With over 70 years’ experience in the telecom industry, Ramboll is the trusted partner of the telecom tower sector. Ramboll work side by side with clients to better develop customised solutions which address long term holistic network requirements. TowerXchange speak to Ramboll to find out more about how they are helping clients save money, reduce their environmental impact and prepare the world for the expansion of digital infrastructure. TowerXchange sites down with’K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom at’Ramboll to discuss all the ways Ramboll can help tower owners.
Can you please briefly introduce Ramboll, including the services you provide and the regions in which you operate?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll
Ramboll is a leading engineering, design and consultancy company founded in Denmark in 1945. The company employs 16,500 experts globally and has especially strong representation in the Nordics, UK, North America, Continental Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific.
With more than 300 offices in 35 countries, Ramboll combines local experience with a global knowledgebase constantly striving to achieve inspiring and exacting solutions that make a genuine difference to our clients, the end-users, and society at large. Ramboll works across the markets: Telecom, Buildings, Transport, Planning & Urban Design, Water, Environment & Health, Energy and Management Consulting.
As a provider of telecom consultancy, we seek to become a trusted knowledge partner to our clients, offering technical support throughout the project lifecycle. Our client base includes tower companies, operators, vendors, contractors, investors, and other parties.
Talking about our towers and telecom service, we have evolved keeping ahead of the market trends and are ranked No.1 globally in the ’Towers and Antennae’ category among the international design firms worldwide (ENR Sourcebook 2018). We also recently received the Aegis Graham Bell Award for ’Innovation in Telecom infrastructure’ at the India Mobile Congress 2019 and the Corporate Vision award 2019 for Best Telecom Tower & Mast Design Specialists 2019. Ramboll’s Smart city solutions also won the 2019 Frost & Sullivan Global Visionary Innovation Leadership Award.
Our services includes: analysis & design of telecom, transmission structure, delivery of towers, masts and poles, smart city solutions, operation & maintenance of telecom sites, measurement of electromagnetic radiation, network studies and economic assessments, telecom project management software tools, validation and upgrading of telecom sites, energy management solutions, asset management services including drone inspection et cetera.
TowerXchange: Drone surveys are a new area for Ramboll, can you tell me more about the advantages of a drone survey and how your software helps you interpret the data?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll
Our drones service is used across a range of applications for telecom, power transmission, renewables and the building sector. While mentioning its advantages in the telecom sector ’ they are mainly related to inspections and predictive maintenance, capacity planning and asset management through automation, advance analytics and process optimisation.
Drones enhance the efficiency of data collection with regards to identifying anomalies in cell sites from hard to access areas which pose dangerous risks otherwise. With one fly of a drone, all this essential information can be captured with the latest cameras. The deployed software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to label/tag all the assets based on pre-defined parameters and this information will be useful to make better decisions on revenue & capacity planning.
Similarly using AI, any defects on structure like missing members, missing bolts, corrosion, or any other anomalies can be identified for rectification. This method of inspection using drones gives us powerful AI analytics and enables the overall process integration in cloud, helps speed up workflows, better engineering decisions and increases the efficiency of field & engineering teams.
TowerXchange: What improvements in asset management outcomes are made possible by using drone surveys, digital twins and improved asset information?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll:
Digital twins are cloud based virtual images of assets maintained throughout the life cycle and are easily accessible at any time. This is a copy of something real, modelled to behave realistically. Information captured in digital twins provides a holistic view of all assets and reduces the cost of site visits for the purpose of inventory, capacity planning and predictive maintenance. It provides a holistic view of all assets across all business functions to maximise the revenue assurance. Information collected in Drone surveys and AI analytics through the cloud platform helps in exchanging information with various stakeholders involved in life cycle of telecom sites.
TowerXchange: Smart Cities are being developed across the Middle East, can you tell us a little about how digital infracos can support these projects and it differs from business as usual?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll:
We have always looked beyond today for solutions that are innovative and ahead of the future and our smart city initiative was one such move in this direction. Ramboll’s smart city solutions are customised to make city residents have modern conveniences in a secure public environment. Interactive smart structures also ensure that the governing authorities have access to real-time data enhancing the efficiency of government’s decisions. Each smart structure can be fitted with multiple functionalities as per the city’s requirements.
The focus areas for us with regards to smart city solutions are as follows:
Integrated and multi-purpose solution:Telecom cells that can be integrated in structures like smart poles, bus stations and solar trees, which also serve other purposes like traffic signalling, public security systems, disaster response mechanism etc.
Infill sites:Smart structures at vantage points or along city streets to enhance connectivity and provide faster data.
Aesthetic solutions:Structures that can be functionally designed to suit the aesthetic requirements of a city or the client’s need (can be camouflaged as per requirements)
Counter CO2’emission:Integrated multipurpose solution, which is custom-made to meet several demands, with the aim to reduce material and resources resulting in reduced CO2 emission
Such solutions can become beneficial not only to our clients, but also to society, as they may have environmental and social benefits too. Some of our concepts have already been manufactured and installed by our clients at several locations.
