We are now witnessing the tectonic shift of technology’s influence on business. As organizations are trying to remain competitive and increase their profitability, they are now reframing their goals and strategies, even if the mission remains the same.
The global 5G rollout has put pressure on tower owners and carriers to make equipment changes as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Even without the major push for 5G and the tower upgrades that come with it, cell towers need constant changes. Tower repairs and maintenance – including co-locating new tenants, new equipment installation, updating equipment, coverage optimization, and meeting government regulations – are a constant part of the tower lifecycle, and they’re critical to keeping their networks connected.
With this increase in cost sharing, and interest in multiple carriers co-locating on the same structure, there is also an increase in load cases and loading scenarios being requested during an analysis cycle.
Telecommunications service providers can maximize the return on investment (ROI) for tower assets by embracing technology and modernizing asset detection.
Due to the ever-increasing demand for data along with reliable connections, telecom owners are increasingly trying to digitize their workflow to accurately understand available spaces, estimate tower ratings for proposed loading, understand defects and more importantly updating their inventory with as-built information. The current process is manual, labor intensive, and expensive. As telecom infrastructure is now shared by multiple mobile network operators and as tower owners are adopting to 5G evolution, one major telecom company in India looked to its geospatial partner,
Johnson Broderick Engineering Case Study Overview Organization: Johnson Broderick Engineering, LLCLocation: Eugene, Oregon, USA Project Objectives: Accurate graphical representations of towers Ability to optimize analysis by evaluating multi-variable simulations Integrated solution, including tower, mount, and foundation analysis Products Used: OpenTower Designer The Visual, Virtual Difference Structural tower analysis has long been a tedious and somewhat complicated process requiring multiple iterations and considerable research and analysis to achieve optimal results. While specialized programs have helped deliver quality results, they have not evolved nor improved the methods. Aaron Broderick, Principal of Johnson Broderick Engineering, LLC, believes it’s time for engineers to adopt a visual approach to modernize tower analysis. He explained, “Older programs are kind of a black box that are fed information and spit out results. There’s no visual reference to where antennas or feed lines are located or what the equipment looked like and limited foundation analysis capabilities.” For Eugene, Oregon-based Johnson Broderick Engineering, LLC, advancements in visualization as well as expanded analytics are forever changing the tower analysis approach. Download Full Case Study
Genesys Case Study Overview Organization: Genesys International Corporation, Ltd.Location: Mumbai, India Project Objectives: Perform inventory management through inspection automation Facilitate planning for a next generation 5G network Enable downstream workflow for engineering and BIM Products Used: OpenTower iQ Facilitating a Previously Labor Intensive Process Due to the ever-increasing demand for data along with reliable connections, telecom owners are increasingly trying to digitalize their workflows to accurately understand available spaces, estimate tower ratings for proposed loading, understand defects and, more importantly, update their inventory with as-built information. The current process is manual, labor intensive, and expensive. As telecom infrastructure is now shared by multiple mobile network operators, and as tower owners are adopting 5G evolution, a major telecom company in India looked to its geospatial partner, Genesys International Corporation Ltd for help with digitalizing their workflow through tower inspection automation. Nikhil Jani, vice president, telecom and utilities at Genesys International responsible for the company’s telecom and utilities business, said, “Tower inspections are typically manually intensive processes. Few telecom operators have current (as-built) data about all the equipment on their towers.” Download Full Case Study
With the recent uptick of telecom M&A, cell towers are changing hands faster than ever, but their inventory and engineering data don’t always survive the trip. New owners often discover that all the tower data available to them is a patchwork of outdated 2D CAD drawings, bunch of PDFs listing equipment installed on towers, hand sketches drawn by tower climbers, etc. After stitching it all together, many questions surrounding accurate asset information bubble up. Since there is no central source of truth to leverage for decision-making, reconciliation along with operating and maintaining tower infrastructure becomes a very difficult and costly process.
Bentley Systems recently launched a new design product that automates the creation of digital twins for telecom towers. OpenTower iQ gives designers and contractors 3D visualization and predictive design for utility towers. It enables data captured by drones to be brought into 3D models and lets users incorporate artificial intelligence to inform design decisions using Bentley’s iTwin cloud service.