AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is pushing his employees to take five to 10 hours of courses to remain current with industry technology and trends or risk being passed over for promotion. “There is a need to retool yourself, and you should not expect to stop,” Stephenson said in an interview Friday with The New York Times. In a corporate education …
Workshop panelists ferret out tower climber concerns and possible solutions
During his opening statement at a Department of Labor / Federal Communications Commission tower climber safety workshop on Feb. 11, 2016, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said that “everybody has to be proactive,” emphasizing the need to champion pre-emptive strikes by all wireless industry stakeholders in order to continue to improve upon a lower climber fatality rate that was achieved in 2015. …
FCC Chairman’s zero fatality message is clear even with slightly different fatality count
Thursday’s message at the Occupational Safety & Health Administration and the Federal Communications Commission workshop was loud and clear as stated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “The industry that provides world-class wireless service must have world-class safety for its employees and contractors. Period,” said Wheeler in his opening remarks during the half-day session (video available here) at FCC headquarters in …
TIRAP and NWSA accord will enhance wireless worker skills development and unify titles
Two leading wireless industry organizations that are separate in their structure, one an apprenticeship training program, the other an accreditation organization, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will allow them to work together toward the goal of developing one aligned body of knowledge with common job position titling based on input and coordination between both groups. The Telecommunications …
The FirstNet Request for Proposal: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
By Andrew Seybold The FirstNet network is needed by Public Safety, of that there is no doubt. The idea of a public/private partnership to build, manage, and operate this network makes sense and I have been very supportive of this concept since the beginning. However, over the past few weeks I have developed some serious reservations regarding the FirstNet RFP …
Counterfeit RF training certificates join other tower tech false credentials
Counterfeit certificates have been a frequent headache for many of the industry’s fall protection trainers for many years due to high resolution printers and a few tower technicians’ Photoshop skills. In at least two climber fatalities, cards found in the deceased’s wallets were not identified as being accurate by the issuer. False radio frequency safety training certificates have also surfaced, …
TIRAP investigates life-threatening tower safety climbs, a problem that needs to be fixed
The Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP), announced the release of the latest installment in the TIRAP Telecommunications Video Series: “Safety Climb Systems.” Although it’s an instructive and well-produced presentation of the important role safety climb systems play on telecommunications towers, it strikes an uncomfortable chord in identifying the number of incorrectly installed safety climbs that are in the industry …
Tech is asking for $75,000-plus after being struck by an angle adapter
Update: Feb. 3, 2016 – The angle adapter referenced yesterday in a lawsuit brought by a Virginia Beach, Va. Tower tech that is suing American Tower Corporation after he was struck by it after it allegedly fell from the structure, was a “cable safety boot attached to an angle adapter with bolt that wasn’t attached to [the] tower properly,” according to …
FCC and DOL’s tower climber safety and apprenticeship program’s workshop agenda set
As part of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) and Department of Labor’s (DOL) efforts to reduce communications tower-related fatalities and injuries, the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) announce the agenda for their upcoming workshop on tower climber safety and Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (TIRAP). As …
Crown Castle’s chief, Ben Moreland, to hand the reins over to CFO Jay Brown
The CEO of Crown Castle International Corp. will retire effective June 1, 2016, the Houston, Tex.-based wireless communications infrastructure provider announced yesterday during its analysts conference call. Ben Moreland will leave as the company’s president and CEO, but remain executive vice chairman of the board of directors. Jay Brown, the organization’s CFO will become president and CEO. Brown, a certified …
Sprint provides a sound thrashing to Re/code for their scoop that duped journalists, tanking stocks
Sprint: Towercos have nothing to worry about – for now At two conference calls this morning, Sprint said that an article by tech website Re/code on Jan. 15, 2016, was not accurate, and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, during a media call, said the misinformation regarding a Sprint radical network overhaul “caused a lot of damage”. Re/code had claimed, according to …
Sprint should have a sanity check before it commits ‘Network Suicide’ with its pole plans
By Iain Gillott – Commentary Much has been written and speculated in the last week about Sprint’s network plans after the publication of a Re/Code article and the plan to significantly cut network expenses. Aside from the resulting pressure on the stocks of several wireless companies, including Sprint’s, it also appears that the article has caused Sprint to move up …
NATE releases PPE inspection safety video as part of Climber Connection campaign
‘When in doubt, take it out!’ The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) today released a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Inspection Safety Video as part of the Association’s 2016 Climber Connection campaign. The video highlights practical safety tips for industry workers to follow when inspecting the required PPE associated with working at heights on a communications towers. The video includes …
Safety trainer skips celluloid and goes directly to drones and digital for epic filmmaking
No matter how many times techs have climbed a tower, the view never ceases to thrill even the most jaded veteran. And when GoPro cameras first became popular and affordable around 2010 when the HD HERO was all the rage, YouTube exploded with dozens of climber videos. Although they were of interest, their herky-jerky presentations pleased mostly the videographer and …
Report of Sprint dumping its tower companies is slowly being debunked as industry stocks nose-dive
After the media threw Sprint, American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA Communications under the bus during the past five days by republishing unsubstantiated statements that appeared on a tech website, without adding research of their own, editors are starting to reassess their ‘need to be first’ news blast that resulted in all four companies’ stocks tanking Friday. Sprint suffered the most …
Misleading Re/code Sprint story is long on conjecture, short on facts
Facts that would have made better reading and more sense By Ken Schmidt After reading Wireless Estimator’s article, “Towercos tank after radical unconfirmed report of government competition,” and seeing the original article from Re/code on Friday, I felt compelled to respond. It seemed reckless to me that a website like Re/code could publish an unconfirmed report, have it copied by …
SBA seeks at least $1 million from two contractors after towers collapse
Boca Raton, Fla.-based SBA Telecommunications LLC and SBA Towers have filed a property damage lawsuit against S&S Communication Specialists Inc. of Oklahoma, and FDH Engineering, located in North Carolina, following the collapse of two communications towers that resulted in the death of three people. The complaint filed last month, asking for at least $1 million, states that both companies were …
Towercos tank after radical unconfirmed report of government competition
Report seen as ‘nonsense’ by siting professionals UPDATE, Jan. 19, 2016 – Deep diving industry expert Ken Schmidt has provided a detailed analysis of why Re/code’s “improper deductive reasoning” in their article doesn’t dovetail with available information regarding Sprint’s Next Generation Network. The story, published on Jan. 15, 2016, claimed that Sprint would be relocating its cell sites from American Tower Corporation …
FirstNet RFP hits the streets with a low end $6.75 billion price tag
Yesterday’s long-awaited request for proposal (RFP) for the US First Responder Network Authority’s (FirstNet) public safety network will provide the government’s selected carrier or contractor with $6.5 billion to support the project buildout, in addition to access to 20 MHz of spectrum, but the winning bidder will be required to pay FirstNet a minimum of $6.75 billion over the life …
New ‘junk’ RF science reports in media help pit communities against tower developers
Parents nationwide are questioning the safety of cell towers on or near school campuses, and Wi-Fi within schools, and believe they are strengthening their position by embracing the recent publication of a study by Sultan Ayoub Meo of King Saud University that his research “has for the first time proved that the radiation from towers also causes diabetes mellitus,” according to …
