America's Fastest-Growing City Chooses Helium to Keep Its Residents Connected
Celina, Texas is adding neighborhoods faster than anyone can build cell towers. So the city turned Wi-Fi already running across its public buildings and downtown into carrier-grade coverage, live on the Helium Network today.
The fastest-growing city in America isn't Austin, Miami, or Phoenix. It's Celina, Texas, which added more than 12,700 residents in a single year, more than Seattle or Houston added, growing 24.6 percent. That's the highest growth rate of any U.S. city with more than 20,000 residents, according to Census Bureau estimates released in May.
Rapid growth has been the norm here for years. New schools, new fire stations, and new neighborhoods keep going up where pastures used to be.
Cell towers can rarely keep pace. A new tower means planning, permitting, and millions in capital, on timelines measured in years. For a city growing the way Celina is, waiting for a carrier to decide a zip code is populated enough to justify new infrastructure is not a real option.
And even a well-resourced tower struggles to push signal through modern building materials. Coverage that looks solid on a map can disappear the moment someone walks indoors.
That's why Celina, whose tagline is fittingly "Life Connected," worked with Helium to enable carrier offload on Wi-Fi already running across the city: public buildings like the Celina Public Library and the Ralph O'Dell Senior Center, alongside participating businesses downtown. When residents and visitors come within range, their phones connect automatically through the Helium Network. No app, no sign-in, no settings.
The network is already carrying about 100 GB per day across Celina, with additional locations scheduled to come online this fall.
"Celina is growing faster than any city in America, and our infrastructure has to work as hard as our community does," said Amy Alexander, Director of Information Technology for the City of Celina. "Helium let us turn Wi-Fi we already own into coverage our residents' phones use automatically, without spending a dollar on new towers."
"When a city grows 25 percent in a year, demand for connectivity doesn't wait for new towers to be permitted and built," said Mario Di Dio, CEO of Helium. "Celina proves there's a faster path. The infrastructure cities already own can carry carrier traffic today. This is what the future of coverage looks like in high-growth America."
Celina joins a growing roster of cities, including Redondo Beach, CA, New Orleans, LA, and Sausalito, CA, using the Helium Network to close coverage gaps without new capital spend. The Helium Network now spans more than 42,000 locations across the U.S., serving more than 2.5 million people every day.
Want to bring Helium to your city or township? Reach out to business@helium.com.
