How to Make Upgrades Work - The Right Way!

By Aimee Blakeslee

Our customer, a private high school, leases space on light poles surrounding its athletic fields and between bleachers, to several wireless carriers. The school takes great care to maintain the fields and provide a safe place for  students and guests to gather. Recently, the school was approached by one of those wireless carriers requesting to modify the equipment on the pole. Knowing the size and age of the pole, it seemed unlikely to us that the light poles could support the weight of the equipment the carrier was proposing. Typically, carriers choose a structural engineer to analyze the tower. Out of an abundance of concern for the school setting, we suggested that the school hire its own engineer for the analysis (but still require the wireless carrier to pay for it).

This proved to be a good idea. The structural analysis failed, as expected. We required that the wireless carrier use our same engineer to design plans to modify the tower so that it would support the proposed equipment. In most situations, the carrier’s engineer would submit a plan to the landowner for approval and that would be that. The design would probably be the least expensive solution – aesthetics, and all else, be damned. In this case, we were in direct contact with the engineer and able to work with them to choose the least obstructive plan that would have the least impact on the aesthetics and provide the maximum tower support taking potential future needs into consideration as well.

The carrier decided to adopt our suggestion to de-load the tower to reduce weight. No need for a massive six-foot wide, four-foot tall concrete block around the base of the tower! No digging, drilling or concrete filling! After all the unnecessary equipment and cables are removed the light pole will look much neater. In the end, everyone is happy!