Five things to check before hiring any CCTV tower.

Guide

Rapid-deployment CCTV towers look fairly similar from the outside — a mast, a camera head, a solar panel. What's underneath varies a lot between providers. Here's what's worth asking before you commit to anyone, us included.

1. Is it priced by platform, or one flat rate?

A tower with basic motion sensors and no camera costs a fraction of one carrying four CCTV cameras to build and run. If a provider quotes the same weekly rate regardless of what's fitted, either the cheap units are overpriced or the well-equipped ones are underpriced — someone's paying for the mismatch. Ask what hardware the quoted rate is actually for.

2. Is there a minimum hire period?

A lot of providers run on a 4–8 week minimum tie-in, whether or not the job needs it. If your site only needs coverage for two weeks, a six-week minimum roughly triples the effective cost. Ask directly, and ask what happens if the job finishes early.

3. What happens if the mobile signal drops?

Most towers rely on 4G for remote access and monitoring — that's normal. What matters is whether the unit keeps recording locally if that connection drops, or whether footage only exists while it's actively streaming. A tower that stops recording the moment a mobile signal blips isn't much use on a site with patchy coverage.

4. Is it actually built for permanent outdoor use?

A tower that's going to sit outside in UK weather for weeks or months needs a genuinely weatherproof build, not just a water-resistant one. Ask about the build rating, and ask how the unit's held up on previous long-term deployments.

5. What physical security does the unit itself have?

A camera at head height is an easy target. Mast height that puts the camera out of casual reach, a motion-triggered siren, and a solar panel that isn't trivially smashed all matter more on a genuinely high-risk site than the camera spec itself. If a provider can't tell you the mast height or whether the unit has any deterrent beyond the camera, that's worth noting.

Where we land on all five

For what it's worth: our platforms are priced per model rather than one flat rate, we don't run a minimum hire period, footage keeps recording locally through a connection drop, and our taller platforms extend to 2.9–3m specifically to keep cameras out of easy reach. See the full tower range for the exact specs on each platform.

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