[QUOTE = raumaster; 842137] Yes, the downtime and the cost of equipment is of a major concern. The amount of money we've spent on electronics is not the problem, the problem is really the downtime and the furious clients calling us because "the Internet" is not working ...
What is holding us back on the decision of buying your system is the price of the product after all the taxes are paid when it arrives at our door and the fact that there is no regulation in my country approving these kinds of lightning protection or lighrning avoidance systems. Our main tower is located near by houses where dozens of people live and if demages are made by lightning strikes and someone decides that our tower is the "culprit" and call an inspector or someone from the government to check if everthing is okay and within all regulations you get the picture ... I've read somehere that your system is not approved in american countries and many other countries, so this holds back my decision as well, not only the price.
You guys from MTO have told me once that I should eliminate all lightning rods from the tower but this makes me uncomfotable since this is what all regulations ask to have in any tower or high rise construction. What if a lightning strike "decides" to hit our tower directly even if your product is installed correctly? You guys can give us 100% guarantee that no lightning will ever hit our tower? And if it hits our tower, wouldn't it be more destructive if the lightning rod were there to conduct all the energy to earth? [/ QUOTE]
Good morning. Let me go through your concerns one by one in English since that you are confortable with this language too.
First of all, I appreciate your sense of responsibility that you pay attention to the downtime of your service and the complaints from your clients more than the loss in equipment. In most cases this is the opposite. This gives me the idea that you try to give the best service with no interruptions not only today, but for long period of time in order to grow your business. This is important to us because what we try to do is to support our clients’ operations and let them give even a better servce to their customers even in the heaviest lightning conditions where their competitors fail.
Regarding the regulations in your country; we challenge you to find any single international lightning protection standard which advices lightning arresters as a protection method for metal towers. If you can find an international lightning protection standard that declares a written note that lightning arresters/lightning rods/Franklin rods can be applied on metal telecommunication towers, please send to
[email protected] , I took the promise of my management,we will send you the EvoDis System for 1 one your towers free of charge!
Regarding any possible complaints from residences around the tower, I believe that you are not responsible to attract all lightning strikes on your tower, correct? When your tower did not exist in that area, lightning was still striking to somewhere in the region, and by erecting the tower, you started to collect all lightning strikes on your tower. Considering that you are not obligated to do that, you naturally have the rights to protect your tower from lightning. For example, if the houses were the targets of thieves before your site was there, and if your site is the new target of theft because of the valuable electronics and/or copper cables, would you leave the door of the shelter open or would you take any precaution possible? And I don’t think that anybody can sue your company since that you have put alarm at the door of shelter and thieves start getting into the unprotected houses around again. Using EvoDis System makes your tower invisible to lightning strikes. Which means that lightning acts as if the tower does not exist there. EvoDis does not redirect the strikes to any other place, only takes the disadvantage of being the primary target of lightning strikes away, and turns the situation to the one before your tower was erected in the area. And if any inspection occurs, you should ask for an admissible standard that indcates the lightning arresters as the protection method for metal towers.
We have applied EvoDis System on over 1500 sites all over the world and never received any restriction, including USA where we just shipped EvoDis Units last week for a telecom tower and last month for a tower crane.
Lightning rods are attracting lightning strikes. EvoDis System prevents them to hit your tower. The existance of lightning rod lowers the performance of EvoDis System and hence we ask our clients to take all lightning rods off the tower, and the conductor cables as well because EvoDis does not need a conductor cable. Lightning does not hit the towers with EvoDis System. We have conducted high voltage lab tests for this, and calculated the potential of an imaginary lightning strike which can hit EvoDis Units. It does not exist. Besides, I think you would agree that it is not a coinsidence to have all 1500 sites including telecom towers, radio-tv broadcast towers, tower cranes, sailboats, CCTV poles, hv transmission towers, etc have been protected 100% successfully for the past 12+ years! All had been hit by lightning strikes many times before EvoDis applications, and NONE of them got hit by lightning since EvoDis installations.
What you have asked for is not warranty, it is insurance. Nobody can give that warranty. However, first time ever, we apply such a warranty for No-Strike for sailboat applications with no additional cost. We can not give such as warranty for other fields of application for now but maybe in the future it can be done.
Long story short; you have been using lightning arresters with down conductors and a proper grounding system. Eventhough this is not an approved solution for telecom towers in any international standard, you do that because this is the only protection method you know, and it has been applied on ordinary buildings for over 300 years. But you still suffer from lightning related damages in your equipment and loss of service. 10 years from now, if we can have a chance to discuss this issue here in this forum again, you will still have the same losses due to lightning and you will have lost 10 times annual loss due to lightning related damages.
I understand that the final cost becomes considerably high due to the taxes applied by your government but not taking any precautions to lightning strikes does not let you make any profit. If you make a decision, and if you have your contact person from our marketing team in your mailbox, please go ahead and let him/her informed about this discussion and that price is the only issue. They may find a solution profitable for you.
Regards,
Erdem.