Tower companies generally own or lease tower structures and the associated passive equipment through long-term agreements. Meanwhile, mobile network operators (MNOs) act as tenants, owning and operating their active equipment while leasing vertical space on the tower and portions of the land beneath it for their installations.
This arrangement, known as co-location, involves a single tower structure hosting multiple antennas operated by different MNOs.
The co-location landscape is evolving due to several factors, such as the demand to deploy new technologies like LTE on existing sites, the need for additional radio capacity, the growing prevalence of smaller-sized equipment, the adoption of DC power and fiber connections from ground equipment to tower equipment, and increased weight and wind load requirements.
These developments are significantly impacting the tower industry.
As a result, when towers are assessed to accommodate these changes, they are often found to be overloaded, necessitating structural upgrades or reinforcement.
Co-location services provide several benefits for tower companies:
