They say too many cooks spoil the broth, but a single company cannot fund, design, zone and permit, and deploy a wireless network alone. When writing this Fall Showcase, I was reminded how many different companies are required for the deployment of wireless. This collection of company and product profiles is a mosaic of the expertise necessary for wireless communications. From capital raising to sending crews up a tower to attach antennas, a lot must happen for a signal to be sent or received from a cell phone.
To find out how, or if, a tower is to be built or if fiber is to be run, follow the money. In our profile of Pinpoint Capital Advisors, we learn about a boutique corporate finance advisory firm that focuses on small and mid-market companies in three key sub sectors of telecom: towers, fiber, and data centers.
Siting and permitting can stop a tower or colocation dead in its tracks. Saul Ewing is a champion of the wireless industry providing consultation, legal advice, and strategy for all aspects of wireless infrastructure development.
As wireless networks have densified in recent years, the process of putting more and more telecom equipment in highly populated areas has become problematic. In short, there is no room for the Radio Shacks. In 2015, the founders of InfraSite set out to solve this problem by building, operating, and maintaining telecom technology underground.
In Tilson Technology Management’s feature, we highlight an 800+ employee national company that provides both fiber and wireless network design-build. Their aggressive approach has helped the organically grown company earn a spot on the annual Inc. 5000 list twelve years in a row.
Tower services companies face multiple challenges mounting antennas. PerfectVision’s Guardian Series Monopole Mount Accessory #6 – Lifting Device #2 is an antenna pipe rooster head, designed to be placed into the antenna pipe and is used for lifting antennas into place.
Pathwave provides companies like these a way to be safer and more efficient, by digitizing safety paperwork and closeout packages. It’s a win-win; tower workers go home at the end of the day and the company gets paid on time.
After a tower is built and leased by the carriers, the work of the infrastructure industry does not end. Network Operating Centers (NOC) need to keep an eye on power, security, obstruction lighting, HVAC, backup batteries and generators to ensure the carriers can stay on the air. Westell Technologies, Inc. understands the importance of listening to its customers’ remote tower site monitoring needs. And, it knows how to meet those needs as their customer grows.
Raycap is helping to keep cell towers safe from the elements. With the typical lightning flash packing about 300 million volts, it is best to route it away from radios that operate on 48 volts. Raycap’s Strikesorb® gives it a path to the ground, instead of going inside the radio and destroying it.
For years, Drake Lighting has made obstruction lighting parts for its service technicians. But recently it began offering those parts with other companies’ technicians in a product called the EnduroPAK. The product includes the parts most likely to fail, eliminating repeat visits.
Eventually, a digital replica, known as a digital twin, will be made of every wireless tower, probably using a drone. Consilience Analytics goes beyond the digital twin to integrate additional information to increase its accuracy.
The stories in this year’s Fall Showcase give insight into the success of the companies behind wireless. We hope you enjoy this look into their inspiration, what differentiates them, and how the execution of their visions pushes the wireless industry forward. Click here to read the 2022 Fall Showcase.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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