From outdoor events to brick-and-mortar shops, Helium Deployer, Ace Tomato knows how to build a network that works, every time.
When you walk into a major music festival and scan your RFID wristband to buy a drink, you probably aren’t thinking about VLAN architecture, DHCP scopes, or fiber backhaul.
Chad Wachs is.
Wachs and his longtime business partner Tom Porter, both founders of Ace Tomato, have spent decades building high-powered networks in places where infrastructure doesn’t exist, or simply isn’t robust enough to handle a huge influx of visitors.
Take Wachs’ current home base of Golden, Colorado, for example. On February 7, the town of 22,000 had 20,000 visitors (and 4,000 golden retrievers) during its annual Goldens in Golden festival. On its own, the local cellular network would be too overwhelmed to support that many visitors. Without reliable connectivity, critical systems such as RFID wristbands, point-of-sale systems for vendors, lighting controls from the sound stage to the walking paths, and communications with security personnel can malfunction or grind to a halt.
Helium deployments kept tails wagging and made sure the event continued to function without a hitch. At peak traffic, a single Helium access point was handling just under 1,000 simultaneous device offloads from local cellular and Wi-Fi networks. That meant phones, wearables, and other connected devices were using the Helium Network to send and receive data when the overloaded cell towers and guest Wi-Fi systems could not keep up.
Building Networks for Festivals and Brick-and-Mortar Venues
Wachs and Porter got their respective starts in the wireless industry building two different kinds of networks. Porter has been building temporary networks for major music festivals since the late 90s, including events like Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and the Chicago Marathon. Wachs ran a wireless internet service provider in Golden for ten years before exiting, retaining a large portfolio of smaller businesses in fixed locations.
Together they’ve built a business that spans both worlds: temporary networks for festivals and pop-up events, plus year-round deployments at coffee shops, bars, and restaurants.