TowerXchange: What are the latest deployed solutions in design and manufacturing which Ramboll has identified worldwide?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll:
Keeping up with the latest market developments, there is huge need for renewable solutions, upgradable towers, compact towers, rapid deployment solutions and camouflage solutions. Ramboll has been involved and deployed these solutions to different customers across the world and minimise opex & capex of telecom sites. Part of green initiatives by different telecos solar, wind & hybrid solutions created market demand either by utilising existing space on tower or creating new structures. With unpredictable ARPU in many markets driving requirement of upgradable towers, as they will build to cater current and may have facilities to upgrade in future. Quick build or rapid deployment or disaster management solutions requirement increasing due to the local by-laws and land utilisations.
On existing sites portfolio using digital technology there is demand of full capacity utilisation and keeping health of tower intact by periodic inspections and maintenance.
TowerXchange: Europe is rapidly undertaking technology upgrades from 4G to 5G; what challenges in site design and upgrades has Ramboll helped resolve?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll:
Ramboll is a knowledge partner to clients, and it is always Ramboll’s aim to talk strategy before deciding on concrete solutions.
For instance, after discussions with one of our trusted clients, who was executing a strengthening project on several existing towers, we understood that the overall aim of driving down the cost was not really met, and hence we were asked to investigate the solution. It was clear that the speed of the implementation was quite good. However, the overall cost, including that of the materials, was high. We provided an alternative solution to our client and based on a generic strengthening solution - grouping towers to streamline the manufacturing and supply chain as well as make the implementation easier. It required upfront changes to the solution and the supply chain, which can have initial cost go up due to additional design and management hours. However, including the material and implementation cost, our client saved more than 20% of the initial implementation cost. In addition, we ensured that the towers were calculated in accordance with the latest standards. If our client had not been ready to share their overall challenges and their goals, Ramboll would not have been able to provide efficient support.
We generally believe that more time should be spent on planning, if our aim is to work effectively and minimise the total cost of a network upgrade. We are obliged to move towards sustainable solutions, and the way we work should mirror that, rather than focus on a short-term quick fix.
TowerXchange: Rural networks are expanding in response to cheaper equipment and more aggressive regulators, what special structures can support rural rollout?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll:
Market conditions and demands differ depending on clients and geography, and it is Ramboll’s experience that customised solutions provide maximum value to our clients. This not only relates to towers, but generally to all our services. We need to find the most cost-effective solution for each of our client and therefore we need to consider each project as unique.
At Ramboll we take advantage of having been in the telecom business for almost 70 years, and with optimised processes and advanced expertise supported by our advanced in-house software, it is possible for us to provide highly optimised designs within short timelines.
Our experts put in a lot of effort into innovation and continuous development of new concepts and solutions to the market. Rapid deployment solutions have been requested by the market for some years now, but due to higher cost, these solutions have not been implemented in the scale we would have expected. We have recently modified our concept for our Rapid Deployment Units (RDUs) and have a complete model site for RDUs, which we believe is the right solution for this demand. Our RDU designs are being deployed in the African market, and we believe it will expand to more projects in the coming years.
TowerXchange: What are your medium-term plans for Ramboll as an engineering consultancy that can support the whole value chain of a towerco?
K Suresh Babu, Business Development Director, Towers & Telecom, Ramboll:
Keeping in mind the digital innovation strategy and Ramboll’s ambition to become a digital leader of our industry, we are constantly enhancing our drone inspection and tech-enabled services as this greatly enhances accuracy, ease of data collection and analytics, real-time access to information and can reach difficult to access places cutting down on the associated Health & Safety risks.
Liveable cities are healthy, safe places in which people can thrive, communities can grow, and the environment can flourish. With rapid technological advancement, there is an increasing need for cities to be smart. As part of our endeavour to continuously innovate, we have designed smart city solutions which are sleek, versatile and can be aesthetically tailored as per the client’s requirement.
Ramboll is actively contributing to the smart cities mission which is in line with the Indian Government’s broader agenda of Digital India. We are rapidly progressing towards this goal, with some municipal cities already being in the pole deployment stage. We are on our growth path and have some remarkable projects in the pipeline that will establish Ramboll in a big way in this area.
Ramboll’s smart city solutions have the potential to be fitted with numerous capabilities and functions depending on the client’s need. Our smart city solutions are flexible and can be upgraded or modified with new and evolving technology and devices.
Other services ’ We also offer monopoles, camouflaging solutions, power transmission lines, measurement of electromagnetic radiation, Smart site solution, tower assessment services, tubular towers and software engineering services.
There could be a possibility that solutions implemented on sites which are inefficient and do not consider long-term sustainability. I believe that a strong communication link between consultants and the client solves most problems. There is a need to discuss the goal amongst the stakeholders as there is a risk of optimising the solution based on the wrong parameters if this discussion is not included in the process. Upgrading towers should be a strategic consideration where the tower portfolio is looked upon as a whole. The strategic decision should be taken by combining technical and commercial knowledge. Ramboll is a knowledge partner to clients, and it is always Ramboll’s aim to talk strategy before deciding on concrete solutions.
