Ramboll: Engineering Innovations to Strengthen Telecom Infrastructure

Pankaj Sachdeva, Country Market Director
The Indian telecom industry has undergone a series of transformational changes in the past decade and is fast emerging as one of the key driving forces behind the country’s socio-economic development. With the largescale commercialization of 4G services and more and more mobile operators successfully adopting innovative models, India is at the cusp of a data revolution, which in turn is fueling the demand for additional sites and towers within the country. Corroborating this fact is the latest research reports which forecast a significant growth in the requirement for towers in India in the coming years, with the development being largely attributed to the increasing data consumption, growing competition among operators and the digital push from the government. However, even with these advancements, the telecom industry is still being plagued by challenges with respect to operator consolidation, infrastructure sharing, traffic off-loading and the unavailability of power and fiber on tower sites, and the challenges related to electromagnetic radiations are also slowing down progress. Perfectly understanding these limitations, Copenhagen headquartered Ramboll steps forward to address them with a complete suite of services for telecom infrastructure design, construction, management, and consultancy, to bolster the country’s Telecom industry.

Since its inception in 1945, Ramboll, a globally reputed engineering, design, and consultancy company, has been providing inspiring and exacting solutions to create a noticeable impact for its clients, end-users and the society as a whole. With a prominent global presence of 300 offices spanning across 35 countries and its principal Indian offices spread wide across the country, the company delivers sustainable design, innovation and build ability across the segments of telecom, energy, buildings, transport, planning & urban design, water, environment & health, and management consulting. Ramboll employs more than 13,000 experts globally and is present prominently in India as well as the Nordics, UK, North America, Continental Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. “Ramboll is a company driven by a purpose to bring sustainable solutions where people and nature can flourish. Our ambitions, everyday behaviour, and dedication towards creating value for our key stakeholders have all been derived from this purpose,” explains Pankaj Sachdeva, Country Market Director - Telecom and Energy, Ramboll.

Among the various segments in which Ramboll operates, the company has dedicated extensive focus to the telecom sector as Ramboll believes the Indian telecommunications industry to be one of the fastest growing and most competitive in the world. To meet the dynamic infrastructure needs of this rapidly growing market, Ramboll offers a wide range of telecom services to allow businesses to explore their full potential within optimized costs and resources. These solutions not only equip clients with significant reductions in cost and effort but also enable end-to-end technical support and project management. The company’s expansive telecom suite thus encompasses services for analysis, design and delivery of masts, towers and poles, smart site solutions, rapid deployment solutions, camouflaging and individual solutions, measurement of electromagnetic radiation, tower assessment service, transmission line towers/pole design solutions, smart city solutions, inspection, maintenance and upgrading of telecom sites, software tools and engineering services for telecom project management and management consultancy services.

Ramboll’s clients are offered a step-wise approach, as they underlay a strong emphasis on research and engineering services to deliver unique solutions that are beneficial on technical, economic and social grounds. Although Ramboll’s solutions are optimized and cost-effective, they always adhere to the basic principle of maintaining high quality standards and best practices. Ramboll’s quality assurance team closely monitors processes and stage wise inspections to ensure that there are no defects.

Additionally, Ramboll adds value by contributing to the various committees on international codes and standards and chairs the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures(IASS)on towers and masts.

A Distinct Design Philosophy to Bridge InfrastructureGaps
With the country now witnessing a surge in demand for data services, there is an increased need to bridge the network coverage gaps across the telecom industry with new tower deployments. However, the road to tower construction isn’t always a smooth one and is often hampered by challenges with respect to land acquisition, low footprint sites, tower aesthetics, stringent timelines and the associated cost implications. Acknowledging these different concerns as well as the pivotal requirement for more capacity and coverage within the industry, Ramboll endeavours to address them with its cost-efficient and maintenance-optimized designs of guyed masts, towers and monopoles. Having been heavily engaged in the analysis, design, and construction of masts and towers since its formation in 1945, Ramboll employs its well-known design philosophy that focuses extensively on the reduction of total site costs and optimization of masts and towers with regards to steel usage, foundations, logistics and installation time. Ramboll’s designs thereby encompass sustainable telecom solutions that are futuristic, including tubular towers, compact solutions, rapid deployment solutions, monopoles, camouflaging solutions and tower assessment services. We have developed compact solutions which incorporate optimum utilisation of the site, by building an elevated equipment platform within the footprint of the tower, which is designed to host and support outdoor radio and power unit.

“Ramboll can undertake complex engineering services and special analysis that may be required within telecom infrastructures,” affirms Pankaj. “While we optimize our masts and towers to minimize wind load, foundations, logistics and installation time, we always adhere to the basic principle of maintaining high-quality standards and best practices,” he goes on to add.

Ramboll’s tower designs are approved by SERCand/ or IITs; these tower designs strictly follow the guidelines and parameters mentioned in the design standards.

Sustainable Tower Design and Construction
Operating in an industry that has turned increasingly cost-conscious today, Ramboll has been continuously innovating its offerings to deliver cost-effective solutions to its clients while adhering to the