Camouflaged Sites or Screening

As more new sites are built and existing sites upgraded there is a very noticeable trend emerging - sites themselves are becoming more visually intrusive and the public do not like it.  Analysis of the NBN Co Wireless roll-out reveals tower rejections at Scottsdale in Tasmania, Yandon in Moorabool, Victoria, Napoleons and a few others all primarily because of the aesthetics - councils were faced with members of public not liking the visual impact of the presented designs from NBN Co.  Now the NBN Co wireless roll-out is an interesting case because most of us that have worked in the Australian mobile industry for a few years have traditionally experienced regional communities working very positively towards provision of services in their areas - but now the visual impact of towers and not EME concerns are driving resistance.  In rural areas it is perhaps just that vertical infrastructure has reached saturation point with protests against wind farms and so on - but its clearly a trend that visual impact matters.
 
In urban areas and back to mobile networks this concern may be more pronounced - many rooftop sites are having more antennas and equipment like RRU's added so the visual "clutter" of sites is increased.  Larger antennas that allow infrastructure/ frequency sharing will add to the problem and while still "low impact" under the Telecommunications Act determination - they may not be seen as low impact visually by landlords or the surrounding public. Traditional means of "hiding" the antennas by setting them back from the roof edge will be obsolete due to the revisions to exclusion zones and access requirements for building maintenance workers - and the need to maximise RF coverage be being on the building edges.  All this of course is activity going on now - before networks integrate (or are created) for the 700 MHz spectrum.
 
Here is some suggested solutions: 

1. Photo Montages -Back in the early days photo montages were used for the purpose of showing landowners what the developed site would look like - but they were expensive to have done.  Now with digital cameras and Photoshop they are fast, easy and inexpensive.  Prepare them and use them - with landlords, with neighbours and with councils - pictures tell a better story than drawings and can show the expected view from any particular point.  (Tip - make sure you do them accurate and to scale - you will be caught out if you dont!!)

2. Can the site be rescoped? - Can smaller antennas be used?  can that redundant equipment be removed? Think how you would feel if you had to look at it every day.

3. Screening- Sailcloth works but it is a short term solution and if it rips in the wind you end up with a maintenance issue - needs replacing every 5 years to maintain effectiveness - (will that really happen?)

4. Camouflage Solutions The only real solution when required - replication of parapet lines, re covering of plant rooms with Rf transparent screening.  Stealth can be colour and texture matched to ant surface including old sandstone on listed historic buildings.  Make sure that your supplier can supply Rf tests that show the performance of the screen as some materials do create losses, particularly for microwaves.

5. Smart Site Design This is the easiest, most effective and completely underused solution.  Make sure that your site designers "get" the visual impact side of things and you will get good results that are not visually offensive.  Some big roll-outs end up with inexperienced people on the design side and it can cause problems,