Historic Ellicott City, Maryland, sits at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by hills and trees. It’s a beautiful place to spend an afternoon, but a difficult place to get a cell signal.

Corey Freeburger runs Corelogix, a small wireless solutions company based a few miles away. When other historic districts like New Orleans' French Quarter and cities like Sausalito CA, and Celina, TX built coverage on the Helium Network, Freeburger saw an opportunity to solve Ellicott City’s long-standing connectivity problem.

He knows the coverage problem and has a plan that starts with four internet-connected buildings. From there, he wants to bring service to their neighbors, extending coverage through the Helium Network along Main Street.

Main Street’s Main Problem

Ellicott City has drawn people to the valley since its founding in 1772. Its historic storefronts house art studios, candy shops and ice cream parlors. The B&O Ellicott City Station Museum occupies the oldest surviving railroad station in the country. Christmas markets, music festivals and other celebrations give visitors reasons to come back.

Keeping those storefronts open has taken considerable work. Flash floods tore through downtown in 2016 and again in 2018, damaging businesses and buildings across the district. For Freeburger, improving connectivity is another practical way to support a place people have worked hard to keep alive.

The Deployer Down the Road

Freeburger’s interest in wireless networks began closer to home. An engineer who works with machine data, he started putting equipment on his own roof, then his parents’ roof, then at the local fire department. There always seemed to be another building to fuel his hobby.

Corelogix now manages about 21 locations across several states. Ellicott City is a chance to connect neighboring properties as part of one coordinated project.

To do that, Corelogix has partnered with a local real estate developer with properties along Main Street. The plan includes four anchor locations, each with an internet connection. Wireless bridges would carry those connections to equipment on neighboring buildings, allowing the Network to expand without a separate internet service at every property.

Participating businesses would also receive managed guest Wi-Fi. Through Helium’s carrier offload service, eligible phones on participating mobile carriers can connect automatically to the Wi-Fi network, so visitors would not need to ask a shopkeeper for the guest password to use that service.

One candidate for an anchor location is the historic theater near the center of Main Street. Its familiar marquee makes it a local landmark. Its position at a central intersection makes it useful to a network engineer: Freeburger sees an opportunity to extend coverage in several directions from that site.

Full Main Street coverage remains the goal. The approach gives Freeburger a way to work toward it using individual properties and the connections between them.

Coverage Today, Not in Ten Years

A town of Ellicott City’s size could wait decades for a new cell tower, and the valley’s geography means even a cell tower can’t deliver full coverage. Ellicott City also knows better than most what it means to need a connection when infrastructure fails. Coverage that is already on the walls is coverage a community doesn't have to wait for.

"If you're in the town, you don't realize where you are, because it's surrounded by hills and trees. Internet is tough to get, and cell phone coverage doesn't exist," said Freeburger. "Anywhere there's a small historical community like this, people are drawn to it to keep it alive. This is helping to do that, with technology." 

As of October 2026, the Helium Network spans more than 45,000 locations and serves more than 1.4 million people every day.

Want to bring Helium offload capabilities to a Main Street near you? Email business@helium.com.