Marring the downtown skyline

If there's a bigger eyesore than this in downtown Manchester, NH, I sure haven't seen it:

 

This tower sits atop what is now the Fairpoint Communications building at 25 Concord St. Curious to find out its purpose, I had planned on going inside the building and asking. But alas, the door was locked and I was forced to speak via intercom with a gentlemen inside, who told me the structure is what's known as a microwave tower.

"I'm not even sure if it's being used anymore, " he said. "We used to use it to connect with Littleton and and other places up north."

After that, the intercom started beeping and then went silent. So it goes.

I wastn't able to track down much information specific to the downtown microwave tower, other than that it is apparently registered to AT&T Communications of New England (with offices in Atlanta, of all places).

According to drgibson.com, Ma Bell built many such towers "in the 50s and early 60s [to move] the Bell System's long-distance communications off of copper wires for a large part of the network. Some communications went over transcontinental cables, others over microwave links."

For 40 years, the website says, a good part of all "telephone transcontinental traffic went over these towers, and through the air...following a high frequency path from one point to another, amplified at each tower and retransmitted to the next one, until it was finally switched into the local telephone company's central office, and from there to your home."

But ultimately, the site notes, the demand for bandwidth brought an end to microwave towers. It would seem that a "microwave link can only carry a small percentage of the capacity that a single fiber-optic strand can carry...and with the explosion of the Internet, it means that bandwidth is king. As AT&T replaced more and more of the old network with fiber, the towers became more valuable as towers that could be rededicated to cell sites...and so they have been given a new life."

But as Fairpoint is not in the cellular phone business, I suspect Manchester, NH's microwave tower mars the downtown skyline for no productive purpose. If this is, in fact, the case, it's time to take the eyesore down.

Comments

[Joe Theriault]

God I hate that thing too! But I doubt it serves /no/ purpose. Fairpoint would have to be as stupid as they seem in their PR to not rent the use of that tower for other cell networks.

[Will Stewart]

Yes, it would be a missed opportunity on their part, but they obviously don't have the best business sense.

[JPMartel]

I can't agree with you on the tower being an eyesore!...an outdoor climbing gym, possibly...I, for ONE consider Wall Street tower more of an eyesore due to it's communist block of flats feel. The Brady Sullivan Tower (tall black building downtown) should be painted yellow and their other juggernaut(tall white one) bolstering north Elm should reaffix the New Hampshire moniker.