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Why Wireless-First Networks Power the World’s Busiest Airport with Chris Crist | Go Beyond the Connection Episode 17
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When your infrastructure can’t expand any further, you don’t just add hardware—you rethink everything.
Chris Crist, Chief Information Officer at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, joins Go Beyond the Connection to explain how a wireless-first strategy became the foundation for nonstop operations at the world’s busiest airport.
With over 108 million passengers annually and a complex campus that rivals a small city, ATL needed a network capable of more than just keeping up. Chris shares how they hit a hard limit on physical cabling—and turned it into a catalyst for innovation.
Key learnings from this episode:
- Why traditional cabling reached its breaking point—and what came next
- How distributed antenna systems (DAS) and upgraded Wi-Fi support 24,000+ concurrent users
- What biometric boarding and AI-powered security mean for real-time operations
- The role of CIOs in business alignment and infrastructure resiliency
- How to build hot-standby data centers and redundant distribution frames into the network fabric
“We have to become more efficient with what we have. It’s through technology that we’re going to make that work—and we’ll need to rely more on wireless capabilities to do that.” – Chris Crist
This episode is packed with actionable insights for IT leaders managing complex operations, constrained environments, or growing digital footprints. Whether you’re in aviation, healthcare, retail, or manufacturing, Chris’s wireless-first roadmap offers practical takeaways for building resilient, scalable infrastructure.
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