One of the main complaints about mobile masts and cell towers is that they damage the local environment - they look out of place and in many cases are pretty ugly. In 2014, a survey in the United States conducted by the National Institute of Science, Law, and Public Policy found that 94% of people were less likely to buy a property near a cell phone tower, purely because the towers and antennas were an eyesore and would Negative impact on property prices.
Cell towers and antennas need to be in someone's backyard or there will be no mobile network. So what would you do? Fake cell phone towers.
Many companies have sprung up with different views on the general aesthetics of antennas and towers.
Making antennas and cell towers that can blend in with existing urban or rural environments has become a skill. In Dubai, for example, cell towers are now disguised as palm trees, which is quite convincing to be honest.
Due to the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth, more and more cell sites are naturally necessary, and more antennas and cell towers will be required as part of our modern landscape. A report from two years ago indicated that in the US, the number of sites decreased during the market consolidation period, and new technologies will drive a compound annual growth rate of 3.9% to 2025.
So it makes sense to try and make them blend in with whatever environment they happen to be in. In the UK, some suppliers have also started disguising mobile masts as trees instead of palms - which seems a little out of place. Ordinary English countryside setting - they camouflage them with leaves from local varieties, pictured below in Blandford. Can you tell which one is the mobile antenna?
Different geography, different camouflage
But there's more to be done when it comes to camouflaging the antenna and mast. In America's arid southern states, where dark green forest canopies are rare, cell phone towers disguised as various cacti can be spotted.
