Happy New Year!

As we head into 2025, I feel it’s important to take stock in our performance over the past 12 months. Did we achieve our goals? What were our major accomplishments? Did we take care of our customers? We have all cylinders pumping at the moment on the 2025 bus, but it’s good for the ego to occasionally take a peek in the rear-view mirror to appreciate the year just passed.

In the Cellhire world, we have what we refer to as Event Years and non-Event Years, and while the non-Event Years are fun, the Event Years allow us to tap into those areas that define our services and capabilities. Cellhire is a global leader in Event Support. We handle every aspect of wireless airtime and provisioning for our customers, from SIM and eSIM provisioning, to customer programming, to device procurement – both short and long term - to billing. 2024 was a very successful Event Year for Cellhire.

Cellhire’s relationships with local networks across the globe allow us to provide the most competitive voice, text and data plans available for major events, and we offer these rates on a short-term basis, handling all procurement, provisioning and billing services. For the World Cup recently held in Qatar for example, Cellhire partnered with the local network Oroodoo to offer our media, corporate and team customers competitive local airtime solutions – all directly on the local network, not roaming on a non-Qatar network SIM.   So, when it came time to provide a local solution to support the Paris Games, Cellhire was perfectly positioned, already having thousands of lines under contract with Orange France through our Paris, York, Dallas and Tokyo offices. Direct network access, provisioning portals, and event-long support directly from the network allowed Cellhire to be the most efficient, effective and safe solution-provider for customers operating in France for the 2024 Games.

Preparations for the Paris Games were already underway in January 2024, with advance teams from Olympic Federations, Olympic teams, and media companies all sending employees to France. Cellhire provided airtime and devices to many of these customers for the time periods they required service – with some staying up to and throughout The Games, and others for shorter periods. We kept teams traveling to France connected with cost-effective, tailored voice, text and data plans for the time they needed to remain connected.

In February we kept the sports theme alive by providing devices and airtime for our clients heading to Las Vegas for The Superbowl. Powerbanks, wireless hotspots, fixed wireless solutions and backup satellite phones were provided, and because of Cellhire’s relationship with all three major US networks, we were able to offer airtime plans on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile networks.

As we moved into Spring, our Study Abroad partners were reaching out for airtime and devices to be used outside the US. Cellhire is a great choice here because we are able to offer competitive airtime rates for voice, text and data, as well as handle all billing, support, and any device requirements that may be needed. Cellhire has been supporting Study Abroad programs for many years and 2024 was no exception.

April saw more sports activity as Cellhire provided push-to-talk (PTT) smartphones to a client supporting The Masters golf tournament. Clients in need of instant communications across multiple users have taken advantage of this technology, and Cellhire is positioned to provide both airtime and device solutions.

Summer saw intense focus on Paris 2024. At this point orders had been placed, an onsite support concierge desk was set up and staffed by Cellhire employees, orders were in the process of being programmed, shipped and distributed. Portal access was given to corporate clients to assist them in managing their own connections, and Cellhire was ready to provide what we have always provided: best-in-class service and support for thousands of our customers during major events.

While The Games did keep us extremely busy and focused, there were other things going on around the world at the same time … summer for example! Historically, summer is the busiest season at Cellhire. Schools are out, people take vacations … there is more travel over these few months that the rest of the year combined. Cellhire offers a variety of solutions to address the needs of these travelers, from European roaming data cards to mobile hotspot devices, to satellite phones. Regardless of how long you require service, Cellhire has your solution. Customers ordered the European Roaming Data Cards as well as Wi-Fi hotspots so they could share their data with friends and family throughout the summer, saving money as they roamed across as many as 50 countries across Europe!

The big winner over the summer – for both Cellhire and our customers – was the satellite rental program. Since Covid, more people are taking advantage of the outdoors, and the United States certainly does not lack in available outdoor destinations. Last summer Cellhire rented and sold Iridium 9555 and 9575 handheld satellite phones, as well as the Inmarsat iSat Pro2 handheld satellite phone, to customers going a bit off grid … as well as those going a long way off grid! These handsets allowed our customers to send and receive phone calls and texts, keeping in touch with family and friends. Cellhire also rented and sold the Iridium GO! and GO! exec calling hotspot devices. Both allow users to connect their smartphones and tablets, making them both convenient communication devices when traveling in groups. The GO! exec also provides data access, although it is a bit slow at 88 kbps. Users needing data access rented our Explorer 510 BGAN terminal. This allowed them to connect their smartphones, tablets and laptops and achieve speeds up to 464 kbps, from virtually anywhere on the planet.

As we look ahead to 2025, we find ourselves already providing service and solutions to clients sending advance teams to Milan for the 2026 Games, as well as media teams traveling throughout the US in preparation for the FIFA World Cup matches in 2026, which will be held in Canada, Mexico, and throughout the United States. These same clients will be back in 2028 for the LA Olympic Games. Based on the feedback and success of 2024, the future looks very bright for Cellhire, and more importantly, our clients!

We wish all of you a very happy and successful 2025!