It’s equipment that will be used to download the newest apps and gadgets, but the work to install such equipment requires good old-fashioned knowhow….and an occasional horse. In Wisconsin, a local farmer has helped U.S. Cellular engineers transport wireless antennas up steep hills and rough terrain in a rural area with a team that gets paid by the bag of oats, reports WEAU.
The idea sprung from winter snowstorms that created difficult conditions for transporting wireless antennas to the cell tower atop the hill. U.S. Cellular’s plow equipment would repeatedly get stuck in snow or mud, so they turned to the help of a local farmer.
“He’s helped us with several of them so far and it’s really quite an impressive operation they have going,” Brandi Vandenberg, Regional Planning Manager for U.S. Cellular, told WEAU.
Jason Julian—the owner of Legacy Horse Logging in Medford, Wisconsin—said using this original form of “horsepower” gets the job done and is a form of renewable fuel.
“The sun shines, the water falls, hay grows, you cut the hay, you make the hay, and you have fuel,” he said, with the frankness and practicality of an experienced farmer. Julian has been using his horses to help engineers about twice a week over the last month, and plans to do it about once a week in the summertime.
“I can send my wife a text when we’re done here. Everything went good, headed home,” Julian said. “They can break that down into ones and zeros and bounce it off that tower to a tower to Medford and my wife knows I’m coming home. Yeah, but the hill is kicking our butt, we need help getting up the hill. You know they can do all that to space and back but mother nature still wins and you have to have a way to get the stuff up the hill.”
VIDEO (courtesy of WEAU)
March 27, 2017
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