Telecom Tower Rentals, LLC (TTR) began providing temporary ballast mounted monopoles to wireless telecom carriers in the local NY/NJ/CT market in 2013. As its inventory grew and the concept proved itself, TTR went national in 2018, providing towers from 70’ – 170’ to the carriers, government agencies, private sector clients, utility companies and general contractors throughout the continental U.S.
Since then, there has been no shortage of unique use cases for the company’s products. Jonathan Ettere, Managing Member of TTR, believes the company has an, “innovative base design that both assembles easily in the field and reduces installation costs; that’s because we are able to locally source ballast block, rather than ship concrete long distances.”
TTR regularly exhibits at industry shows. “The beauty of doing so allows us to speak with many people who share with us different ways they can use our towers. We are always learning and making adjustments to better serve our customers,” explains Ettere.
TTR was an exhibitor at the 2023 UTC Telecom & Technology conference to gauge the interest in temporary towers in the utility market and says, “it was a bulls-eye.” In addition to telecom equipment mounted on transmission lines that from time to time need offloading for capital upgrades or storm damage, utility companies have their own communication systems that encounter storm damage and need a robust interim solution. That was the takeaway from several conversations and specifically, Florida Power and Light.
Other uses for temporary towers include instances where the ground cannot be disturbed, or guy wires are not an option, such as mining operations, on mountain tops on tribal lands or where there just isn’t enough space for multiple cells on wheels (COWs). The stiffness of a monopole also makes a great platform for microwave hops to fill gaps even as long-term solutions may be in the planning stages, according to TTR. For instance, the company provided one 150’ monopole for Enbridge Energy, operator of the world’s longest and most complex liquids transportation system.
TTR is not interested in competing with companies that provide COWs or towers on wheels (TOWs). The niche TTR is developing is admittedly narrower. “Our business strategy is to provide a solution that gets the customer the highest capacity of inventory, with the tallest RAD centers, on the smallest possible footprint,” Ettere said. “We want to be the ‘GO-TO’ provider of high capacity, robust, temporary monopoles.”
Its differentiator is the height, capacity, and footprint, all with zero ground penetration and zero guy wires. For example, in Bradenton, FL, TTR is currently renting a fully reinforced 110-foot monopole, with the capacity for three carriers’ antenna arrays, which can handle the typical hurricane-force winds. Because of the very limited room within the water authority’s property, the tower must fit into a 24-foot by 24-foot space in a residential area.
On top of providing technical expertise, TTR brings its experience gained from working with municipalities across the country to help get projects done. In the case of a water tower that needs to be painted, TTR will act as the liaison between the carriers, the painting company and the water utility/municipality. Oftentimes, the painting company and the township/water authority find it difficult to coordinate the communication equipment removal. By assisting the stakeholders to bridge the gap, at TTR’s cost, the situation is a win-win for everyone, and the project keeps moving.
TTR is focused on growing its rental tower portfolio organically. The company can and has built custom towers for specific deployments and has relationships with the major tower manufacturers and resellers to convert leftover stock and canceled orders to rental assets in its fleet. “We’re adding to our inventory every year as we try to meter it up to keep pace with customers’ expectations,” Ettere said.
TTR’s inventory is, by definition, always in a state of flux. Some of the inventory is deployed, some is going out to the site, while additional towers are being built. “The whole point is we should never have them all out. Because our advantage is having a tower when the customer needs it,” Ettere said.
The rental business still tends to be cyclical, though. Typically, in the spring and the fall, TTR is deploying, and in the winter and summer, it is quoting jobs. “It’s a nice cycle,” Ettere said. “It’s a good pace.”
For more information, contact Jonathan Ettere at 908-482-8508 or visit https://www.ttrllc.com/contact-and-get-a-quote.
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