Quality Assurance

Are You Making These Key Mistakes with Your Telecom Infrastructure?

April 15, 2020

If you’re focused on protecting the steel mono poles and lattice towers in your telecom infrastructure, you want to do everything you can to preserve those assets. Poles and towers are valuable. And when they get damaged, your bottom line will take a big hit. So the big question is: are you making mistakes that are harming the longevity of your assets?

Most Common Telecommunication Tower Mistakes

Mistake #1: Shortsighted Approach

Many times, telecom moves at the speed of light. While that’s great for innovation and creativity, it can pose a threat to your assets. If your approach is to purchase assets, set them up, and repair issues when they arise, you’re going to miss critical opportunities to strengthen structures.

Ask yourself: Are you managing the full asset life cycle? Taking a life cycle approach means looking at every phase (including manufacturing, installation, inspection, repair, and end-of-life replacement) and taking steps at each stage to protect your assets and maximize their effectiveness.

Mistake #2: Inadequate Quality Assurance

Complete quality assurance is more than driving by structures to observe any issues, and doing periodic check-ins. A complete quality assurance program for steel mono poles and lattice towers includes taking steps to ensure that steel poles or towers are specified, designed, fabricated, and constructed properly and robustly up-front. Doing this is the first line of defense for your assets.

Mistake #3: Cutting Costs

Of course it’s important to budget responsibly when you develop your assets. But cutting costs to obtain a less expensive pole or tower could mean trouble. Cheaper products often fail sooner and mean much greater expenses for repair and maintenance over the life cycle of the asset. Due diligence must be performed to guarantee that any investment you make in telecom assets pays for itself with stellar performance and durability for years to come.

Mistake #4: Passive Inspections

Just like looking at a car without dents and scratches can’t tell you how the engine is working, looking at steel towers from the ground can’t possibly show you what’s going on inside the structure. You need proactive and thorough inspection. Investing in periodic inspections avoids the high costs of failures and service interruptions.

Mistake #5: Ill-Qualified Repair and Maintenance

Unexpected repairs aren’t the only threat to your revenue that arise from poor asset management. Asset failure carries a high cost in terms of risk exposure for the asset owner. Increased liability can put health and safety, reputation, and infrastructure integrity at risk. You can decrease the likelihood of catastrophic failures and better anticipate potential issues with qualified repair and maintenance.

  • Weld repair
  • Corrosion remediation
  • Structural upgrades

These are all critical repair and maintenance areas that must be addressed by qualified personnel trained in working with and repairing telecom assets.

Partner with Exo: Extend the Life of Your Assets

Whether you’re buying new poles or upgrading existing ones, Exo is a partner you can trust to monitor your telecom assets across their life cycle and extend their longevity through a comprehensive, turnkey approach that includes:

  • Addressing aging infrastructure
  • Structure mappings
  • UAV mappings and inspections
  • Manufacturing oversight
  • Structural upgrades

Anytime you can safely and effectively lengthen the lifespan of the asset, you’re lowering annual maintenance costs. That’s a significant direct impact on the bottom line. But if your plan isn’t created by a team with in-depth knowledge of steel poles and steel towers, you’ll waste more time and resources in the long run.

Exo knows how telecom assets should be designed and specified. We know where the weaknesses are in new products. And we know how to create and implement the strongest possible assets for greater return on investment and stronger infrastructure. Don’t wait to strengthen protection for your assets. Contact Exo to request a consultation today.

Get Started with Exo

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Our team would love to talk to you, so we can learn about your lighting company’s goals and primary areas of concern. Contact us today, and we’ll help you take the first step in creating a comprehensive lighting asset management program. Give us a call at 281-259-7000.
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