While searching for caches in and around town, one cannot help
noticing the “disguised” cell phone towers that blend
into the surrounding. When people started complaining about the
unsightly towers popping up all over the Towns and Cities, the
cellular companies decided to develop a more environmental friendly
tower.
Did you know that Cell phone towers being disguised as trees, also
known as clean solution masts, is the brainchild (co-inventor) of
South African telecommunications engineer Ivo Lazic, and is now
used worldwide to hide these unsightly towers.
An extract from the financial mail dated July
2006.
"My colleague Aubrey Thomas and I wondered how we would solve the
problem of ugly masts and angry people. I had about 200 palm trees
in my garden in Kyalami and noticed they were a similar shape to
the masts we were erecting," Lazic says. "When we first discussed
making cellphone masts with glass fibre trunks and plastic leaves
our contractors thought we were crazy." “Sixty days after the
"palm trees" were invented, the first mast was erected in
Durbanville, Cape Town. “We rolled out one after another;
environmentalists and the authorities loved them." The towers have
also been exported to Australia, Greece, Italy, Tahiti, Oman, Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, among others. "We've developed trees to suit the
different landscapes," Lazic says. For example, the Arabic date
palm is exported to the Middle East and even comes with its own set
of dates