Nigel Moss, COO of leading European independent towerco Wireless Infrastructure Group, kindly shared some insights into the systems and strategies that govern the monitoring and management of their 2,000 site network during the RMS and Site Surveillance working group at the TowerXchange Meetup Europe 2017. Wireless Infrastructure Group is also deploying new shared backup generator sets on around 10% of their sites as improved resilience becomes a growing feature in the UK market.
TowerXchange: Please tell us a little about Wireless Infrastructure Group’s portfolio to give us some context for the operational challenges.
Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group:
Wireless Infrastructure Group is one of Europe’s leading independent telecom infrastructure companies. Our portfolio of over 2,000 assets stretches across the UK and we also have beachheads in the Netherlands and Ireland.
We have infrastructure deployed in many different types of locations ranging from busy shopping malls, transport corridors, and electricity substations through to remote Scottish islands.
Given the diverse nature of our portfolio, different assets require different levels of monitoring, management and maintenance. For example, some towers are flagged because they provide mission critical infrastructure in particularly challenging, deep rural locations, others because they are our customers’ golden hub sites. Having great systems is essential to our business and to ensuring our platform can support the significant growth we are planning.
TowerXchange: How are your sites managed and monitored?
Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group:
In 2014 we opened a 24/7 NOC in Solihull near Birmingham. Our team there manage around 25,000 job tickets per year and around 15% of which are generated outside ‘normal’ working hours. Customer tickets are typically generated by radio equipment working sub-optimally rather than by power problems which are relatively less frequent in the UK.
We use a variety of monitoring systems for our own infrastructure including, CCTV, wind monitoring and our fuel tanks are monitored to allow refuelling to be scheduled.
TowerXchange: Please introduce the technical platforms that underpin your operational strategy.
Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group:
We were the first European towerco to implement Siterra which we have been running for three years now. The platform consolidates the latest asset data and documentation, including a log of every piece of equipment at each facility, and is an essential tool in improving the efficiency of site visits.
We use our infrastructure management and access control systems to track methods of work, and Health & Safety specifics such as whether a given task or tower may require the presence of a work at height supervisor.
TowerXchange: What role does access control play in your site management strategy?
Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group:
We’re always trying to improve the physical access to our infrastructure, whilst ensuring security and safety of our employees, customers, contractors and the safety of members of the public.
We are acutely aware of the need to ensure any tower based network issues that our customers have to be able to be addressed quickly. We have an in-house access control system to ensure we always know who and what is on our infrastructure, and through which customers and their supply chain can book access. We currently manage in excess of 25,000 accesses to our 2,000 towers per year.
TowerXchange: Please tell us more about the power solutions on selected sites.
Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group:
We’re deploying our own containerised, tamper-proof diesel generators to around 10% of our facilities where resilience is particularly key, for example at remote locations or at hub sites. Typically we’re deploying permanent 25 KVA generators that can provide resilience to several customers.
We see this as a value added service proposition: it’s about enabling shared economics for our customers, saving space and avoiding duplicative generators.
TowerXchange: To clarify, who owns which equipment on these sites?
Nigel Moss, COO, Wireless Infrastructure Group:
WIG owns the towers, compounds, access systems and security fencing, we provide the A/C and the generators, but the cabinets and the battery banks remain the property of the MNOs and are not currently shared.
