Total Site Security for 2022

Across Asia, site security is becoming more and more important. While protecting assets has always been a priority for towercos, 5G and IoT applications are making uptime essential, and the ramifications of damage, theft or sabotage far more severe.

At the same time, towercos are feeling a squeeze on profits and continuing to operate a lean, effective streamlined operation is essential. Striking the balance between the two is a challenge that towercos across Asia are united in facing.

With a promise to reduce the total cost of ownership and improve return on investment by securing the whole telecom infrastructure with convenient access, we invited Finnish firm Abloy to share their views on these topics and learn how they are streamlining access management, key control and logistics.

To find out more, TowerXchange caught up with Alex Loh, Business Development Manager and Baxi Samyak Sinha, National Sales Manager at Meetup Asia 2021 for an exclusive interview. By providing transparent access and audit trails with a keyless or one key principle. ABLOY future-proof solutions can be integrated into your workflow or 3rd party systems.

ABLOY Oy is a Finnish company with more than 110 years in the market. Combining digital and mechanical expertise, we secure critical infrastructure with the most advanced locking and access control systems. We have extensive experience in Asia’s telecom infrastructure industry and work closely with both towercos and MNOs. Abloy is part of the ASSA ABLOY Group, the global leader in access solutions with an US$8.2bn yearly revenue in 2019.

Abloy is represented in over 90 countries globally and almost all countries in Asia & Pacific, from Japan to New Zealand and from India and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries to South East Asia. Local distributors are supported by ABLOY offices from China, India and Singapore as well as naturally by our main Head Quarters in Finland. As Abloy is part of ASSA ABLOY, global leader in door opening solutions, our presence is extended by ASSA ABLOY offices in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and beyond, so we have a big footprint in the Asian market. 

The pandemic has had a significant effect on tower management workflows, and this has in turn effected the way that security solutions should be employed. Maintenance workers and service providers are now leaving their homes to make visits to sites, rather than stopping by at an office. This seemingly small change actually has a pretty big impact, because if you are using a physical key you are creating unnecessary travel time onto the inspection team’s route.

This is one of the reasons why digital security solutions and locking systems are starting to become a more prominent consideration for towercos across Asia.

Secondly, the importance of security is definitely increasing as 5G and IoT technology is turning telecoms into true critical infrastructure.

We’ve learnt across TowerXchange Meetup Asia that towercos are all looking at new site designs to support this. It’s a very important consideration that with the rise of IBS, Small Cells, Smart Poles and other street furniture that the way you make these sites secure is going to be very different to a macro site. 

One way we are supporting our clients is by leveraging our expertise as leaders in the encryption side of things. This can often go overlooked, as people are looking for user-friendly and convenient solutions, but authentication security from a smart device is equally important. We work really closely with our sister company HID Global, who help with the encryption side of things.

As more and more applications and access control are moved towards a phone-based system, making sure that the person who is supposed to be using that phone is using it to access the site is more and more relevant. 

This is going to be different across the world of course. The needs and requirements of Chinese infrastructure providers will be very different to those in India and different again to those in ASEAN. This is largely due the design of existing and legacy infrastructure, the different local threats, availability of resources and government policies. 

A huge consideration also comes from the allocated budget towards physical security. The fact that large segments of the workforce in some countries still use feature phones combined with a lack of stable internet bandwidth can inhibit security innovation. Cultural sensitivity towards national & public infrastructure is also a factor. 

With security systems, it’s not so easy to demonstrate a clear ROI in isolation. It needs to be encompassed into the full architecture of the site and of the towercos operations. 

One way to look at it is how the security element integrates with the software base of the towerco. If you know when a vendor is visiting a site, where they are, and how long they are there for due to the access data being captured and displayed, what started as access control can quickly turn into a vendor management system which allows you to see what they are doing well (or not!) and create benchmarks around this.  

Security works as a sum of parts, not individual components. Lots of towercos are operating on legacy infrastructure, that if updated alongside a security system would have significant benefits to making their operation more lean. Legacy infrastructures were deployed a long time ago as per the need and technology of times. The loopholes within the existing infrastructure, over a period, have been identified and exploited by miscreants. To make the latest technology and systems work efficiently, the basic infrastructure also needs to be strengthened and updated as per the solution’s overall requirement. 

In a modern-day solution, multiple technologies and devices work together that may not necessarily come from a single brand or entity. It becomes imperative to achieve a seamless integration between various systems/features and make then work in unison. To achieve total site security, it thus becomes important for all elements to achieve a similar level of robustness to minimize gaps and leakages.

System Integrators are a very important part of current solution requirement. System Integrators are companies that put different pieces of the solution together to achieve a final solution. Security and Access Management companies specialise in their field of work and offer a part of the entire solution. Multiple such components/systems/devices are required to secure/monitor the assets in a complete way. 

System Integrators collaborate with all such companies to put together various components/systems/devices in a single, easy to manage solution. For tower companies, it becomes easier and more efficient to deal with one such System Integrator who is responsible for the solution rather than dealing with multiple stakeholders. Also, these System Integrators offer the complete solution managed by them (as managed solutions) which helps towercos focus on their core business and let experts efficiently manage their security apparatus. This also helps towercos financially, by cutting down on large capex.

As security becomes more and more integrated into towerco workflow and seen as an enabler for digitisation rather simply an operating cost, solutions like Abloy’s will continue to evolve. If you are interested to learn more you can find out more by getting in touch with the team here. 

Abloy.com