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NATE is excited to announce that NATE UNITE 2022 plans are underway and the sponsor and exhibitor planning guide is available here. The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association’s show will be hosted in the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas, Nevada on February 21-24. Caesars Forum, the latest state-of-the-art conference center, will host the NATE UNITE exhibit hall. The glitz …
Ganzi’s Digital Colony acquires one million hotspots from Boingo Wireless for $854 bucks apiece
Boingo Wireless, Inc., a leading distributed antenna system and Wi-Fi provider launched in 2001, that serves carriers, consumers, property owners and advertisers worldwide, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement and plan of merger to be acquired by an affiliate of Digital Colony Management, LLC in a deal valued at $854 million. Upon completion of the transaction, …
Verizon ponies up a whopping $45B for C-band licenses
The Federal Communications Commission has announced the winning bidders and the final bid totals in Auction 107—commonly referred to as the C-band auction with Verizon (Cellco Partnership) pledging over $45 billion for 3,511 licenses. In Auction 107 net winning bids totaled $81,114,481,921 and gross winning bids totaled $81,168,677,645. Twenty-one bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses. “It is essential …
Crown Castle sues after it’s told that its landlords have to agree to not build a competitive structure
Crown Castle Towers, AT&T, and Sprint have brought a federal lawsuit against the Town of Riverhead, N.Y., the Town Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, Planning Board and the Town’s building administrator for alleged “unreasonable delays” and “unsupportable effective denials” of their application to erect a 120-foot monopole. The template nature of the complaint, in part, is similar to the many …
SBA inks a master lease agreement with DISH for its 5G network
DISH and SBA Communications Corporation today announced a new long-term master lease agreement providing DISH access to SBA’s extensive nationwide portfolio of wireless communication sites. The announcement builds upon DISH’s continued progress in acquiring access to the essential infrastructure needed to deploy its greenfield 5G network coast to coast. As part of the agreement, DISH will lease towers from SBA, …
Three tower techs rescued after being stranded in Utah’s Oquirrh Mountains
Update: February 23, 2021 – The technician that was taken to the hospital with hypothermia was responding to a maintenance issue for a tower site on Mt. Vision, about three road miles southeast of Nelson Peak and at thousand feet lower in elevation that transmits programming for KBYU-FM and KBYU-FM HD-1 and KBYU-FM HD-2. The company he is employed by is BYU …
Tracy, Drouin, Lekutis to lead Tower Family Foundation as it aids wireless workers, their families
The Tower Family Foundation announced today that Board of Directors’ members Jim Tracy, Victor Drouin and Craig Lekutis were appointed by their peers to serve on the non-profit organization’s Executive Committee for the 2021-2022 term. Jim Tracy, Founder and CEO of the Legacy Family of Companies in Gig Harbor, Washington, was appointed to serve as the President of the Board …
Twenty-eight broadband-related bills to close digital divide introduced by Republicans
Today, House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans introduced 28 broadband-related bills to help close the digital divide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, through their Boosting Broadband Connectivity Agenda. The group said this legislative package aims to promote new infrastructure deployment; promote competition and consumer choice; modernize environmental or historical preservation reviews or barriers; and promote the deployment of broadband on federal lands. …
Seven new tower agreements signed by DISH as ATC and SBA await word on their offers
As DISH constructs the nation’s first cloud-native, Open RAN-based 5G wireless network, the company announced today it has signed seven new tower agreements. These agreements, with Harmoni Towers, Mobilite, Parallel Infrastructure, Phoenix Tower International (PTI), Tillman Infrastructure, Tower Ventures and Vogue Towers, provide DISH access to more than 4,000 towers and wireless infrastructure assets coast to coast. The vendors will also …
Women of NATE announces 2021 education scholarship recipients
Women of NATE (WON) is pleased to announce that seven outstanding recipients have been selected to receive 2021 WON Education Scholarships. The scholarship was designed to encourage and inspire more women to enter the tower and communications infrastructure construction, service and maintenance industries. Scholarship recipients will each receive $1,000, which will go directly to the college/educational institution to be utilized …
‘Disgustingly stupid’ videos yanked following obvious safety violations
As Vice Chairman of NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association, John Paul (JP) Jones is proud of the many top safety individuals and subject matter experts in the past 25 years who have taken a cottage industry with minimal safety standards and elevating it to a profession that supports the nation’s communications infrastructure with safety as its highest priority. Having …
Legislation reintroduced to address the telecommunications workforce shortage
U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today reintroduced the Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act, legislation to address the shortage of trained workers necessary to fill next-generation jobs in the telecommunications industry in communities throughout the country. NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors …
‘Painless’ process results in a Dish/Vertical Bridge access deal
Dish Network Corporation and Vertical Bridge REIT, LLC announced a long-term agreement granting Dish immediate access to Vertical Bridge’s extensive portfolio of towers, rooftops, utility transmission structures, billboards, convenience stores and other sites used for wireless infrastructure deployment. Vertical Bridge is the nation’s largest private owner and operator of communications infrastructure with a portfolio of over 300,000 sites spread across all 50 …
DirecTV, the company adrift that keeps on giving grief to wireless workers
In May of 2014, after AT&T announced that it was buying DirecTV for $48.5 billion, it froze additional wireless projects and put on hold the need to marshal up to 1,000 dedicated installation crews, severely crippling many tower installation contractors and suppliers, causing many millions of dollars of losses. Then CEO Randall Stephenson heralded the acquisition, informing analysts that further …
Verizon to double the number of its mmWave sites this year
To take over more of the country’s competitive landscape, Verizon said it will be making investment in mobile networks for the expansion of 5G Ultra Wideband in new and existing markets, the densification of the wireless network to manage impending traffic demands, and the continuous installation of the carrier’s fiber infrastructure across the US. During its Q4 earnings report, Verizon …
Telecom industry unites behind call for broadband workforce development to White House, Congress
A coalition of ten leading organizations representing a broad cross-section of the telecommunications industry today sent a joint letter to the White House and Congress urging support for broadband-related job skills development as part of any infrastructure legislation. The associations included the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA), the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA), INCOMPAS, NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association, NTCA-The Rural …
DC Judge questions the existence of FDA working groups cited in FCC’s RF exposure order
A D.C. Circuit panel judge yesterday, during oral arguments, appeared unconvinced of the Federal Communications Commission’s support of their findings that cell phones and other connected devices pose no risks to human health. The Environmental Health Trust, Children’s Health Defense, Consumers for Safe Cell Phones and ten individuals filed a lawsuit against the FCC for review of the Commission’s order. …
Network shuts down after lack of profit deflates Loon’s balloons
Alphabet Inc is shutting down Loon after determining the business, which offers balloons as an alternative to cell towers, is not commercially viable, Google’s parent company said on Thursday. Since 2011, the company has been trying to bring connectivity to areas of the world where building a cell tower network is too expensive and realized a decade later that even …
Geo catch puts California man behind bars for Verizon cell site batteries theft
A 32-year-old man was arrested for allegedly stealing four deep-cycle batteries which were used to power a San Bernardino, California Verizon cell tower site, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. On January 14, a suspect cut two padlocks to access the cell towner site at 17101 State 330 Highway. Unbeknownst to the thief, the batteries were equipped with …
Maine city and its planning board’s monopole siting spat could result in $1,000-a-day contempt fines
Bay Communications III LLC of Mansfield, Massachusetts wants to erect a 120-foot monopole on 182 Camden Street in Rockland, Maine and has had to resort to asking a federal court to find the city and its planning board in contempt of court for failing to follow through on a negotiated settlement reached in a November 12, 2020 U.S. District Court …
