American Tower Corporation today announced that it has been the successful suitor in acquiring the rights to approximately 11,324 wireless communications towers and purchase approximately 165 additional towers from Verizon Communications, Inc. for $5.056 billion. Under the agreement, American Tower will have the exclusive right to lease and operate the Verizon towers for a weighted average term of approximately 28 …
Pilot is killed after his aircraft crashes into a Lubbock, Tex. TV tower
A Texas physician is dead after he piloted his small aircraft into a TV tower’s guy wires as he approached an airport in West Texas, causing the 814-foot guyed tower to collapse in Lubbock, Tex. last night at about 7:25 p.m., according to authorities. Dr. Kenneth M. Rice was killed after his single-engine Piper PA-46 crashed into Raycom Media’s KCBD …
Terrible Mississippi tower marking amendment is killed in committee
Mississippi Speaker of the House Philip Gunn took the ice bucket challenge late last year, but it didn’t shake loose any logical reasons why he introduced legislation last month to require all communications towers in his state to be marked for aviation safety purposes if they were 50 feet high or taller, and were located outside of municipality boundaries. As …
NIOSH issues report on tower collapses that killed two techs and a fire fighter
In a detailed summary by the National Institute of Safety and Health (NIOSH), the federal agency investigated the collapse that killed two tower technicians last year in West Virginia in addition to a volunteer fire fighter who died after two towers collapsed at the SBA Communications site. Although the focus of the report was to ensure that fire departments should …
Two technicians injured after a tower section collapses in Nebraska
Update – 1.28. 2015, 5:55 p.m – Two tower techs that were erecting a new cell site tower for their employer, Viaero Wireless, were transported to the hospital after they had been trapped under a collapsed structure in Scottsbluff, Neb. In a prepared statement, Viaero Executive Vice President Mike Felicissimo said a wind gust caused a section of the tower …
Varied opinions surface regarding Grain’s nTelos tower buy for $41 million
Although conversations at a Florida Wireless Association networking social of over 200 attendees last night ranged from carrier cap ex expenditures to planned business expansions of a number of key players, one frequent topic was Sarasota Fla.-based Grain Management’s purchase this week of 103 nTelos Wireless’ cell towers for $41 million. However, opinions differed regarding whether the $398,000 per-tower-deal made …
NATE issues update on the National Wireless Skills-Based Training Standard
The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) today provided a progress update on the Wireless Industry Safety Task Force’s National Wireless Skills-Based Training Standard that is currently under development. The Task Force’s Skills-Based Training Subcommittee has completed development of a Skills-Based Training standard that outlines the minimum competencies and skills required for five foundational categories of workers in the industry: …
RF could have been the real killer of a BASE jumper who fell to his death
Although it will not be able to be identified until a coroner examines tissue samples, there’s a strong possibility that a Michigan BASE jumper might have died, not because his parachute’s canopy didn’t open, but because he might have been unconscious before he ever had the opportunity to pull his ripcord as he fell from the 1,000-foot WLAJ-TV tower he …
Anritsu’s field analyzer with integrated PIM and line testing is an industry first
Anritsu Company is breaking new ground in field wireless testing with the introduction of the MW82119B PIM Master™, which combines a 40W, battery-operated PIM analyzer with a 2 MHz to 3 GHz cable and antenna analyzer, eliminating the need to carry multiple instruments to measure the RF performance of a cell site. The MW82119B provides tower and maintenance contractors, network installers, …
PCIA chief to sit on TIRAP’s Board and assist with setting job positions /skills
PCIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association President and CEO Jonathan Adelstein has been selected by the U.S. Department of Labor-credentialed Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP) to replace board member Jonathan Campbell, PCIA’s former Director of Government Affairs who left PCIA last Friday to take a position with the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. “PCIA has the expertise and resources to …
Michigan tower BASE jumper is killed after chute doesn’t deploy
A well-known and highly skilled skydiver plunged to his death off a television tower yesterday when his canopy failed to open during a jump. Authorities say that Josh Sheppard, 31, was found dead at the bottom of the 1,000-foot WLAJ-TV tower in Jackson County west of Detroit, Mich. at 5:30 p.m. Sheppard, who was from the Detroit suburb of Southfield, was …
CTIA castigates Obama for his drive for more government-owned networks
Although President Obama didn’t lock arms with heads of states in France on Sunday in a unity march, today he locked private versus public sector horns with CTIA’s President and CEO Meredith Attwell Baker after he said he will ask the Federal Communications Commission to assist in repealing laws in 19 states that prevent local governments from creating municipal internet …
Five years later, SCOTUS settles T-Mobile’s siting dispute with Georgia city
The United States Supreme Court gave a wake-up call to municipalities today as to how government agencies must inform wireless carriers, tower owners and the siting community at large when they reject a tower construction request. In its 6-3 ruling the Justices said that local governments like Roswell, Ga., that is at the center of the case must provide a …
Blue Book’s popularity surges with over 54,000 ad views in just three months
The nation’s largest and most effective buyer’s guide, Wireless Estimator’s Blue Book, hit a record number of ads viewed since its October launch of over 54,000 as of Jan. 8, 2015. The popular resource lists over 1,100 wireless contractors employing elevated workers, the most accurate listing ever available to the industry for networking and sales opportunities. The Blue Book also …
PCIA eyeing every opportunity to expand its niche in wireless safety/training
Update – 1.12. 2015, 12:20 p.m. – Jonathan Campbell, who is listed on TIRAP’s web site as one of or the organization’s executive board members and PCIA’s Director of Government Affairs, left PCIA on Friday to take a position with the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. It is not known if PCIA will be asked to fill his position with another association …
Nine front flips off of a broadcast tower is newest foolish YouTube entry
Whereas last week’s video of a tower technician climbing 1,500-feet to relamp a guyed tower almost served as a tutorial for safe 100% tie-off practices, a video uploaded Friday of a BASE jumper doing nine front flips on the way down personified that if brains were dynamite some folks wouldn’t have enough to blow their Go-Pro helmet off their head. …
Cold snap guide offered as Artic air blast brings bone-chilling temperatures
If tower techs from JMA Wireless of Liverpool, N.Y. were going to be heading north to Watertown yesterday, chances are they were praying that it would be one of their in-building wireless projects and not a bone-chilling outdoor installation where the temperature hit a national low of -30.1 °F. The waves of Arctic air coming in this week have been …
Long-awaited FCC streamlined wireless facilities siting rules finally published
The Federal Communications Commission provided wireless siting professionals with a post-holiday present today: the final rules for acceleration of broadband deployment by improving wireless facilities siting policies. But its ultimate impact upon municipalities and siting professionals may not be known for weeks to come as interested parties scour each word in the 121-page document that has changed some of the FCC’s …
South Dakota tower tech’s climb to 1,500 feet heads north of a million views
YouTube is littered with many hundreds of climbers that are captured as they ascend a tower. Oftentimes their videographers weep at view counts struggling to break double digits. But a mundane drone-shot bulb replacement video in South Dakota recently went viral, and it’s expected to surpass over one million views this week. Filmed in September, eight-year industry worker Kevin Schmidt …
New York State Troopers ticket technicians for taking an illegal smoke break
Two tower technicians responding to a T-Mobile trouble ticket in Upstate New York ended up with a ticket of their own from Wappinger, N.Y. State Troopers on Tuesday for unlawful possession of marijuana. Authorities say a rental truck drove through the rear parking lot of the barracks in the Dutchess County town of Wappinger around 8 a.m. As the truck …
