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Invisible Towers works to improve cell service, minus the eyesores
Tim Dennis has 26 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, a business that relies on metal towers – big ones – to turn a profit.
But the essential inspiration for his latest venture, Invisible Towers, derived not from business experience – but from looking out the window in his home outside the village of Waterford.
“I'm in the [tower] business. But I don't want a tower right out there in my backyard,” he said.
Many share Dennis’ aversion to the 100-foot steel structures that now dot the American landscape. About 200,000 such towers have been built in the United States at this point. But Dennis also knows the frustration of bad cell service: dropped calls, static-filled conversations and dead air.
“This is a great county. But we are absolutely faced with challenges,” Dennis said. Those challenges are witnessed every time the local government reviews a cell tower proposal. The neighbors show up at the hearings, screaming their protest over a potential ugly steel tower marring the landscape.
But the county is growing fast, and people rely more and more on their cell phones for daily communications. Especially in the rural parts of the county, towers would also bring customers broadband Internet service, with wireless broadband antennas from companies like Loudoun Wireless and Roadstar.
So Dennis and his two partners decided to take a different approach to the problem – build towers with the community, not the profit margin, as its focus.
Before starting a project, Dennis and his partners meet with community groups, and he said, “We ask ourselves, 'What would we do in our backyard?' That's our benchmark. That's our deciding factor.”
Towers in the shape of trees, silos and clock towers are not new ideas – community pressure will often force traditional tower companies to disguise their towers. The difference with Invisible Towers, which officially incorporated in January 2005, is that it only builds "hidden" towers.
“We focus on the impossible or nearly impossible sites,” Dennis said. These are the areas that have seen several cell tower proposals defeated by community opposition.
Once the towers are built, AT&T, Verizon and the other cell or wireless broadband carriers pay rent to Invisible Towers to locate their antennas on the structure. Companies will pay a premium to get access to an affluent and growing market like Loudoun.
Of course, all this requires a high level of commitment from Dennis and his partners – more time, energy and money. Camouflaged towers cost anywhere from two to five times as much as a standard tower, Dennis said.
The first tower completed in Loudoun is in Lowes Island, and is shaped like a clock tower. Another one, a mile away at a Cascades fire station, will resemble an old-fashioned hose-drying tower. In the rural west, two are planned to look like pine trees and one, a grain elevator.
“We are not delusional that we are going to make everybody happy,” he said. At hearings and in communities, people have commented that the fake trees and silos look like they are “on steroids” because they are bigger than the structures they imitate. But Dennis said that his towers strike the balance between aesthetics and reliable phone service.
“Private enterprise must step forward to solve community problems,” he said.
One of Dennis' partners in the venture is Van Thompson, who is a former general manager with American Tower, one of the three biggest national tower companies in the nation. Another partner is Mark Ferris, who has 22 years experience with Southwestern Bell, which is now AT&T.
Dennis also involves his family in the enterprise. His son Cody, who is in eighth grade at Harmony Middle School, came up with the slogan for the company's T-shirts: “Can you see us now?”
Dennis has another son, Travis, who is a senior at Loudoun Valley High School. Dennis' wife's name is Tammy.
On Nov. 7, the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce honored Invisible Towers' efforts by giving them the Technology Business of the Year Award.
“The award last week goes a long way to say, 'Good job. You are doing what Loudoun wants to see,'” Dennis said.
The company has also recently received Above Ground Level Magazine’s 2007 “Towering Achievement Award.”
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