Ramboll Group is the biggest consulting engineering company in Northern Europe, with over 10,000 employees based in 200 offices across 23 countries. Their expertise in designing and evaluating towers is unrivalled.
Torsten Esbjørn came to Johannesburg in 2011 to position and market Ramboll’s products and services to the increasingly interesting African Telecom market. The change from an operator-owned to an independent tower company based industry for passive infrastructure fits uniquely with Ramboll’s products and services, where especially Ramboll’s expertise in tower loading validation, strengthening, and design and supply of towers have remarkable references.
Ramboll is preferred supplier to Huawei in Eastern & Southern Africa and in Western Africa as well. Furthermore, Ramboll is approved supplier to NSN, ZTE, and Ericsson. Ramboll also work directly with towercos like Bharti Infratel, Indus, ATC, IHS, Helios and with operators like Airtel, Vodafone, and MTN. In 2011 alone, Airtel bought almost 3000 Ramboll Towers for Africa.
Previously, Torsten led Ramboll’s successful entry into the Indian tower market where Ramboll today enjoy an estimated 70% market share. In addition to Ramboll’s success in tower supplies, Ramboll has invaluable experience and references working closely with customers like ATC and Indus, where in 21 months more than 30,000 sites where audited and analysed and more than 8,300 strengthening solutions given.
Do you invest in a tower that takes two, three or four tenants, given that there can be no guarantees of future tenants?
TowerXchange: How do operators and towercos balance investing in space for potential multi tenancy with minimizing cost when ordering new tower designs?
Torsten Esbjørn, Regional Director, Africa, Ramboll:
We find that people need help with evaluating the technical options when deciding on a design for the rollout: do you invest in a tower that takes two, three or four tenants, given that there can be no guarantees of future tenants, and what options is there to change a two tenant design to something else once it has been deployed? There is always a risk of being over-optimistic.
TowerXchange: How do buyers and sellers of towers evaluate ‘shareability’?
Torsten Esbjørn, Regional Director, Africa, Ramboll:
As well as evaluating the commercial potential for co-locations (see the interview with Mott MacDonald here), you must also evaluate technical aspects – you should not just assume you have a well designed, safe, and well-maintained tower.
If you want to hive off your towers, your first headache is to establish the data quality of your tower assets base – some of the more incredulous challenges is that not all towers are where you thought they were, and in other cases the tower you thought were there, is something else entirely.
You need to understand your legacy towers: was it installed for one, two or more tenants? How many square meters of loading did the designer say it could take, and how many can it take in practice? The documentation might say it can take 10 square meters, but if you recalculate using today’s expertise you might find it can take 13 square meters. That could mean capacity for another tenant – that is 50% more lease revenue if you can increase tenancy from two to three. A proper tower load valuation will help find the hidden capacity in over-engineered towers, identifying potential for upgrades with a minimum of investment might increase capacity from two to three tenants. Our experience in India has shown that approximately 30% of all sites can be strengthened – that is a significant revenue stream hidden in existing assets that can be unlocked by a minimum investment.
On the other hand, some towers might be unsafe, for example overloaded or poorly designed or installed. The documentation might say it can take 10 square meters, but once analyzed it can only take 7 square meters. For example, we audited tens of thousands of sites for one towerco, and found that 3,5% of towers were unsafe. The conclusion for such sites may be that they have to be taken down or the antenna load has to be reduced and/or rearranged. Safety has to be a priority.
A proper evaluation of the foundation considers the quality of the concrete, how it’s reinforced, the depth and dimensions of the excavation. I’ve seen some companies verify foundations by simply drilling 3 holes. In such instances you’re only certifying the grade of the concrete, you haven’t got a complete picture of the foundation and that affects safety and load capacity.
These Tower Load Valuation Activities can ensure that towercos don’t overpay, and that operators get full value.
TowerXchange: how can operators and towercos add value to their legacy towers?
Torsten Esbjørn, Regional Director, Africa, Ramboll:
You can strengthen towers and rearrange antennas to add value to the asset by increasing shareability, thereby creating more revenue potential.
You might have lost all data and drawings for a tower, so you need to reverse engineer and measure everything to work out how much wind loading the tower can handle. It’s important to use a reputable company with proper insurance and risk assessment methodologies – use a company that can’t afford to get it wrong.
TowerXchange: Should African operators install multi-tenant towers with a view to future tower sharing?
Torsten Esbjørn, Regional Director, Africa, Ramboll:
Most urban rollouts consist of multi-tenant towers, but the rural situation is a completely different ball game – so many variables make the choice of tower extremely difficult. Most operators today have a clear sharing strategy in place.
Standardise the range of towers in your network if you can. If you need 13.5 square meters in one region and 14.5 square meters in another, be wary of ordering completely different designs, which can mean a higher cost and less future flexibility.
We’re seeing exactly the same strategies being adopted across Africa that we saw in India: operators increasingly sharing towers, the bulk of new rollouts coming from independent towercos – it’s the same discussion, and the same need to help technical departments understand their legacy assets.
TowerXchange: Having come from India to Africa, how would you compare the opportunities for infrastructure sharing in the two regions?
Torsten Esbjørn, Regional Director, Africa, Ramboll:
I’m not sure that infrastructure sharing will spread quite as swiftly in Africa as it did in India. There are so many borders, different regulations, and some countries have a low population density. Some African countries will be very interesting for infrastructure sharing, some not at all.
However, the increasing number of infrastructure sharing deals being agreed in Africa excites me. It’s great to see towers transition to specialists who manage the towers as their core business. Ramboll are designers and engineers first and foremost, and our services are perfectly fitted to help with the transition of tower assets, from technical evaluations and tower design, to software for asset management, rollouts and managed services.
