SERVICES

Skynet tower construction and engineering services include:

• Site selection
• Environmental, historic impact and geotechnical survey work
• Zoning approvals
• Structural capacity planning
• Path calculations & line-of-sight studies
• FAA approvals
• Site work
• Enclosures, shelters and fencing
• Tower lighting and alarm systems
• Guy wire tensioning
• Tower and site grounding
• Cable sweeps and testing
• Annual tower inspections and reporting

Designing high capacity wireless WAN's for clients throughout Texas

Proper network design and planning are essential to any WWAN project. Skynet Engineering offers a comprehensive set of engineering services to:

• Develop the technical specifications for request for proposals (RFP's)
• Determine tower heights needed for zone clearance
• Research zoning regulations and building codes for towers & building
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• Develop hardware recommendations for current and future network capacity
• Integrate wireless services with existing wired infrastructure

Channel Planning

In many areas, it is increasingly difficult to find available channels in the unlicensed spectrum. Even when channels are available, there is no guarantee that sources may arise in the future. For these reasons and others, Skynet designs networks that

• Avoid multipoint hardware
• Use narrow beam width, high gain antennas, and
• Use FCC licensed equipment where RF and availability needs require.

Typically, Skynet recommends using self-supporting towers. Roof-mounted towers can be used in limited cases, but any recommendation for a roof-mounted tower needs to be reviewed by a structural engineer.

While a link might require, from an engineering perspective, a 120' tower, such a tower may not be feasible given the realities of restrictive zoning and planning departments. Skynet provides research support in determining zoning requirements, and then we consult with our clients to determine if they wish to pursue variances (if necessary) or pursue a modified network design.

Antenna Loading

Sometimes Skynet works for a client with an existing tower. The existing tower may not, however, adequately support the antennas and transmission cables needed for the network. Antenna, wind and ice loading are critical considerations in any wireless WAN design that incorporates towers and Skynet engineers take all factors into account.

Tower grounding is quite often overlooked in wireless WAN design. For Skynet designing a grounding system is integral to the network as a whole. Skynet adheres to Motorola's R-56 grounding standard.

Current and future bandwidth requirements determine the kind of hardware selected. Skynet's recommendation to clients is to implement the system with the highest bandwidth that fits the budget. Many of the systems that Skynet designs have built-in expansion capacity.

Hardware selection comes down to a combination of bandwidth needs and budget. In addition, hardware is selected based upon availability needs and environmental variable (where terrain might force an OFDM solution, for example.)

Skynet provides clients with a detailed specification document with all cable runs, grounding requirements, spectrum analyses, tower recommendations, along with a detailed bill of materials. This specification document can serve as the basis of a scope of work to engage Skynet, or it can be used to competitively (and accurately) bid the project.

A Texas company building WISPs throughout Texas, Skynet offers a wide range of services from tower construction to installation design that cover every aspect of building and operating a WISP. We conduct site surveys, build the tower, hang and tune the equipment.

Skynet's corporate focus is on mission-critical, high capacity IP wireless networks for utilities, healthcare, schools, enterprise and government. Skynet also provides wireless engineering solutions to individuals, home owners' associations, small towns, police departments, fire departments, counties, communities and school districts.