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Oct. 27, 2008

Today, wireless data services are proliferating everywhere and this causes new trends that are emerging rapidly in various tower equipment co-location and for almost every mobile service operator, whether located in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Overall, communications signal interference and basic tower design are among some of the important issues, independently of whether they are valid or not.

And, oh yes! There’s also the cost factor of course, an issue that really never will go away.

Despite a regular stream of government agencies such as the FCC and others reassigning spectrum bands all the time, various problems with signal interference aren't getting any better or worse than when the mobile industry started in the mid-80s.

This is simply because the law of physics don’t change, noted Kevin Linehan, chief technology officer for base station antenna systems at CommScope.

However, what does change is the horizontal and vertical separation between equipment, which in turn requires some fine tuning. Sometimes a lot of fine tuning in fact.

“It’s generally not something you can measure directly in the field unless you have a lot of equipment,” Linehan explained. “For horizontal spacing, the electrical isolation is greater than 35 dB, as little as 12 inches. For vertical separation, the isolation is up to 50 dB with as little as 6 inches of separation.”

Something else that can simplify co-location is remote electrical tilt (RET). A technician can disturb his own company’s antenna or a competitor’s antenna any time he climbs a tower.

Although networked remote control technology lets many routine tasks such as safety checks and position adjustments happen from a ground service center far away, some tasks simply must be done in person.

Self-optimizing networks is something Linehan said Andrew is working towards. Some forms of RET are in the market today, but mainstream acceptance is two to four years out, he said.

Equipment and tower co-location is also a factor in designing the physical towers themselves.

Chris Martin, director of engineering at GlenMartin Engineering, said his company’s short-term emphasis is to design towers that satisfy municipal rules. Often, that means “monopine” systems, which look similar to real pine trees. Demand is increasing because zoning boards are not allowing new traditional towers.

In some cases, wireless carriers actually have had to replace old towers with new visually pleasing designs, he said. To be sure, monopine towers don't even use steel at all, so special considerations exist for strength.

“We understand where they’re coming from and are glad to supply those systems to our clients. Our endeavor has been to streamline the materials that we utilize. There’s still a lot of education that has to go on in the industry in the next year or two,” Martin said.

Martin also said geography is a huge concern. Pine-style towers work well in Florida, but what about Minnesota?

“The difficulty in all this has been that we have to serve a very, very diverse geographical area here in the U.S. It’s not so much that the clients themselves want anything different; it’s actual geographic location that makes things difficult,” he said.

It’s not just appearance, but also subjects like ground faults, rain levels and wind loads that differ across a country as large as the United States, he added.

Mobile phone carriers are just beginning to adhere to Telecommunications Industry Association standards developed in the past few years, he said.

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Source: CommScope Wireless Technologies.