On the southern edge of Texas, near the border with Mexico, David Dean spends much of his time thinking about signals, how far they travel, what interrupts them, and how to push them farther.
From a modest office in McAllen, his company, Cyber Antennas, builds long-range wireless networking equipment designed for places where traditional internet infrastructure often falls short: industrial sites, rural communities, outdoor operations, and large geographic areas that demand reliable connectivity but lack affordable options.
As industries become increasingly dependent on cloud systems, connected devices, and real-time communications, Dean believes demand for resilient wireless infrastructure will only continue to grow.
“We’ve got a long-range mesh model and plug-and-play mesh Wi-Fi for industry and large-scale outdoor Wi-Fi for communities,” he said.
What eventually became Cyber Antennas did not begin as a conventional startup. The technology originated within an open-source networking community, where developers and hobbyists collaborated on wireless systems built for flexibility and performance. Dean saw an opportunity to take those ideas and transform them into commercial products capable of serving industrial and community customers.
Today, the company develops mesh networking systems and wireless access points capable of transmitting internet connectivity across large outdoor spaces. Its products are part of a broader effort to expand digital infrastructure at a time when reliable internet access has become essential to commerce, logistics, education, and public services.
Cyber Antennas has also benefited from a significant regulatory shift in Washington. In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission opened the 6-gigahertz spectrum band for Wi-Fi use, dramatically increasing available wireless capacity and creating new opportunities for faster, lower-latency internet systems.
Dean’s company moved quickly to capitalize on the change.
“This is a Wi-Fi access point that’s taking full advantage of that opportunity,” he said.
But even as Cyber Antennas develops new products, the company faces a set of challenges that have become increasingly familiar to small American manufacturers: tariffs, supply chain instability, and the growing complexity of global trade.
Like many hardware companies, Cyber Antennas relies heavily on components manufactured in China, where a dense electronics ecosystem allows companies to source specialized parts efficiently and at competitive prices.
“All our components are made in China,” Dean said. “So it makes it difficult to import into the United States when the tariffs are uncertain. It adds a significant cost to our supply chain.”
For small hardware firms, tariffs are not an abstract geopolitical issue debated in Washington policy circles. They directly affect pricing, inventory, production schedules, and hiring decisions. A sudden increase in import costs can alter margins overnight.
Unlike software companies, which can scale with relatively limited physical infrastructure, hardware manufacturers remain deeply dependent on global production networks built over decades. China, in particular, continues to dominate electronics manufacturing because of its concentration of suppliers, engineering expertise, logistics infrastructure, and production scale.
For smaller firms, relocating manufacturing is rarely simple.
Cyber Antennas explored moving portions of its production outside China, but found that shifting tariff structures and supplier realities complicated those efforts.
“Tariffs may be debated in Washington, but small businesses feel their impact immediately,” Dean said. “When policies change unexpectedly, it raises costs, creates uncertainty, and makes it harder for companies like ours to invest, hire, and innovate.”
The uncertainty has made long-term planning increasingly difficult, Dean said, particularly for businesses without the financial cushions or legal resources available to multinational corporations.
“Ten years ago, the United States represented free trade and a free market,” he said. “Right now, the big companies are better situated to deal with the complexity and uncertainty of tariffs. Small businesses have a much harder time navigating that system.”
Large corporations often employ teams of trade lawyers, customs specialists, and government affairs professionals dedicated to navigating import regulations and tariff classifications. Small businesses are typically left to manage those responsibilities themselves.
“We don’t have teams of lawyers helping us navigate imports and exports,” Dean said. “I just have to figure out how to deal with it myself.”
The strain of rising costs and unpredictable trade policy has become especially acute for small technology manufacturers operating in competitive global markets. Increased tariffs can squeeze already-thin margins, delay product development, and make it more difficult for companies to compete against larger firms with greater purchasing power and more diversified supply chains.
Yet despite those pressures, Cyber Antennas continue to grow.
Dean points not to investment rounds or market valuations, but to repeat orders from customers.
“We’ve got new products coming,” he said. “But the best indicator that your product is meeting customer needs is when customers come back and order more. That’s what excites me.”
For Dean, repeat business is more than a financial metric. It is evidence that small technology companies still have room to innovate, even in an economic environment shaped by trade tensions, rising costs, and intensifying global competition.
As businesses and communities across the country continue searching for reliable connectivity solutions, companies like Cyber Antennas are betting that demand for resilient wireless infrastructure will only increase.
Whether small firms can continue building those systems, however, may depend as much on the future of global trade policy as on the strength of the technology itself.