Cell Tower News is brought to you by the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE).
In this edition of Cell Tower News, Host Joey Jackson talks with Trey Nemeth, VP of operations for stealth concealment, about the growing concealed tower market.
As cellular technology becomes pervasive throughout the country, towers are sprouting up everywhere. This means many are finding them in their own backyards and oftentimes it is not a welcome sight for residents.
“Certainly the ‘not in my backyard’ crowd definitely influences the amount of work that we get,” Nemeth said. “We’re being asked to conceal cellular sites and wireless sites in areas that have more strict zoning regulations, so as a general rule, those tend to be in the suburban areas surrounding larger metropolitan areas”
Nemeth said his company works with all sorts of customers throughout the building process, but in the end it comes down to the carriers.
“The company that actually writes us the purchase order might not be a wireless carrier. It might be a project management company, oftentimes we get orders from ANE firms, we get orders from installers and contractors, but ultimately the end customers are the large wireless carriers.”
Signal interference is a major obstacle that Nemeth said affects the materials used in an installation.
“Anytime you put material in front of an antenna, it’s going to cause some type of loss or reflection,” Nemeth said. “So what we try to do is come up with a portfolio of concealment materials that will perform best for the specific site and application.”
He says the interference is extremely minimal year after year.
DAS and small cells are also becoming an increasingly large portion of Stealth Concealment’s business.
“There’s a lot of buzz about DAS and small cell in the industry and that has influenced the concealment world as well,” Nemeth explains. “Right now we’re in the range of 10-20% of our work over the past few years has been DAS and small cell. … That’s up from 0% just a few years ago.”
He adds that these DAS and small cell projects are often some of the most involved. “From a concealment perspective, oftentimes the DAS and small cell projects tend to be pretty large projects for us, especially in the large-venue DAS applications, stadiums and arenas, that type of thing.”
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