CommScope, Ooredoo unveil unique tower top cell site design

CommScope and Ooredoo, a carrier serving the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia, have developed what they believe is the world's first factory-assembled tower tops for base station remote radios. The tower tops are pre-assembled according to a single global design standard.

Tower Top

Ooredoo and CommScope (left), discuss the new factory-assembled network tower tops using a tower demonstration model.

The pre-assembled tower tops are designed to deliver greater network capacity with improved signal transmission. Pre-assembly of the tower tops reduces the installation time by approximately 50 percent and by installing radio equipment on tower tops instead of in typical large air-conditioned shelters, Ooredoo expects to halve electricity costs. The new tower top design also frees free valuable space at the top of the tower, said the companies. According to CommScope and Ooredoo, the tower tops are vendor agnostic and support virtually all current frequency bands and technologies.

"The aim of the tower top development is to create and maintain a future-ready network that is radio vendor agnostic, and does not require significant on-site remote radio modifications for future upgrades," said the companies. They noted this type of infrastructure has traditionally been assembled on-site at the top of each tower with no single tower top design standard available to guide the process when updates were needed.
The tower top solution will become Ooredoo's standard cell site design across its markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. The operator intends to upgrade or replace 15,000 of its base stations over the coming years to improve its mobile broadband offerings.

"The clever, standardized cell site design will be especially helpful for Ooredoo customers living in remote areas and rural communities, since upgrades and repairs will be executed faster and more efficiently," said Commscope and Ooredoo.

CommScope, through its Andrew portfolio of wireless solutions, is providing support--including technical services, enhanced training, a supply chain and installation logistics and manufacturing and design expertise--for the elements of the cell site.

Based in Doha, Qatar, Ooredoo, formerly known as Qtel Group, offers mobile, fixed, broadband internet and corporate managed services in its markets.

The desire to extend mobile broadband into rural and remote areas is driving research into low-cost, low-power base station designs. For example, Range Networks has begun touting its open source cellular network for rural use in developed as well as developing markets.

For more:
- see this CommScope and Ooredoo release

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