Horizon Communications Technologies
At the Forefront of 5G Revolution

“No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.”

In a world where most entrepreneurs are following the crowd instead of looking for unique innovations, this quote from P.T. Barnum is a reminder that success comes to those who believe in leading and not following. An epitome of this axiom, Horizon Communications Technologies, is one such leader that believes in paving its own path to success rather than following the boulevards built by others. One of the leading companies in telecommunications infrastructure design, installation, and management in both the US and the UK, Horizon designs and installs complex wireless networks for big venues like stadiums and arenas, hospitality networks, resorts, conference centers and hotels, as well as office environments. Horizon is currently working in the trenches to empower commercial property owners with the game-changing, next-gen 5G and Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 AX).

While the wireless industry is finally delivering on years of promises and hype with the super-fast 5G technology, the growth of the technology seems to be tepid. Evidently, organizations need to bring their knowledge of 5G to bear by exploring the technology through the lens of the past and the future beyond 2020. At a time when a handful of telecommunication providers have started offering 5G services, the definition of 5G is still very limited amongst the people adopting it. According to the President and CEO of Horizon Communications Technologies, Mike DeGraw, 5G is still a “catchword,” and the companies investing in 5G require obtaining further knowledge on the subject and balance their investments with a line of sight into the benefits gained. Characterized by high frequencies, 5G as it currently stands has serious issues penetrating into buildings. Unaware of such nitty-gritty of the next-gen technology, commercial building owners continue to face call-drop inside buildings despite adopting 5G.

Horizon, with its decade-old experience in the wireless industry, strives to remain ahead of these challenges and help the commercial property owners surf through the wave of disruptive technologies by deploying its innovative Wi-Fi (5G) Bridge— REIMS (Real Estate Information Management System) 5G Bridge. Using this Wi-Fi Bridge, Horizon enables seamless transition of a call from a 5G network to a Wi-Fi network inside the buildings, allowing the building owners to equip their tenants with an uninterrupted interior/inter-building cell phone communication. A part of Horizon’s flagship platform REIMS— which is based on a three-spoke wheel model comprising 5G/IoT, privacy, and sustainability—the Wi-Fi Bridge functions using a LISP protocol. Underpinned by the Intel Smart building platform, the REIMS platform overlays existing control systems (HVAC, elevators, etc.) and allows the building management team to access all systems from a single portal.

Besides enabling efficient communication via its Wi-Fi Bridge, REIMS also allows the commercial real-estate owners to abide by the 5G cellular data communications, the IoT, and consumer privacy laws and regulations and better manage data for their building sustainability audit. Building owners today need to produce detailed evidence that they are continuously monitoring and improving their buildings’ impact on energy, water, and greenhouse gasses. With Assembly Bill 802 coming into effect in California, the commercial building owners are now ought to submit an audit report that would take note of the building sustainability and measure its carbon footprint. In the same vein, Horizon’s REIMS utilizes intelligent edge functions bound to IoT devices to provide continuous compliance with the emerging building energy sustainability objectives.

Our winning differentiator is our ability to work across such a broad spectrum, bringing 5G/IoT, privacy, and sustainability together in one solution

“Our customers are the likes of Irvine Company, Cushman & Wakefield, and CBRE Group, who own hundreds of buildings. Our solution enables us to collect the data from the IoT devices and then use the same to submit their audit every year, on an annual basis,” explains DeGraw. With its capability of conducting monthly audits remotely, Horizon also helps its customers save both money and time.

While commercial buildings’ databases hold tons of data collected from card keys, videos for security purposes, and more, the challenge for them boils to efficiently manage this data and keep it CCPA compliant. To help owners address this Subject Action Request (SAR), Horizon has developed a solution that handles the data collected via the IoT devices by creating a data lake on top of the databases and then putting connectors into each of them. “Every time someone requests information, the connectors go down into the databases and pull that company’s data to provide it in a private portal,” explains DeGraw, before revealing that this process also enables better compliance management of the data sets. REIMS has also been navigating organizations in Europe through the labyrinth of GDPR compliance.

With 5G/IoT, privacy compliance, and building sustainability forming the core of REIMS, Horizon has scripted numerous success stories for its clients by deploying wireless connections in different sports venues, including Dodger Stadium, Raymond James Stadium, and LaVell Edward Stadium. In fact, Horizon engaged with a soccer stadium in the UK that was struggling to remain GDPR compliant. With a manual procedure in place, it took the stadium two weeks to comply with one request, which led them to pay hefty fines. Using the same method of creating a data pool to enable easy access to the data sets lying across the databases, Horizon streamlined the compliance process for the stadium.

Recently, Horizon has also installed the Ericsson Dot in Tesla Gigafactory in Reno, the largest building in North America. As DeGraw mentions, the company’s winning differentiator is its ability to work across such a broad spectrum, bringing 5G/IoT, privacy, and sustainability together in one solution. Drawing on its commercial real-estate relationships and expertise in diverse technologies, along with its deep ties with renowned names like Ericsson and AT&T, the company is making significant strides in the wireless telecommunication industry. That’s not all; the uniqueness of REIM also stems from its ability to be deployed seamlessly without any manual support.

While organizations are envisaging 5G as the key catalyst fueling future growth and are commencing 5G trials, Horizon is at the forefront of this realm, empowering clients with a successful roll-out of 5G applications and services. As a part of its expansion, the company is focused on recruiting more salesforce who would sell the software across the globe.