It was once common to think that cellular communications were entirely wireless. If the public were polled, a large number would have thought that calls hopped back and forth from tower to tower until they reached their destination. The truth, of course, is otherwise.

The all-wireless misunderstanding is less common today. All it takes is one look at a cell tower. While festooned with antennas and transmitters of all kinds (some, indeed, microwave) communications towers are highly wired structures, with hard-to-conceal cables dropping into cabinets or huts near the tower’s base, many feeding into a fiber-optic network. Most smartphone users today probably understand that a cell tower is somewhat like a WiFi router, with wireless on the front and cable on the backend.

Take my Backyard, Please

All the same, at least to a tech writer, it’s fun to encounter reminders of the wired side of wireless. That happened this month, as a telecom company deployed cell-tower components in a staging area nearly visible from my office.

Residents had learned about this project—based upon a deal between a telco and a large local landowner—through notifications mailed during the previous year soliciting comments. If the expression for opposition to a proposed residential development is “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) this project seemed to elicit the opposite. Better coverage and more recent technology? How about, “yes, in my backyard” (YIMBY) or “please, in my backyard!” (PIMBY)? Especially since the yard in this case would be woods, and the tower more visible to horses than any local residents.

Parts of the construction, however, were visible—and audible. The diesel engine-driven directional boring that laid about a half-mile of conduit was a noisy part. More visible were the tower components, including the massive cheese-wheel looking spools of cell-tower cabling. That they carried the CommScope logo came as no surprise.

The Wired-Wireless Combo

This link between cable and wireless called to mind CommScope’s acquisition, nearly ten years ago, of Andrew Corporation. That $2.65 billion purchase of a company known for its radio, wireless, satellite and other wireless telecom hardware occurred in 2007. The goal, according to then-chairman and CEO Frank Drendel, was to “enhance CommScope’s position as a worldwide leader in ‘last mile’ solutions.”

CommScope’s timing was inspired. From 2007 (the year the iPhone launched) to 2010, traffic on AT&T’s network alone grew nearly 8,000 percent. While towers now share that last-mile role with the residential WiFi router, once you leave the house or office for a walk or drive, you expect seamless coverage. You assume there’s a tower nearly, maybe in someone else’s backyard or woods or pasture, that it can connect with your wireless device, and—if you understand how these things work—that it’s been hard-wired into a fiber-optic network.