Simplifying tower test and measurement saves time and money while driving safety and industry competitiveness
From installation and commissioning to ongoing maintenance activities, cell towers require a great deal of capital and operational expense. Coupled with the incredibly competitive service provider landscape, cost pressures create a simultaneous need to cut opex while still maximizing tower investments in order to provide end-user quality of experience.
Specific to the macro infrastructure layer, cell towers require highly-trained and industry-certified technicians to perform installation, test and measurement tasks, commissioning and ongoing maintenance, much of which requires a worker to physically climb the tower.
In addition to labor costs that could greatly fluctuate depending on numerous environmental variables, tower climbs create very real safety concerns. Since January 2013, there have been more than two dozen tower-related deaths, many of those caused by falls.
While many organizations, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Association of Tower Erectors, work to promote best practices and tower climber safety education, the only sure way to reduce falls is to reduce tower climbs.
So how can tower stakeholders accomplish the goal of reducing tower climbs?
RCR Wireless News recently spoke to representatives from Viavi to learn how common tower work can be made safer and simpler.
Consider BBU emulation, which uses cutting-edge technology to allow for troubleshooting prior to commissioning. After tower techs install fiber, coax, remote radio heads and antennas, the baseband unit (BBU) is installed and the tower is commissioned; unfortunately, after commissioning is when some 20% of problems come to light.
Through BBU emulation, techs can use a virtual BBU to identify problems and troubleshoot radios and antennas from the ground thereby minimizing tower climbs. Further, process automation makes for a quicker, cheaper truck roll.
Another opportunity for savings, efficiency and safety comes as fiber interfaces like CPRI and OBSAI gain traction in C-RAN deployments; essentially, remote radio elements are connected to the BBU allowing easy testing at the baseband unit of hard-to-reach or otherwise inaccessible radio heads. Testing is simplified, climbs are minimized and opex is reduced.
“The right tools enable technicians to streamline the entire cell site commissioning and optimization process,” Kashif Hussain, Global Solutions Marketing Manager at Viavi Solutions “We’ve learned how to cut the time and complexity of bringing a new tower online, which means fewer visits to the site, reducing both cost and risk. We realize that each issue, each bit of interference, each poor connection that can be detected and pinpointed from the ground may mean one less climb.”
Tower technicians are the backbone of the wireless industry—they do the installation and testing work that brings networks to life and ensures carrier quality of experience metrics, which translate directly to customer churn, are met. While the need for climbing towers isn’t going away anytime soon, the tools are available to reduce climbs to a bare minimum while creating a quicker, more cost-effective workflow.
