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Lightning Protection

Telecommunications

Typical Applications

  • Cellular, PCS and microwave network transmission and repeater towers

  • Central Office (CO) and PBX switching centres

  • Remote RAN & MSAN broadband Internet equipment locations

  • Radio and TV broadcast towers and facilities

  • Satellite control centres and ground stations

  • Emergency services (9-1-1 centres, fire and police communication systems etc)

  • Commercial call centres

  • Shared equipment rooms in business and apartment buildings

  • Electrical and lightning protection systems to improve personnel safety, network reliability and performance

Risks and Opportunities

  • Personnel safety in sites with insufficient or incorrect grounding systems

  • Equipment and infrastructure damage resulting from lightning strikes, whether a direct strike or induced via AC mains or telecom twisted pair cable

  • Huge financial costs and revenue loss resulting from lengthy lightning related service disruptions and equipment damage at key repeater sites

  • Ambinet electrical noise and interference caused by improper grounding practices and systems  especially at sites shared by multiple vendors whose individual grounding systems may conflict with each other  resulting in degraded quality of service or costly service interruptions

  • Ambient electrical noise disrupting CO and PBX operation, resulting in degraded or complete loss of service

  • Aircraft collisions with telecom towers due to inadequate or non-code compliant obstruction lighting

  • High tower operational costs due to expensive and obsolescent incandescent obstruction lighting

Potential Solutions

  • Audit and analyze site grounding systems for proper installation and effectiveness under existing soil conditions

  • Improve site electrical and lightning protection systems to comply with regulatory standards and best practices, and to reduce ambient electrical noise and risk of lightning damage that cause outages and degraded service

  • Improve performance of grounding system with effective, long-life electrodes that dissipate the high levels of lightning energy without damaging telecom equipment or infrastructure

  • Improve the electrical protection system to reduce disruptive ambient electrical noise, especially in critical sites like CO and large PBX installations

  • Review and audit site surge protection to ensure site equipment is adequately protected against electrical spikes and power line surges that can degrade or disrupt service

  • Audit tower obstruction lighting for regulatory compliance, functionality and efficiency

Next Steps

Review the frequency and cost of lightning strike and other unexplained electrical damage to your sites and systems. Don’t hesitate to call or eMail us directly if your related revenue losses and maintenance costs are cause for significant management concern. We will be pleased to work with you to assess the situation, whether for a specific site or from a network perspective, from which we will evaluate technology alternatives and then offer detailed proposals for correcting any revenue devouring problems identified.

Grounding & Electrical Protection
Lightning Protection
Engineering Services
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