The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) announced today that last week’s NATE UNITE 2017 Conference in Fort Worth, Tex, set new attendee and exhibitor records. The Association said that 1,801 individuals registered to attend NATE UNITE 2017. This total eclipses the organization’s all-time conference registered attendee total in its 22-year history, exceeding the previous attendance registration record of 1,614 at …
No barriers in the way of the un-carrier’s drive to support tower techs/veterans
All carriers and tower owners support the need for a safe environment for tower techs, but T-Mobile has unfailingly gone the extra mile in its deeds and donations. The un-carrier, consistently ranked for having the nation’s fastest 4G LTE network speeds for its 72-million-plus subscribers, has quickly and deservedly captured a reputation for having the greatest concern for the safety of …
AT&T’s FirstNet award in the bag rumors ignore court’s near-term expected ruling
Rumors at last week’s Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona that FirstNet was set to award America’s first nationwide network for first responders to AT&T would require judicial clairvoyance to be accurate since the award is in an ongoing procurement process that will be decided by U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Elaine Kaplan. Oral arguments in Rivada Mercury’s lawsuit …
Lone Survivor hero wows hundreds of NATE attendees with harrowing survival tale
Decorated retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell paced back and forth in front of almost 900 attendees at NATE UNITE 2017’s keynote address yesterday, effortlessly herding them from the Fort Worth, Tex. convention center to a Hindu Kush mountain top in Afghanistan in 2005 surrounded by Taliban fighters who killed Luttrell’s three team members. But through his courage, training, and …
NWSA lauds America’s first trailblazing telecommunications tower technicians
Workers successfully complete assessments; recognized with professional NWSA Certification The National Wireless Safety Alliance (NWSA) announced the names of individuals who are among the first workers to obtain NWSA Telecommunications Tower Technician (TTT) certification at an educational session that was held Tuesday in conjunction with the NATE UNITE 2017 Conference in Fort Worth, Tex. The following industry workers have obtained …
Snyder, Vermillion and Wilder honored at NATE UNITE 2017 awards luncheon
Collins, Hightower and Miller Receive Prestigious Chairman’s Coin The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) honored Craig Snyder, President of Sioux Falls Tower & Communications, Inc., Jocko Vermillion, Vice-President of Safety Management Services for CITCA and Steve Wilder, Co-Owner and Founding Member of CITCA, during the Awards Luncheon on Tuesday, February 28 at NATE UNITE 2017 in Fort Worth, Tex. …
Executives Tracy, Miller and Little elected to lead NATE in 2017
The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) announced today that Board of Directors’ members Jim Tracy, Jim Miller and Ben Little were elected to serve on the Association’s Executive Committee for the upcoming year. The Association made the announcement on the first day of the NATE UNITE 2017 Conference and Exposition in Fort Worth, Tex. Jim Tracy, CEO of …
Texas space program post says student was never in danger while climbing tower
A representative of the Eldorado Space Program, an Eldorado, Tex. high school program that teaches students to design instrumentation packages and launch them into space, said on its Facebook page Saturday that a cover story photograph in the March edition of QST published by the National Association for Amateur Radio, represented an inaccurate, unsafe depiction of a student climbing a …
Cover girl climber shot could send high schoolers to their death
Commentary – The March issue of a well-respected magazine published by The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL) will most likely latch onto the literal lunacy award for depicting in a photograph the most egregious tie-off violations one could imagine. In QST’s latest edition, their antenna issue, the cover shows a picture of Chase Mertz of Eldorado, Tex. climbing a …
Kansas mayor is perplexed why FCC chief singled out his city’s broadband
During a press conference yesterday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai singled out a small Kansas community that he said had 75 residents that could possibly receive economic prosperity if they were to be provided with adequate broadband services, but City of Allen Mayor Charles Eastman said he’s not quite sure as to how that would be achieved – or if the city …
Wireless infrastructure movers and shakers to converge in Fort Worth
NATE UNITE 2017, the National Association of Tower Erectors’ annual conference, to be held Feb. 27 through March 2 in Fort Worth, Tex., is expected to rival a record-setting number of visitors to the event that is clearly regarded as the largest and most comprehensive show in the U.S. for the wireless infrastructure industry. The exhibition is already breaking last …
Industry’s first successful flying COW live test is made by AT&T
By Art Pregler It’s a bird, it’s a plane… it’s a Flying COW. Despite its funny name, we expect our Flying COW will be doing serious, potentially life-saving things for our customers. We’ve used drones to inspect cell sites, measure network strength in sports stadiums, and now we’ve built a Flying COW. A Flying COW – which stands for Cell …
SoftBank spectrum bids and a T-Mobile/Sprint buy are based on suspect sources
SoftBank Group, Inc., Sprint’s parent company, may revive selling the carrier to T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, according to unnamed sources cited by Reuters. The news agency said that SoftBank is reportedly frustrated with Sprint’s growth and is ready to give up control of the company and take a minority interest in T-Mobile. With limited information provided by Reuters’ sources, …
DAS debuts at University of Iowa as ATC’s lawsuit still dawdles in court
U.S. Cellular announced on Wednesday that it has completed its DAS network at the University of Iowa Carver-Hawkeye Arena and Kinnick Stadium, much to the chagrin of American Tower Corp. (ATC) who is suing the university and its Board of Regents after they yanked a 2013 contract that ATC says is still in effect. “The new network system supports a …
FCC could decide whether U.S. Cellular violated incentive auction bidding rule
In announcing on Feb. 16 in a government filing that they had ponied up $327 million in the FCC’s spectrum auction, U.S. Cellular might have violated the agency’s bidding regulations. Publication of their bid amount could be in conflict with the Commission’s rule that applicants cannot be “communicating directly or indirectly any incentive auction applicant’s bids or bidding strategies to …
Mobilitie’s DAS marketing illustrations are labeled as ‘quite deceptive’
Distributed antenna systems provider Mobilitie, whose national focus is to provide Sprint with sites in community rights of way to assist in densifying their network, recently made a presentation to local government telecom officials in Southern California at the States of California and Nevada Chapter of the National Association of Telecommunications and Advisors (SCAN NATOA). Mobilitie, in its presentation, provided …
FCC Chief: As reported in 1929, radio is not in its death throes
In addressing the North American Broadcasters Association in Washington yesterday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that in spite of a caustic commentator’s prediction in 1929 that “In two years, at the present rate of advertising exploitation which the radio is suffering, it will be as dead as a Democrat,” it is still alive and doing quite well. He noted that …
New Jersey cell tower tax ruling could have a wide-ranging impact
The nation’s most profitable toll road, exceeding over $1 billion annually in revenue, will be slightly less profitable following a New Jersey tax court decision handed down last Friday that will require it to pay city taxes on a cell tower on its property in Elizabeth. The ruling could also have other municipalities assess whether towers located on turnpike property …
WUSF-TV is one of the first casualties of incentive auction
After 50 years of broadcasting, WUSF-TV has announced that it will go off the air later this year, now that the University of South Florida has sold its public broadcast license for more than $18.75 million during the FCC’s incentive auction. According to university officials, the price was far below what they anticipated receiving. Last week, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai …
Commissioner O’Rielly tackles questionable waste in backup network funding
The adage, any publicity is good publicity, may have backfired on the Arlington, Virginia Public Schools (APS) after an article in ARLnow.com was read by FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly and he dashed off a letter to the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) that could possibly kayo funding for APS’s backup fiber network because he believes that “ratepayer dollars are being …
