The sale of an array of four AM towers in Bethesda, Md. for a record $75 million or more wasn’t based upon outrageously high multiples being paid for Cumulus Media’s prime Beltway tower site; in fact, the buyers, Winchester Homes and Toll Brothers will be dismantling the four 400-foot towers that were erected in the early 1940s. The reported high …
NWSA’s new web site will benchmark alliance’s growth
The National Wireless Safety Alliance (NWSA) unveiled the organization’s official informational website. NWSA is a national non-profit assessment and certification organization whose mission statement is to provide thorough, independent assessments of knowledge and skills and provide verifiable worker certification in order to enhance safety, reduce workplace risk, improve quality, encourage training, and recognize the skilled professionals who work on towers …
PCIA head calls for improved wireless construction skills training to meet demands of industry
Jonathan Adelstein, the President and CEO of PCIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association today moderated a White House summit on the urgent need to train U.S. workers for careers in the wireless industry. Adelstein called on leaders from industry, government, and academia to work together in developing a safer, more proficient, and more diverse “wireless workforce of the future” to …
National Wireless Safety Alliance moves forward with NCCCO partnership for certifications
The National Wireless Safety Alliance (NWSA) and the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO) announced today that they have entered into a professional partnership for the development and administration of nationally accredited certification programs. The partnership puts the NWSA a strategically important step closer to rolling out their certification programs for tower technicians expected to be available sometime …
U.S. tower counts and site information are often inaccurate and purposely misleading
Editor’s Note: The following article on the elusive number of towers in the U.S. and the total number of structures that companies state they own was published in Sept. of 2010, and while wireless technology has dramatically changed, tower count accuracy and a desire to embellish statistics hasn’t. And the article is still on target and worth the read. View Top 100 U.S. Tower Companies. Reporters, …
Tower contractor’s owner refutes report that his worker fell from a tower
A Massachusetts contractor said that, although he had a worker who sustained jobsite injuries, his tower technician did not fall from a Crown Castle International tower yesterday in Gorham, Maine, as reported by a Maine newspaper. In a Portland Press Herald article, based upon a police ‘news release,’ an employee of Centerline Communications of Raynham, fell from the 300-foot guyed tower while …
SBA Communications’ ‘improper accounting’ whistleblower act charge is denied by court
A U.S. District Court judge has denied a former SBA Communications employee the right to sue under the Florida Whistleblower Act (FWA) since the alleged request for her to create false assets was not a company policy, but the court will hear her remaining three discrimination complaints filed in Palm Beach County, Fla. On October 7, 2014, former SBA employee …
In lieu of double time pay, New Jersey police have tech spending time in jail
While most industry workers were celebrating July 4th with a well-deserved day off, tower technician Louis Lucas, 45, was one of the few that had to be on duty to service a cell site at 1191 Williamstown Rd., Gloucester Township, N.J. That’s the story he told Gloucester Township Police Corporal M. Pickard, but upon further investigation after Pickard saw Lucas …
Plane crash into a monopine ends with one serious injury and one fatality in California
Update: July 1, 2015 – Authorities have released the name of the pilot who died in a plane crash on Sunday, William Dalo, 55. Dalo had been flying 26-year-old Collette Kenny, a tourist from Ireland, on a sightseeing tour when his plane struck a monopine owned by Crown Castle International. Kenny underwent surgery for knee and shoulder injuries. Following the …
Vertical Bridge tower compound fire warrants a call for crews to be vigilant
Record-breaking drought and dry conditions throughout the U.S. are a deep concern of climatologists, but it’s also causing fire departments to issue earlier than normal burning bans and cautionary messages to prevent fires such as one that recently scorched roughly 1,100 acres in Weiser, Idaho, when cell tower workers accidentally started the wildfire. According to Weiser Rural Fire Chief Nate …
Sheriff’s report: Woman’s death in March was 2015’s first fatality
Although OSHA has not stated whether 28-year-old Stephanie Gurney’s death on March 28, 2015 was industry related when she fell off of an SBA Communications tower near Eden, Tex., a Concho County Sheriffs Office Deputy’s report obtained by Wireless Estimator identifies that the woman was being assessed for her ability to climb by the owner of Jostan Communications for possible …
Sabotage seen as cause for American Tower cell tower collapse in Arizona
A number of TV journalists covering the collapse of a cell tower in Wittmann, Ariz. on Saturday afternoon appeared to display that investigative reporting is not their strong suit A wooden monopole had fallen on high tension power lines causing a power outage that left nearly 2,000 customers without electricity. While Arizona Public Service brought in a crew to remove …
Iconic Sutro tower’s history is provided with suppositions of ’60s backroom politics and collusion
If the legendary Mount Sutro broadcast tower in San Francisco was being proposed today it is unlikely that it would have much of a chance for approval as residents would mobilize in force to let city commissioners know of their concerns through open meetings and social media. But in the 1960s San Francisco had really bad television reception and perhaps …
Rubio’s bill will expedite deployment of wireless infrastructure on Federal properties and free up spectrum
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, joined with subcommittee chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and fellow members Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) to introduce the “Wireless Innovation Act of 2015” yesterday, a bill to reallocate spectrum used …
American Tower monopole destroyed following Virginia welding accident
Polyethylene insulation on coaxial transmission lines caught fire Tuesday in Newport News, Virg. when a crew was welding on a monopole behind Heritage High School. According to Newport News Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Pincus, the coaxial cable caught on fire as maintenance workers were welding on the tower just before noon. The flames quickly spread along the insulation of …
NWSA delivers a detailed overview of their tower worker certification program to OSHA
In response to OSHA’s request for information regarding communication tower safety due by Monday, the National Wireless Safety Alliance provided an emphatic ‘yes’ to the agency regarding its question: Is there a need for a standardized, industry-wide training or certification program? Provided by NWSA consultant Chuck Slagle, a former Sprint EH&S executive, the safety alliance said, “The NWSA will standardize …
Former Crown Castle chief and three key leaders to be inducted into Wireless History Foundation
The Wireless History Foundation (WHF) announced today that it will honor four individuals at its annual awards dinner on September 8, 2015 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas. The inductees are John Kelly, Brian McAuley, Larry Movshin and Sue Swenson. The key industry movers and shakers join wireless luminaries such as Marty Cooper, inventor of the cell phone …
CTIA & PCIA deployment lawsuit charge: 3000% small cell size structure increase is an ‘imagined horrible’
CTIA – The Wireless Association and PCIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association, have joined together to urge the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reject a lawsuit filed April 24, 2015 by Cumberland County, Maryland and cities in California, Washington and Texas that is asking that the court vacate the FCC’s 2014 Infrastructure Order adopted last fall to …
Leading safety expert steps forward as the tower industry’s response to OSHA tanks
Whereas an embarrassing majority of industry safety professionals and tower climbers, as high as 99% or more, have ignored an opportunity to assist OSHA in assessing current practices and ways that will result in lowering fatalities and injuries in tower construction and maintenance, an Illinois State University professor, Dr. Thomas P. Fuller, while traveling in France, took the time today to …
Four new lawsuits claim tower owner and its engineer are liable in deaths and injuries
UPDATE: June 9, 2015 – Wrongful death lawsuits have been filed on behalf of the administrators of Kyle Kirkpatrick and Terry Richard, both of Oklahoma, who were both killed when an SBA Communications tower collapsed on February 1, 2014, and personal injury lawsuits were filed on behalf of Randall McElhaney, of Texas, and Jerry Hill, of Oklahoma, who also sustained …
