Hongtao Zhan of SureCall On How 5G Technology May Improve and Impact Our Lives

An Interview With David Liu

5G will facilitate seamless connectivity between homes, offices, vehicles and all aspects of our personal and professional lives. Users will experience faster download speeds and nearly zero buffering. Movies and data will be downloaded at a fraction of the time that we’re used to. With the broad proliferation of cell phones, 5G will further increase the speed and accessibility of information across the world.

5G infrastructure is being installed around the world. At the same time, most people have not yet seen what 5G can offer. What exactly is 5G? How will it improve our lives? What are the concerns that need to be addressed before it is widely adopted?

In our series, called, How 5G Technology May Improve and Impact Our Lives, we are talking to tech and telecom leaders who can share how 5G can impact and enhance our lives.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hong Zhan.

Hongtao Zhan is the founder and CEO of SureCall™, a market leading manufacturer of cell phone signal boosters for homes, vehicles, and commercial applications. Spending more than twenty-years as a lead engineer in advanced technologies, Zhan has established himself as a pioneer whose innovative designs are built to connect people through reliable cellular and internet signals. Zhan ushered in the adoption of cellular, thereby delivering in-building connectivity for mobile device. Filing his first patent in 2001 for the five-band amplifier, Zhan now holds more than 20 U.S. patents, published or pending.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I’m the founder and CEO of SureCall, a market leading manufacturer of cell phone signal boosters for homes, vehicles and commercial applications. I graduated with a Master’s Degree from the prestigious Chinese Academy of Science and, after relocating to the United States in 1994, I earned an M.S. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). From there I started working at Cirrus Logic in Silicon Valley in 1997, then joined Datapath System in 1999 where my options paid off significantly after the company sold to LSI Logic. After the stock market tanked and with the current expansion in cellular at the time, I used my ingenuity, electrical engineering background, and the money I received from the company I worked for after it went public, and began designing and manufacturing cell phone signal boosters. I filed my first patent in 2012 for the five-band amplifier and now hold more than 20 U.S. patents, published or pending. I’ve spent more than two decades as a leading engineer and designer of booster technologies. I always wanted to be an inventor. SureCall has given me that opportunity to create products from start to finish and see them take off in the marketplace.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Shortly after I founded SureCall it almost went bankrupt. In fact, I was getting ready to close down my doors in 2006 when a business-saving order for almost 1,000 signal boosters and antennas came in and changed everything. The order gave SureCall a second chance and allowed me to keep creating and inventing, eventually allowing the business to grow into what it is today.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Throughout my experience as a business leader and innovator, my favorite “Life Lesson Quote” is “Be creative. Be persistent. Work hard. Don’t give up and never stop innovating.” This phrase has held true in every obstacle I’ve come across throughout my life. Starting from when I immigrated to this country, speaking only a little English, with only $400 to my name, to when my company was on the brink of bankruptcy, to inventing and creating new, and industry-leading technology. If I hadn’t been persistent, creative and hard-working during these difficult times, SureCall wouldn’t be the business, trusted partner, and market leader it is today.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

In the early stages of SureCall, the product technology was strong, but I found myself needing help with the marketing and manufacturing aspects of my business. I turned to SCORE, a nonprofit that supports small business owners with free business resources. That’s where I met Mark Levi and Frank DeTurris who have been instrumental figures and mentors throughout my career. Both helped me grow my small company into a thriving business and helped me understand the different aspects of ensuring it stays successful for the long-term.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

The three characteristics that have been instrumental in my success are tenacity, ambition and innovation. Years after starting SureCall when 4G was being introduced into the market, I was told that a simultaneous five-band signal booster was impossible. I took this as a personal challenge and invented the first five-band cell phone signal booster, creating a widely used industry standard today and I now own the patent for it as well. This one product supports all carrier services and eliminates the need to buy separate devices for every carrier, allowing consumers to easily change between carriers as needed. Innovation has allowed me to position SureCall as a thought leader in the industry. This especially rang true with Verizon’s 5G outdoor network booster, which is solving the millimeter wave (mmWave) coverage challenge. I identified the need for this early on, and worked hard with our team to create a solution for this opportunity before it was on anyone else’s radar.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects? How do you think that will help people?

