Sharing Shelters: A Winning Solution

A booming wireless sector has driven site demand; co-location is key.

Cities and towns large and small have clashed with wireless companies at planning and zoning board meetings for years over cell sites - the towers and shelters that make up wireless-transmission networks - and their impact on the environment. One result has been a consensus among zoning boards and wireless-service providers alike - that sharing shelters and towers minimizes the need for new structures and reduces visual clutter and tension between companies and communities.

The consensus shows in the rules and regulations of municipalities across the country. The regulations put forth by Lexington, MA, for wireless-communications facilities state, in part, that they should "(f) encourage the use of certain existing structures and towers, (g) minimize the total number and height of towers located within the community and (h) require tower sharing and clustering of wireless-communication facilities where they reinforce the other Objectives in this Section."

Similarly, Ordinance No. 110-98 of Covington, WA, states, "the city desires such facilities to have a minimal visual impact of the surrounding areas; and ... the co-location of such facilities is encouraged; and ... the location of such facilities on certain existing structures is encouraged."

Sentiments such as these have been heard loud and clear by wireless-service providers, and by large site management companies such as Crown Castle and SpectraSite.

"I believe more than anything else, it's zoning issues," said Mike Wrigley, vice president of sales at FWT, a Texas company that builds shelters. "It's much easier to get one building in there than three or four - and one building just looks better, aesthetically."

SpectraSite's Web site, in a page devoted to community relations, states, "Each site will accommodate numerous carriers, thereby minimizing the proliferation of towers in your community."

Good Politics, Good Business Mike Bennett is vice president and general manager of wireless at US Unwired, a Sprint PCS affiliate covering Alabama, northwest Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and east Texas. Like most service providers in the industry, Bennett said US Unwired has been "affected by the aggressive zoning policies" present today.

These policies are particularly stringent in areas of natural beauty, such as the beaches of Florida.

"We naturally see (zoning concerns) in areas that tend to be more concerned about either the environmental impact or the beauty of the area," he said. "We definitely have more zoning issues related to the Florida panhandle and trying to do things along the beaches. In those markets, we are very aggressively co-locating our facilities on other peoples' towers."

In Panama City and Pensacola, FL, US Unwired co-locates 85% to 90% of its sites.

And when it is forced to build new towers and shelters, it does so with zoning requirements in mind and an eye toward building good will.

"When we are forced to build our own sites in areas like that, we will have those zoned for multiple carriers," Bennett said. "As a matter of fact, we have such a good relationship with many of our competitors that we take them with us through the zoning process.

"We have found it to be much more successful to go into a zoning process in a sensitive area with two or three of our competitors with us," he added. "All of us commit to be on that location so that none of us will have to build an additional tower, and that works very well through the zoning process."

Similar thinking also applies to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proceedings regarding tower height, Bennett said.

"I was in a meeting this morning, for example, and we are in the process of building a tower in Alabama where we needed 150 feet for our RF design," he said, "but we built the tower to 190 feet and cleared it through the FAA, so in the event that in the future someone came in and needed that clearance it would be there."

Far from an afterthought, co-location is de rigueur for service providers building new sites today. Bennett said co-location requires adjustments to everything from security to the site's foundation. Though most shared shelters are subdivided like self-storage buildings, space is so tight in some cities that vertical stacking becomes necessary.

"One of the things we are finding, especially in more urban areas, is there isn't much ground space," Bennett said. "We have actually stacked things in some locations, so we can have ourselves and other carriers go vertically rather than horizontally."

Divisional Design Sharing a shelter means making decisions about security, power supply, assembly and HVAC systems. Each decision affects shipping, installation, maintenance and the bottom line.

As more equipment is added to a shelter, cooling systems must in turn be enhanced, said FWT's Wrigley.

"You have to handle these things up front, on the sales side, otherwise you're trying to retrofit later," he said.

Wrigley said FWT addresses co-location issues with most of its service provider customers. About half choose to subdivide shelters with wire screens, while the other half use solid walls. In both situations, separate doors are required for complete equipment control and security.

FWT has provided shared-shelter solutions for many years, mostly in the microwave transmission industry. Recently, sharing shelters has become an issue in the wireless industry.

"Before wireless, we did shared shelters with some of the microwave companies as they would let people come onto their sites," he said. "At that time, we would use a screen wall and add another door. It's been done for many years, but is relatively new in the wireless industry."

Deciding between separate rooms or screen separators involves several trade-offs.

"The benefit of one room with screen walls is that you can have one air-conditioning system for the whole building, which lowers your cost," Wrigley said. "If you build walls and do totally separate the systems it takes up a lot of wall space and makes the site more expensive. But it does give (the service provider) more complete control of their part of that shelter."

Bennett said that when US Unwired shares a shelter, the company prefers separate entry-ways for each company.

"It's not just a security issue," he said. "Everyone clearly understands that we cooperate. It's not a matter of mistrust. It's an issue of organization and billing. With power, for example, you often need separate meters for proper billing. It's more of an issue of logistics and being able to perform than anything else."

Enviro Buildings of Quincy, IL, developed a co-location shelter recently, said marketing coordinator Nathan Smith.

"What we noticed last year was that you had several towers and limited space, and that several different carriers were using that tower," he said. "They also needed to use the same or similar buildings and we had to crunch a lot together. So that's where we came up with the idea."

Depending on the needs of each customer, Enviro Buildings can design co-location shelters with single or multiple air-conditioning systems, power supplies and other utilities.

Smith agreed that the real-estate crunch in large cities has increased the need to double up in shelters. And this has forced service providers to cooperate more than ever.

"Cities are running out of space, and that's a big reason why people are sharing shelters, in my opinion," he said. "The carriers are saying, `Let's not compete by shutting each other out of the major markets. Let's compete by our advertising and with our products.' So they are allowing each other to use their towers, their rooftops. So you may have a Sprint tower, for example, which will have an AT&T Wireless antenna on it and vice versa. With rooftops, you may have a Verizon building that would have its rooftop leased to Nextel with Nextel antennas on top of the building. It looks as if they are running out of space and that does pose a need to co-locate. It's also more cost-effective for the carrier.

"The saturation in the market and the growth right now is enormous," he added. "We haven't seen anything like this until now, with the need for co-location shelters."

Sharing shelters is one issue that seems to transcend the competitive nature of the wireless industry, Bennett said.

"It is a very interesting phenomena," he said. "Because on the marketing and sales side, we are very aggressive after each other and after the marketplace. But on the technical side of the house, there is a very clear understanding that we cannot do this by ourselves - that we need each other to make sure we all have adequate service to serve our customers."