. Enterprise references include a 450,000 sq ft distribution center, a regional medical center, a 500-room resort hotel, a state university campus and a multi-floor government office building, plus venue deployments at Super Bowl LIX, the NCAA Final Four in Phoenix and the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas. The company reports more than 6,000,000 sq ft of coverage systems installed across North America in the current year.

Latest developments

Recent product introductions include the SignalMax Fiber DAS hybrid-fiber cellular booster system for buildings from 50,000 to 500,000 sq ft, the SpeedLink 5G C-Band booster delivering data speeds up to 1 Gbps for venues and outdoor spaces, the SignalFinder 5G C-Band handheld signal meter and a C-band MIMO outdoor panel antenna. The company has publicized 5G C-band deployments at large venues including the Fremont Street Experience.