Anyone who has ever experienced an internet outage is familiar with the hours, or even days, of frustration that follow. Servato, a battery management service based in Little Rock, is making waves in the broadband industry by working to “ensure the internet is always on.”
What started as a spin-off business of a battery design firm is now in 3,000 sites across 84 customers and 38 states.
Servato offers a power management system that allows batteries to rest and charge during certain times of the day, co-founder and CEO Chris Mangum said in a recent interview.
The system sits between the rectifier, an electrical device that converts alternating current into direct current, and the batteries at sites that power cell towers, cable, telecom, broadband, and even railroad equipment.
Built into the hardware is a power switch, which blocks charging to the managed batteries and allows them to rest. During that period of rest, Servato’s systems test the batteries to see if they need more charge or not. If they don’t, the switch continues to block the charge, which prevents overcharging of the batteries.
This prolongs battery life by years, Mangum said. It also saves on electricity and cooling.
But Servato does more than monitor batteries. The management system “gives a good 360 view” of a site, and can monitor trends in equipment like the rectifier, batteries and climate system.
Servato connects its system to software that tracks the equipment, then learns that data and can monitor the “vital signs” of a site.
This system can be especially helpful in times of natural disaster. Companies not only can prepare in advance by checking battery health and replacing weak ones, but also by monitoring sites through Servato’s software in the aftermath.
Also helpful in a disaster is the remote operation of a site. Servato launched a new hardware product in early July that can monitor areas of a site outside of the equipment cabinet, including generators.
This allows Servato to remotely test and start generators in outages. This comes in especially handy for customers with “very remote sites,” Mangum said. Servato manages sites on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the deserts of California.
“It might be a 100-mile drive out to a site from where the technician lives,” Mangum said. “We avoid the unnecessary trips.”
And this comes into play with battery testing, too. Technicians used to manually test batteries at least once a quarter, Mangum explained. Servato tests the batteries remotely every day. This not only prevents outages, but helps resolve them much faster.
A growth in regulation of the telecom industry has led to growth for Servato. Prior to 2019, most companies were not required to provide backup power to their sites, but an increase in outages led to hefty battery requirements. That’s where Servato comes in.
Servato has doubled its revenue three years running in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and is working to double it again in 2024, Mangum said.
Getting the business up and running wasn’t without its trials. After two rounds of raising venture capital, “we tried to sell the company once,” Mangum said, but leadership believed in the product so much that they bought it out to keep it going.
Mangum anticipates more growth in the future, and he wants to do it in Arkansas. He’s from McGehee, but he started up Servato in New Orleans before bringing it back home to Arkansas.
“I would love for Arkansas to be this sort of remarkable, innovative place,” Mangum said. “There’s just tremendous momentum here.”
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