Shelter So Fair

The right shelter can protect your equipment from vandals and the elements. It also can help you win over a zoning board.

Once upon a time in a suburban area not so far away, a service provider planned a site. But the big, bad zoning board said no. "We don't want any ugly steel shelters in our back yard," the members cried. So the provider built the fairest shelter in the land. Approval was almost immediate. And the provider and the zoning board lived happily ever after.

Patti Davies, PSI president, said service providers know this story isn't make believe. It is happening all over the country as more communities are cracking down on what she calls "building and cabinet pollution."

"Wireless carriers are finding they must keep the best interest of the community at heart," Davies said. "It used to be no big deal, but I think with build-out continuing like it has, we are going to see more and more communities requiring this kind of blending in."

According to Jim Barduson, Rural Cellular engineer, keeping equipment safe from the elements — cool and dry — is the No. 1 priority. However, a shelter that is stronger than the required standard is not always wanted or needed. More sought after is the shelter that is aesthetically pleasing. Engineers say just as disguise antennas and towers are gaining more recognition with zoning boards, attractive and less obtrusive shelters are on their way to setting a new trend in residential site planning.

Sharing
One way to keep shelters from being an eyesore is to keep them to a minimum. In today's industry, a single tower can have several providers leasing space. Four or five service providers on one tower means that there are four or five shelters dotting the landscape beneath it. With the variety of shelter designs, colors and fence heights, the base of a tower can start to look like a haphazard city.

Modular-design shelters can help prevent the area from becoming overrun with mismatched buildings. Stringing similarly designed shelters together or corralling providers into one structure enables service providers to have their own space, but not overcrowd the area.

Jerome Murray, PSI product manager, said shelter consolidation, much like tower co-location, limits your site's footprint and reduces visual pollution. PSI's shelter-consolidation solution, the Communication Condo program, brings various providers together in the same shelter structure, but in separate rooms, where each has total control of its own security, equipment and maintenance.

Soon, Murray said, zoning boards may require service providers to share shelters. For disgruntled service providers, Murray reminds that instead of being a burden, shelter consolidation can offer you substantial savings on real estate costs and may even help you move more quickly through the zoning-board-approval process.

Pretty Protection
According to Charlotte Wingfield, Cellxion executive vice president, brick and stone aggregate shelters are its best sellers for residential areas.

"The brick looks like it belongs in a neighborhood better than the steel or fiberglass," she said. "Among homes it just naturally blends in."

But adding beauty doesn't mean losing shelter strength. Brick and aggregate shelters offer top-level security. Shelters are 2-hour fire-rated, four inches thick with plywood paneling and are able to withstand more than just the elements. As many shelter companies do, both Cellxion and PSI offer bulletproofing with the standard UL-752 rating, which is able to prevent nearly all high-caliber bullets from penetrating the structure.

In both inner cities and rural areas, service providers report that on rare occasions shelters are used for target practice. Most heavyweight shelters are bullet-resistant, keeping equipment adequately protected. Vendors say the added expense of bulletproofing, about 15% more than the standard cost, is not requested often.

PSI offers a trap rock system that acts much like sandbagging and, depending on the provider's requirements, can be built to bulletproof specifications.

"The thing providers must keep in mind is the difference between bulletproof and bullet-resistant," Murray said. "If you don't need bulletproof, and bullet-resistant will do, you want to make sure you are not paying more if you don't need to."

Kyle Gruis, Rural Cellular engineering manger, said rose bushes, trees and even corn stalks are a low-cost beauty and security solution. Although foliage won't stop a bullet, adding some greenery around your shelter will help to keep it out of view, and "if a vandal can't find your shelter, he can't destroy it either," Gruis said. As an added bonus, this option only will add about $1,000 to the bottom line.

PSI offers a more elaborate camouflage solution. Much like disguise antennas, your site can be incorporated into signage or the residential landscape. PSI's Maingate shelters can be partially buried and built to look like the entrance to a residential or industrial community.

"One of our Maingate applications even had lampposts on top of it," Davies said. "You would never know it was a telecom shelter."

Still on PSI's drawing board is a shelter that is built to look like a boulder, blending in completely with the landscape of a residential or commercial area. So far, there have been no requests for this shelter, but Davies is hopeful.

"When things get a little more strict is when options like this make sense," Davies said. "We are just ahead of the game."

Keeping Up Appearances
For service providers in larger cities, gang-related graffiti has become a nuisance. PSI's Davies told of a provider requesting a graffiti-resistant application to house sites near the Los Angeles Transit Authority's light-rail project.

According to Davies, graffiti-proofing a shelter consists of applying a special paint or clear coat, which allows graffiti to be washed off easily. The coat can be applied to any finish, though smooth finishes are best. Graffiti-proofing, like bulletproofing, however, is not requested often by providers. Dick Goehring, U.S. Cellular executive vice president of engineering, said graffiti-proofing his shelters was not a major concern and would not warrant raising the budget for a site.

In the case where Davies used the graffiti-resistant application, the day after the graffiti was successfully removed, the shelter was vandalized again. This time the vandals came back in force and the graffiti was much worse. Ultimately, the customer gave in and left the graffiti in place.

Safe & Secure
According to engineers, keeping the equipment safe is the most important goal when selecting a shelter design. But keeping the environment and surrounding community safe is not to be forgotten. To that end, most shelters have 8- to 10-foot fences erected around them, topped with barbed wire. Shelter doors are made of steel, outfitted with steel pry-resistant latch guards and tamper-resistant hinge pins.

"Liability is also a major concern for us," said Goehring, "If we can make our shelter a little less inviting to a vandal, then it's our responsibility to do that."

U.S. Cellular provides motion detectors and alarms on some of its remote shelters to dissuade trespassers.

Goehring said once a vandal managed to get inside a fence perimeter, sledgehammered the door open and walked into the shelter. In that instance, the equipment was unharmed, but with no knowledge of the equipment, a person uneducated in telecom engineering could be hurt.

Keeping things secure on the inside, cabinet manufacturers produce telecommunications cabinets that include 4-way locking capabilities and hot-dipped galvanized steel frames.

However, damages aren't always manmade. According to Goehring, early on, some concrete shelter roof designs allowed water to seep into the structure, which was particularly bad for the longevity of a site. Both vendors and service providers agreed shelters should be corrosion and leak-free for 10 to 15 years with the appropriate upkeep.

Today's concrete shelters have better fitted roofs, and water seepage is no longer a problem. Varying thickness of solid concrete with rock and concrete foundations are standard on most heavyweight shelters, making them fire-proof and able to withstand high winds.

According to vendors, disguise shelters will offer the same protection and durability. The process of making shelters attractive or undetectable is not a matter of building a lightweight shelter and then overlaying an aesthetically pleasing application.

"We don't build the shelter twice," Davies said. "We build it according to the customer's specifications and use whatever appropriate methods we can to make it look prettier, without compromising the structure strength."

Something as simple as painting a structure to match surrounding buildings or adding shrubbery has proved to be an effective and low-cost method some vendors have employed. PSI regularly paints shelters according to a customer's need.

Poised to take advantage of shelter options, Mike Graham, Carolina PCS engineer, said, "Zoning boards can be difficult. If a nice shelter will put them on your side, it's that much better."