As more and more Wireless ISPs (WISPS) get into licensed microwaves, bigger antennas, and fiber up the tower (FUTT) they are getting into an arena typically reserved just for the Cellular and broadcast folks. This can result in an overwhelming amount of things to deal with.
If you are renting space on a commercial tower managed by a regional or national company such as American Tower (ATC) you will run into things like application fees, engineering studies, and closeout documents to just name a few. Once you have your notice to proceed (NTP), the real work begins.
During your negotiation phase, and in your contract, you should have a center line on the tower. This states the center line on the tower where your equipment is mounted. An example is if your centerline states 200, on most contracts that means you have something like 5 feet above that and 5 feet below that. Think of it as a window. You have a window of 195-205′ on the tower for your equipment to fit in.
The equipment you put on the tower was specified in the engineering phase of the paperwork. Model numbers of mounts, antenna models, and all that are decided before the first piece of equipment is ever put on the tower. This is very important to adhere to because many tower companies will require a closeout procedure. This normally includes pictures of your equipment and how it’s mounted, pictures of what is called a tape drop, and other things.
The sheer amount of things to think about on a commercial tower with multiple tenants could extend this blog post on for a long time. But, one of the biggest things to consider is when you are installing how your cable runs, antennas, etc. are in relationship to other equipment. Are your cables somewhere they might be stepped on by someone passing your equipment to get to theirs? Does your equipment cross mounts which may be removed later or modified?
In the second part of this series we will talk about some of the higher-end tools which may save you tons of time, thus paying for themselves rather quickly.
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