UPDATE: April 20, 2018 – The deceased has been identified by authorities to be Steven Lemay, the owner of the erection company that was performing structural upgrades. April 19, 2018 – An 1,892-foot TV tower in Webster County, Mo. collapsed this morning just before 10 a.m., killing a tall tower worker and injuring at at least five others with non-life-threatening injuries, …
T-Mobile slapped with a $40 million FCC fine for false network coverage ringtones
T-Mobile has agreed to cough up $40 million to the FCC after the agency accused the company of trying to cover up poor rural cell service with false rings. The settlement also requires the carrier to implement a “compliance plan” to address the issues. It was alleged that T-Mobile was using false ringtones to make it seem like someone just isn’t answering …
Climber safety and net neutrality FCC Commissioner provides an unexpected adios
Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn made a surprise announcement yesterday at the FCC’s open meeting– she’s resigning after serving a nine-year tenure at the agency. A fierce advocate of the FCC’s net neutrality rules, Clyburn has been at odds with Chairman Ajit Pai frequently. “I have enjoyed working with her and, even when we have not seen eye-to-eye on policy, I …
Feds charge FCC chairman’s advisory head Elizabeth Pierce with a $250 million fraud scheme
When Quintillion Subsea 0perations, LLC CEO Elizabeth Ann Pierce ran her first meeting of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) on April 21, 2017 as its newly appointed chairman, she echoed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s message that it would be a priority of BDAC to remove regulatory barriers. She also knew, if the Department of Justice’s allegations are true, that …
Puerto Rico death is second industry tower tech fatality in April
A 28-year-old tower technician died Saturday after he was electrocuted while working on an AT&T LTE installation in Puerto Rico. According to sources knowledgeable of the incident, Josean Matos Rodriquez, employed by FM Technology Group of Dallas, Tex., was working on a residential rooftop when he came into contact with a 13kv power line. Authorities said the incident occurred at 10:50 …
Sprint and T-Mobile might believe the third time will be a charm
Sprint Corp has resumed talks to merge with T-Mobile US, according to Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets who quoted unnamed sources. The third and fourth largest U.S. wireless carriers, with a combined subscriber base of almost 130 million customers, reportedly restarted talks, in part, to reduce operating network costs as well as share expansion costs. Shares …
FCC whacks Sprint & Mobilitie with a $11.6 million fine for non-compliant small cell installs
The Federal Communications Commission today announced settlements with Sprint and Mobilitie in two separate but related investigations into whether the companies completed proper tower registration as well as environmental and historic impact reviews prior to construction of wireless infrastructure facilities. The investigation was most likely initiated last April after Event Driven identified that Sprint appeared to have been complicit in providing …
It’s unlikely that company that stole 42 towers on paper will pay a $236K FCC fine
The FCC has proposed a penalty of $235,668 against Aura Holdings of Wisconsin, Inc. for the willful and repeated failure to provide truthful and accurate information to the Commission in submitting false and misleading information in 10 different change in ownership applications on the FCC’s antenna structure registration (ASR) website. Last June, Wireless Estimator broke the story of the FCC …
WIA’s Adelstein honored for wireless training and industry education work
Jonathan Adelstein, President and CEO of the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA), was honored today at the Wireless Connect conference held at the University of Maryland for his work to enhance training and education opportunities within the wireless infrastructure industry. Dr. Rikin Thakker, Faculty Member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and …
Services set for Alabama tower tech, the nation’s first 2018 fatality
Services have been set for Melvin Ronnie Nelson, Jr., 34, a resident of Foley, Ala., who passed away Mon., April 2, while working on a new Verizon tower installation in Utica, Miss. Nelson was the first industry-related fatality in 2018. According to Hinds County Sheriff Major Pete Luke, “The tower was being erected just off Hwy. 27 near Bear Creek …
SpaceX’s broadband satellites approved conditioned upon not causing space collisions
The Federal Communications Commission issued an order approving SpaceX’s application to start launching operational satellites as early as 2019, with the goal of reaching the full capacity of over 4,000 satellites in 2024, even though the FCC approval only requires SpaceX to launch 50 percent of the satellites by March 2024, with the remainder by March 2027. “Grant of this …
New structural corset could sound the death knell for tower technicians’ retrofitting work
AT&T Labs’ top research scientists and engineers, in conjunction with Flex Tape for Towers, introduced a ground-breaking disruptive technology yesterday that is expected to transform the way capacity-challenged towers are retrofitted. It will also speed up broadband development and add to the towercos’ bottom lines, but will clearly force many companies specializing in structural rehabilitation to close their doors as …
Giant step back for mankind: Supreme Court scrubs Nokia’s 4G Moon network launch
Still smarting from last week’s passage of a rule by the FCC that will streamline the deployment of 5G networks by cutting into the ability of American Native Indian tribes to charge upfront usury fees for review of smaller cell sites throughout the country, tribes took solace in yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that scrubbed an effort – temporarily – …
Outside engineer’s defective gin pole rigging plan is cited for three tower techs’ deaths
Calculation errors in an engineer’s rigging plan is being cited as the reason a gin pole broke loose from the 1,000-foot Miami, Fla. tower it was attached to, causing the death last September of three tall tower technicians employed by Tower King II, Inc. of Cedar Hill, Tex. The disclosure came to light this afternoon from Tower King II’s attorney, …
Organizations applaud new rules that curb 5G ‘cash cow’ reviews
The FCC helped clear the way for wireless providers to deploy hundreds of thousands of small antennas for use in 5G services by easing historic and environmental reviews before equipment is installed, and limiting American Indian tribes’ authority over the installations. In a 3-to-2 Republican-led vote for its Wireless Infrastructure Streamlining Report and Order, the FCC said that installing the …
Vertical Bridge is a major creditor In the iHeartMedia bankruptcy
In a prearranged bankruptcy worked out with creditors, debt burdened radio conglomerate iHeartMedia, with 850 stations, many of them losing money, has been giving some breathing room to shed under-performing stations and focus upon growth potential stations that are profitable. The company has been saddled with $20 billion in debt, the legacy of a leveraged buyout in 2008. In a …
AT&T’s small cell ‘rat’s nest’ of cables is needlessly messy says former FCC senior exec
Dr. Michael Marcus, a former forceful proponent of new technology at the FCC for 20 years, who is recognized for getting the FCC to adopt rules for the 60 GHz mmWave bands in 1995, has taken AT&T to task for using a photograph of a small cell in Indianapolis in a Feb. 23 presentation to the FCC that he believes …
Citing national security concerns, Trump kayos $117 billion Broadcom-Qualcomm deal
UPDATE: March 14, 2018 – President Donald Trump blocked Broadcom in its hostile takeover bid of U.S. chip-maker Qualcomm earlier this week, and the Singapore company said today it is officially withdrawing its $117 billion bid. Broadcom Ltd. said it was disappointed as it withdrew its proposed candidates for the board at Qualcomm Inc., but assured in its announcement that …
Bonuses for American Tower execs are a far cry from bread crumbs
When companies started handing out bonuses of $1,000 or more to workers in January as a result of the GOP tax bill, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said they received “crumbs”. Pelosi was not impressed. “In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on …
Tower tech’s new ‘badge of honor’ certifications detailed in NWSA video
The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) has unveiled a video highlighting the National Wireless Safety Alliance (NWSA) worker certification programs as the second to debut in Volume 3 of the Association’s critically acclaimed Climber Connection series. The video, entitled “NWSA: A New Badge of Honor” focuses on the transformative and portable certification offerings now available in the marketplace to the …
