Ganges Internationale is one of the largest tower manufacturers in India with 4000MT/month capacity, which equates to approximately 600 towers per month. They provide both tubular and angular towers for telecom, as well as power transmission, substation and solar structures. Ganges has already supplied more than 45,000 towers in more than 30 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Ganges products range from 3mtr poles to 120mtr heavy duty MSC towers, site fencing, earthing materials, aviation lights, cable and paint materials.
TowerXchange: How should MNOs and towercos strike a balance between the cost and volume benefits of standardisation versus the needs to customise structures for different environments and wind loading?
Bhaskar Babu, Head – Telecom and Structures, Ganges Internationale:
For larger towercos standardised towers are the best option so that they can keep minimum records and have a back up plan to move towers or strengthen the towers or foundation whenever additional capacity is needed in future. Also the standard towers produced in bulk by manufacturers are available off the shelf and can be offered at very attractive prices due to bulk manufacturing.
Customised solution towers are good for cities where aesthetics play a major role like palm trees et cetera. However the cost of each customised tower will be almost two to three times the cost of the standard tower.
Rollouts will be much faster using standard towers as the foundation design bank is provided by the tower designer for various soil conditions with clear foundation volumes which can be benchmarked for cost control across the network. Customised solutions need site specific estimations and can be prone to local manipulations of foundation volumes.
Finally, logistics can be cheaper for standardised towers which can be truncated to any height as per RF requirements. Most towerscos and MNOs like Bharti Airtel, MTN, America Tower and Indus all have standardised towers across their network. After we introduced Ramboll standard towers in India, 80% of the rollout is using our standard tower series.
Ganges has tied up with world’s best tower design companies to provide the most cost effective solutions using tubular and angular profiles as per American, European and British codes. The optimisation involves the best weight for the given antenna loading, best sizes to fit in containers, best foundation volumes to reduce the overall installed tower cost. Future upgrades are also kept in mind while designing the towers and foundations, particularly for tower companies.
TowerXchange: How do you minimise the lead time between order and delivery? Can you give an example based on your experiences in Myanmar, where time to market is vital, yet where import logistics can be challenging?
Bhaskar Babu, Head – Telecom and Structures, Ganges Internationale:
Since most of the countries we export to operate in the wind speed range of 130 to 200kmph, and use common heights of 35 to 60mtrs (typically used in 80% of the network) we keep producing these standard tower series which meet most towercos requirements with three tenants. Lots of our tower models are common for India, Africa and Myanmar and we keep producing 600 tower per month with backward integration of tube manufacturing and two in house galvanising plants. This enables us to achieve a two week production lead time.
We are an ‘Export Star House’ so we can load containers in the plant, seal them and send them directly to a vessel in Chennai which is a major port and has connections to all over the world. We shipped 200 towers in four weeks to Myanmar and delivered them in two weeks. We have been in the export business for the last 25 years so we give lot of importance to making the documents clear so that the customer can clear the cargo without any problems.
We are an ‘Export Star House’ so we can load containers in the plant, seal them and send directly to vessel in Chennai which is a major port and has connections to all over the world. We shipped 200 towers in four weeks to Myanmar and delivered them in two weeks
We deputise our engineers to the customer’s warehouse to offload the containers and properly handover all the materials to erection teams and train them in civil and erection of towers. We did not face a single problem in installation of all our supplied towers to Myanmar Tower Company (MTC).
TowerXchange: In terms of tower design, what are the advantages of tubular over angular towers, and under what circumstances are hybrid towers a better choice?
Bhaskar Babu, Head – Telecom and Structures, Ganges Internationale:
Most steel lattice towers are produced with a tubular or angular profile.
Due to their circular profile, tubular towers produce 50% less drag for the wind compared to flat surface of 4 leg 90deg Angular towers. Tubular towers also have improve buckling capacity. Hence the weight of tubular towers can be drastically reduced. Apart from this, foundation volumes are significantly reduced as tubular towers generate much lower foundation forces as wind resistance is lower. Due to developments in raw materials we can use high tensile tubes and high quality MIG welding, so we can achieve much higher strength for the tower for the given amount of steel used. Also our tubular tower consists of 80% less parts compared to any 4 Leg Angle bar towers, while the logistics and erection of the tower is 40% faster.
TowerXchange: How do you minimise the weight of rooftop structures in the context of the limited load-bearing capacity of many buildings in emerging markets?
Bhaskar Babu, Head – Telecom and Structures, Ganges Internationale:
We have developed roof top towers with less wind forces using circular hollow sections. This means they weigh less anre are suitable to be mounted on weaker buildings.
We have also designed roof top poles in sizes 3, 4, 6, 9 or 12 mtrs which can be distributed to all corners of the building instead of one location. For a country like Myanmar, where most of the roofs are slanting, we developed special poles which are connected to the truss members of the building. This is a common practice in Europe.
TowerXchange: Finally, please sum up how you would differentiate Ganges from competitive tower manufacturers.
Bhaskar Babu, Head – Telecom and Structures, Ganges Internationale:
The basic differences are Ganges’ high quality design with the best optimisation, our state of the art plant with CNC and MIG welding machines and in house tube rolling and galvanising plants with a high capacity. All this will lead to a lower cost of towers to customers.
Since Ganges are in port city with connections to all over the world, we can deliver at a much faster speed. With our professional management and vast experience in building sites in the most difficult environments, we provide lot of valued added services to our customers which continues to improve our customer satisfaction.
