Cellular Towers Need Surge Protection Devices
When you pick up your cell phone and begin a call or a
connection to the internet, your understanding of the process probably stops at
the amount of bars that your cell phone has.
This graphical presentation of the strength or weakness of the signal
essentially tells you how unobstructed your signal is with regards to the
nearest tower that is involved in your network.
These towers must be the tallest structures within a general area in
order to provide the most unobstructed signal to you on the ground. This physical necessity also creates an issue
within the system, ultimately making them the perfect target for lightning
strikes during inclement weather.
Lightning strikes to cellular towers ultimately destroy or damage
equipment necessary to the process, or take the cell tower offline which
ultimately provides you with no connectivity.
This is why cellular communications companies utilize industrial surge
protection as a defense against the expected damage that will occur to their
equipment in the field every year.
The main components within a cellular tower are the antennas,
the remote radio head and the base station unit which are housed within that
tower itself. The lightning strike to
the top of the tower will ultimately damage equipment located within the strike
point, but unfortunately the electrical surge that is produced as a result of
that strike can damage active telephone equipment further away. This is due to the fact that the base station
unit must be connected via cables directly to the remote radio head in order to
provide ongoing communication. This
connectivity is a pathway for electrical surges to travel upon, ultimately
allowing far more electricity than can be handled by the equipment to come into
contact with it. In order to minimize
the amount of damage that a single lightning strike can produce, cellular
companies have begun integrating surge protection equipment in between these
components, installed along these critical pathways. By providing a barrier that has the ability
to not only monitor the amount of electrical flow but also cut off that flow if
it exceeds a specified amount, the telecom companies can reduce their expected
amounts of maintenance and damage significantly. In doing so, these predictable amounts of damage
in the field can be reduced or eliminated completely, in some cases. This not only reduces the amount of
expenditure necessary to keep the system going, but also provides the better
customer experience due to the fact that connectivity issues are reduced as
well. Keeping the systems online as much
as possible keeps customers as happy as possible. Keeping their bills as low as possible also
keeps customers happy, ultimately creating a situation where the reduction of
electrical surge related damage can have a dual effect on the profitability of
the business. In the hyper competitive
world of telecommunications, those who have created the systems which can
function with the longest up times and the smallest amount of ongoing
maintenance and repair costs are the ones who will ultimately survive the test
of time.