SureCall recently announced a partnership with Verizon. We provided our Horizon 5G mmWave network signal booster to help Verizon build out its nationwide 5G network. With that technology, consumers will be able to access ultra-fast wireless speeds, downloading movies in seconds and even eventually 3D holographic video conferencing in real time. SureCall’s signal boosters extended the coverage footprint of a 5G base station, in a reliable and cost-effective way that is truly paving the way for the future of wireless across the country.

Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Like 4G, 5G has many different facets, and I’m sure many will approach this question differently. But for the benefit of our readers can you explain to us what 5G is? How is 5G different from its predecessor 4G?

5G provides connectivity between broadband networks. It has helped widen the “pipe” through which data passes and by using the millimeter wave it has increased the overall bandwidth dramatically — the pipe is more than 50 times bigger! Taking it from a hundred megabits per second to having several gigabits per second, which will forever change the way businesses and individuals interact with the wireless network. This advancement has vastly increased the power of the network and has made it possible to open up new use cases and applications that haven’t been dreamed up yet.

Can you share three or four ways that 5G might improve our lives? If you can please share an example, for each.

5G will facilitate seamless connectivity between homes, offices, vehicles and all aspects of our personal and professional lives. Users will experience faster download speeds and nearly zero buffering. Movies and data will be downloaded at a fraction of the time that we’re used to. With the broad proliferation of cell phones, 5G will further increase the speed and accessibility of information across the world. Everything through cellular is more secure than WiFi, and users won’t run the risk of having to reboot a wireless WiFi device or experience disconnect during power outages. 5G will continue to increase the power of the network, with ultra low latency, paving the way for things like remote surgeries, or holographic images for doctors or video conferences that are very high resolution and clear. We are now building the platform that will allow for ongoing innovation by providing the means and bandwidth to share information at incredible speeds. We believe that this will ultimately lead to the replacement of home ISPs as people can access 5G at home through their existing cellular plans and devices.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this 5G technology that people should think more deeply about?

As with anything related to your phone, we recommend safe and thoughtful use of it. Be careful and avoid unsafe practices while driving. Help youth develop healthy phone habits. That will be increasingly important with the advancements we’re poised to see over the next several years, and will need to be a key teaching point. That said, your phone could take over your life if you let it, so it’s important to keep a good balance and put it down from time to time to interact with real people — especially your family.

Some have raised the question that 5G might widen the digital divide and leave poor people or marginalized people behind. From your perspective, what can be done to address and correct this concern?

This is a very complicated question. On one hand, it’s very expensive to implement. If cost saving measures aren’t introduced this could further the divide between developing nations and others.

But in wealthy countries 5G shouldn’t be widening the gap, it should help close it even more. Alongside the broad adoption of cell phones, 5G is heightening accessibility and giving much better bandwidth in more places. By adding more coverage, more people can access information in more places. There are government programs that see the value in 5G connectivity and are implementing it in rural areas and beyond, which will only help to further shrink the digital divide.

Excellent. We are nearly done. Let’s zoom out a bit and ask a more general question. Based on your experience and success, what are the 5 things you need to create a highly successful career in the telecommunication industry?

1. The five things you need to create a highly successful career in telecommunications are to have a relevant educational background and never stop learning, innovating and creating in order to create and deliver the best products.
2. Also, hire the best team and always prioritize the customer. My background in engineering helped me understand the industry from a technological standpoint and allows me to keep learning and innovating with every new trend and product.
3. Understanding the industry feeds innovation by being able to identify and fill the needs not only now, but into the future. The need for a single product to provide connectivity between all carriers inspired my invention of the first five-band signal booster. Great products and a great team ensures quality and customer satisfaction across the business.
4. Building your team with talented individuals with varying realms of expertise strengthens your product and company and allows it to thrive no matter the changes or challenges that will inevitably arise.
5. Last, but most important is that it’s hard to beat 20 years of dedication.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

An immigrant entrepreneurship program that would provide people with the resources to start their own businesses and build their careers. Through my experience as an immigrant business leader who bootstrapped my own company, I would love to help other people achieve their business goals. The U.S. is a great place for entrepreneurs, and there are countless people out there with amazing ideas, who just need some help bringing them to fruition.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Visit our website www.surecall.com for our latest product updates.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.