Telecom towers may be used for air monitoring, surveillance

China Tower Corp, a joint venture created to handle the telecom tower assets of China's top three carriers, is in discussions to install air monitors and surveillance cameras on its towers, to diversity its business and make more efficient use of resources.

The move come over expectations that the number of telecom towers will surge in the next couple of years to meet consumers' growing demand for better Internet speed and call quality.

"In future, the density of telecom towers will be higher in cities. Equipped with both wired networks and mobile networks, our towers are in good positions to play a bigger role, like holding air monitors, surveillance cameras and satellite receivers, " said Tong Jilu, general manager of China Tower.

As of now, the state-owned company has over 1.5 million telecom towers across China after it completed an injection of 203.5 billion yuan ($30.8 billion) worth of telecom tower assets from shareholders China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.

The company came into existence in 2014 when the above big three telecom carriers pooled their assets to reduce duplicate construction and expenditure, as the country rolls out faster networks.

But to generate more revenues, China Tower is speeding up efforts to branch into new areas.

"The demand for telecom towers often sees drastic ups and downs, affected by industry cycles. When the 5G communication technology arrives, for instance, it will boost the demand. But once it reaches saturation, business will level out," Tong said.

In addition to diversifying the uses of telecom towers, the company is also expanding in directions like offering technologies and services to boost telecom signals inside houses, he added.