Wilson Connectivity is taking its decades of experience in repeater technology into a new frontier: public safety. Chief Technology Officer James Martin says the company’s latest solutions—covering 700/800 MHz bidirectional amplifiers and AT&T FirstNet-approved Band 14 systems—are designed to enhance first responder communication inside buildings. With national fire codes and in-building mandates expanding across U.S. jurisdictions through 2026, Wilson Connectivity’s focus is on helping ensure reliable, life-saving communication for both first responders and the public in emergencies.
Beyond public safety, the company is responding to rapid AI-driven data center growth, where dense structures often block outdoor signal penetration. Martin says Wilson Connectivity is deploying in-building systems nationwide to maintain operational and emergency coverage within these facilities. From small businesses to large campuses, Wilson’s unified hardware approach supports mobile operator coverage, private networks, and first responder communications on a single layer of infrastructure—delivering on the promise of truly seamless connectivity inside every building.
Alejandro Piñero:
All right. Welcome everyone to another digital interview here on Fierce Network. I'm Alejandro Piñero, your host. And today I'm very excited to speak to James Martin, Chief Technology Officer at Wilson Connectivity. James, thanks for joining us here on Fierce Network.
James Martin:
Hey, thanks Alejandro for having us. We appreciate it.
Alejandro Piñero:
Absolutely. And an exciting time to talk to you of course. And let me start from what's been recently happening over there at Wilson Connectivity. You've entered the public safety landscape over in the US, can you tell me a little bit about that? What products are you offering, and why it made sense for you guys?
James Martin:
Absolutely. So Wilson Connectivity has been in the repeater business for decades now, and we've seen the importance and the requirement for safety in the US to be enhanced in several different places. What we're doing now is we're expanding that to LMR P25, public safety solutions that are focused on first responder communication. So this is the two-way radios that you see first responders using on a day-to-day basis. So we're offering now to the market 700 and 800 megahertz bidirectional amplifiers that enhance public safety in these spaces, as well as FirstNet-approved by AT&T Band 14 solutions, that enhance the Band 14 FirstNet solution inside buildings. So we're super excited to offer these to the market. They're generally available now and shipping as of today.
Alejandro Piñero:
Exciting times. So you mentioned those jurisdictions, obviously those are being rolled out, the public safety mandates. How do you think this is going to evolve or change, and what are you seeing as we look ahead towards 2026?
James Martin:
Absolutely. So jurisdictions across the US are adopting the national fire codes and the in-building codes that require the enhancement of these frequencies inside buildings. So we're seeing that get adopted widely across the US in 2025. And in 2026 that will be adopted even more so in all the jurisdictions. It takes a lot of time for these jurisdictions to adopt these different codes, and bring them into their code base. But that's happening now, we're seeing a lot of jurisdictions do that. And we're also seeing the combination of a concern around both first responders entering a building and having the ability to communicate, as well as just the regular public having the ability to communicate inside of a building. So dialing 911 is critical in buildings.
Alejandro Piñero:
Sure. So let me pick up on that thought, James, obviously you mentioned how these emergencies are happening indoors, a 911 call is coming from inside the building, but the mobile operators are arguably focusing on their outdoor network reach, but also pushing the public safety element of their solution stack. So how do you wed those two together, and how are the MNOs working to address the in-building emergency service?
James Martin:
So at Wilson Connectivity, we manufacture a lot of products that address this. So we're looking at enhancing three different things today. Cellular communication, just regular cellular communication as it sits today from the mobile operators, we're looking to enhance FirstNet inside buildings, so Band 14 in the US inside buildings. And then these other public safety frequencies that we talk about. And so all three of these things are critical to first responders and in-building public safety as we move into 2026 and beyond. So we're doing this with the support of the mobile operators through a couple of different mechanisms.
We have Part 20 consumer and industrial amplifiers that are geared towards regular mobile operator enhancement, and those can be installed with mobile operator approval today. And then we also have support from AT&T for our Band 14 FirstNet repeater, which also is focused on FirstNet and the enhancement that it provides to first responders. And then of course we're providing the seven, 800 enhancement BDAs that we talked about that are focused on first responders, focused on the LMR radios. So that's really how we're accomplishing the holistic coverage expectation and enhancement inside buildings that provide for a safer building.
Alejandro Piñero:
And let me switch gears a little bit, but still very relevant to this discussion because obviously you need the backbone to deliver on those services. We're seeing a lot of AI being pushed for data center build outs. What changes do you see there in terms of the connectivity for those data centers we look ahead for the next year and how are you guys adapting for those needs?
James Martin:
Yeah, absolutely. With the large push this year for AI, I think everybody in the world is seeing the data center push that's happening across the landscape. So these buildings are very large buildings, they're very dense, and so the penetration from the outdoor network in just doesn't exist in most of these facilities. So these facilities almost always require some kind of enhancement, whether it is the mobile operator coverage that we talked about, just the regular mobile operator coverage or it's Band 14 enhancement or the LMR radios. We're seeing a lot of push to enhance these buildings and enhance the space inside so that they have connectivity just from a day-to-day operational perspective, as well as having public safety and first responder coverage when there are emergencies inside the space.
And so this is continuing to roll out. We're engaged in data centers all across the US from a Wilson Connectivity perspective to deploy these solutions inside the space. So it's becoming critical and AI is driving this inadvertently just from the density of data centers that are going to be required to support that initiative. And Wilson Connectivity is participating in helping solve these challenges in this space.
Alejandro Piñero:
Excellent. And James, let me wrap up here with you with a slightly broader perspective. In preparing for this interview, I noticed that you guys have cellular connectivity solutions right across the stack from small businesses, medium classic office space, large campus environments, public safety, private networks, pretty much anywhere that you see connectivity. So I'd love to get your take here on what trends and commonalities perhaps you're seeing across the settings and how you bring those all together and the solutions you bring to market.
James Martin:
Absolutely. So we're tying it all together, right? So Wilson Connectivity is just all about connectivity in the space. And so whether that is just regular BDAs or what would typically have been called boosters in the past inside buildings all the way up to distributed antenna systems that are dense and provide a lot of capacity inside a large campus environment, we're seeing all of that tie together into a holistic or a heterogeneous network that we've looked at for decades now in the space. We're finally seeing all of that come together.
We're providing all of these solutions on one layer of hardware from the Wilson Connectivity perspective and delivering on that promise of unified connectivity inside the building space. And so that's really what we're focused on, whether it's regular mobile operator coverage, first responder coverage, emergency calls, or even private networks, if an enterprise would like to have that in their space, that's what we focus on at Wilson Connectivity.
Alejandro Piñero:
Brilliant. Well, there you go. James Martin, Chief Technology Officer at Wilson Connectivity. Thank you again for joining us, for taking the time to walk us through your perspectives, and we hope to have you again soon.
James Martin:
Absolutely. Thank you, Alejandro. Have a great day.