Quality Connectivity from Piers to Sports Arenas
Talus Communications LLC builds their business by building connectivity in major venues.
For years, the answer to bad indoor cell coverage was a distributed antenna system (DAS), provided someone was willing to pay for it. Increasingly, no one is. Industry reporting shows major US carriers pulling back from funding venue DAS outside the very largest stadiums and event venues, leaving mid-sized cities, school districts, and regional venues to solve coverage problems on their own dime.
And yet, that gap is where Talus Communications has built its business.
From wireless integrator to Helium deployer
Talus is a wireless broadband service provider with a long track record designing and deploying pLTE and Wi-Fi networks for cities, colleges, universities, and K-12 districts. Partnering with Helium makes their pitch straightforward: rather than installing new radio infrastructure, Talus enables the Helium Network using Wi-Fi equipment a facility already owns, and then activates carrier offload, the feature major US carriers use when their towers are congested or out of reach. Coverage improves without a construction project and without touching the client's capital budget.
Talus's next deployment is in Texas at a major stadium in the Dallas area, where the infield has no cell service on the field itself. With a major concert scheduled for September, Wi-Fi equipment is slated for installation in August, with carrier offload enabled ahead of the event.
Schools: building coverage in steel and stucco
Education has become the most active vertical for Talus Communications. Modern construction standards, while providing energy-efficient buildings, suffer from poor indoor cell service. At Mendocino Community College, a rural community college where steel building materials block what little carrier signal reaches the area, five campuses are now live on the Helium Network.
Talus is working with multiple school districts in California, where pilot buildings are already carrying live traffic from major US carriers. More buildings are coming online as the school year starts. A district in Oklahoma has committed to 12 sites and a major school district in Utah has roughly 21 sites in the works. Both districts plan to be deployed late summer.
These deployment sites face similar obstacles: public institutions with tight budgets, building materials that block outdoor signal, and no realistic path to a traditional DAS.
Proving it at Redondo Beach
Redondo Beach’s pier draws more than 1 million visitors a year, but sits in a coverage dead zone created by high-rise condominiums that blocked carrier signal from reaching the beach. Talus enabled Helium on the city's existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. Today more than 2,000 users per day connect through the Helium Network at the waterfront.
The city has since extended service to the police department basement, a single access point covering a space that previously had no cell service at all, and parking garages are in planning for the city's 2027 fiscal year. Deployments like this tend to have a domino effect: solve one dead zone, and the next one gets easier to justify.
Talus's growth suggests the market for indoor coverage has split in two. The largest venues will keep getting carrier-funded infrastructure via DAS. Everyone else in the mid-market needs a model that works with the infrastructure and budgets they already have. Talus is demonstrating that the Helium Network can be that model, one city hall, campus, and stadium at a time.
Learn more about how to bring Wi-Fi offload and indoor connectivity to major venues and reach out to business@helium.com.
