With all the talk and activity surrounding the LTE and 4G upgrades to cell towers in this country, lots of companies have asked if we have a solution that could minimize costs, not add significant weight and be easy to install.

Considering this all needs to happen at 300 ft. in the air, that’s a tall order.

My answer to these folks is the FieldShield SmarTerminal coupled with our FieldShield Pushable Fiber and Microduct. An engineer recently did a weight comparison for me based on a 3 carrier tower, using FieldShield Microduct and a 12-fiber drop. We would use a SmarTerminal on the deck of the tower and route microducts to each RU, even if there was not one placed yet. Microduct allows for the pathway to be established. If a new carrier needs an RU installed, you can easily push a single or dual fiber through the microduct and plug it in. This allows for a great deal of protection once the fiber is installed and the tower is turned up. The last thing you would want is for a technician walking around on the tower to step on a working fiber and take a carrier out of service.

So when we used this type of deployment method, we were able to remove about 43,000 pounds from the tower. How about that for a diet? With one 10mm microduct that weighed about 6 pounds total, we were able to feed the entire tower and give it almost unlimited broadband capacity. That is a weight loss program that the carriers both need and want.

So if your cell tower needs to go on a diet before it can be upgraded, look at the Clearfield FieldShield product line…it’s much easier than a treadmill.

By Scot Bohaychyk – Product Marketing/New Markets