You can get an early start to your 2018 golf season by hitting the links and participating in the inaugural Tower Family Foundation Golf Invitational. This fun event will take place the day before the annual NATE UNITE conference begins on Sunday, Feb. 18 at the Gaylord Springs Golf Club in Nashville, Tenn. The event is powered by NATE’s Wireless …
President Trump’s ‘great, great’ rural broadband pledge should increase tower builds
President Donald Trump boasted to big ag executives at the American Farm Bureau Association convention in Nashville, Tenn. yesterday that an executive order he’s signed will help solve the persistent problem of appalling broadband speeds in rural America. Trump signed a memorandum directing the Interior Department to support broadband development in rural areas by increasing access to tower facilities managed …
New broadcast stations’ 2017 count shaved in half following FCC’s reverse auction
According to newly released statistics by the FCC, the nation saw an addition of 609 broadcast stations added to its ranks during 2017, with 158 of them being low power FM stations. However, the repack auction has taken its toll. In 2016, an additional 1,365 stations were added, 55% more new broadcasters than in 2017. (VIEW BROADCAST CATEGORY COUNTS BELOW) The year saw the continuing …
CommScope ushers in the new year with a new DAS patent lawsuit
When Cobham Wireless launched it intelligent digital DAS (idDAS) on New Year’s Eve 2015 covering Berlin’s Fan Mile – from the Victory Column to the Brandenburg Gate – over one million revelers enjoyed high-bandwidth 4G (LTE) services on the thoroughfare for the first time. This New Year’s Eve, CommScope’s attorneys and management were reveling in their ability to recently file …
NATE offering free rigger awareness training throughout the country
The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) announced today the dates and locations for their 2018 Rigger Awareness Training Courses. Twelve courses will be hosted nationwide and will be offered free of charge to attendees due to a Susan Harwood Training Grant (SH-31235-SH7) from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor. Throughout 2018, NATE is planning to …
ISP worker falls to his death from a backyard broadband tower
Update: January 2, 2018 – OSHA has opened their investigation into the workplace accident that took the life of technician Richard C. Andrews, the eight industry fatality in 2017. In 2016 there were seven fatalities. Update: January 1, 2018 – Services have been announced for Richard C. Andrews, age 31, a resident of Manitowoc, Wisc. who fell from a tower …
Top 10 industry stories in 2017 trailed with one fake news article
Below are the top 10 articles that appeared in Wireless Estimator during 2017 based upon the number of views each one received, such as the September rigging accident that claimed the lives of three industry workers. It had 6,000 Facebook likes, was shared on LinkedIn over 900 times, and had been viewed over 48,000 times With Wireless Estimator’s safety-centric audience …
Texas State Wireless’ Lewis is heralded for a decade of association growth
President of the Texas State Wireless Association (TXWA), Jeff Lewis, is being honored by industry leaders for his decade of involvement, advocacy and support for the association as his term comes to a end. Since joining in 2007, Lewis’s contributions have made an overwhelming impact on TXWA, helping it evolve from a small-scale volunteer organization to one of the largest and most effective State …
RSI asks for steep and immediate prosecution for counterfeiting training documents
By Miranda Allen, CEO RSI Corp. Fraudulent safety training cards are circulating putting us at risk. The definition of a fraudulent act is intentional deception of a person or entity by another made for monetary or personal gain. Fraud can be prosecuted both civilly and criminally. Wire fraud is a federal crime and occurs whenever a person uses a phone, …
FCC gets serious about putting 4,200 ‘twilight towers’ in the spotlight
The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) and the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA) applauded the FCC’s significant vote to seek public comment on a plan to exclude from routine historic preservation review the collocation of wireless communications equipment on “twilight towers”. It has been estimated by the FCC that those structures total more than 4,200 nationwide. The affirmative vote from …
FCC’s fidget spinning Pai gets enough party-line votes to kill net-neutrality
In a move that will reshape the internet and incubate consumer-advocacy and other opponents’ lawsuits, the Federal Communications Commission this afternoon repealed the net neutrality rules it put in place in 2015. In the 3-2 expected party-line vote, with Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn dissenting, the FCC reversed the designation of broadband providers as telecommunications companies and does away …
Battery thief uses Verizon codes for multi-county Florida crime spree
A Ruskin, Fla. man with ties to the industry has been arrested by Hillsborough County Florida deputies for breaking into numerous cell phone tower compounds in Hillsborough and surrounding counties to steal backup power supply batteries. Authorities say that William Bingham, 40, broke into a Gibsonton cell tower site on Nov. 27 using Verizon access codes to get into the …
California Wireless Association celebrates 10th anniversary with awards gala
The California Wireless Association closed out an exciting, year-long celebration of their 10 year anniversary with a holiday gala on Nov. 30. Hosted at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, Calif., the event brought together professionals throughout the wireless industry for an evening that celebrated the organization and honored its members and award recipients. The evening included a cocktail hour with …
Leaked Vermont FirstNet reports put AT&T in an unwanted spotlight
Vermont Governor Phil Scott’s decision last month to award a 25-year contract to provide FirstNet’s emergency responders network is overly secretive, according to critics who leaked documents last week of unredacted consultants’ reports, and it has state officials and lawyers for AT&T scrambling to find the leaker and force them to return the documents, according to Vermont Digger. The concerns …
Weekend Kansas fatality is nation’s 7th industry death in 2017
January 3, 2018 – UPDATE: Authorities have released a statement that Clayton Donnell Barnhill of Grayson, La., was working on a communications tower fell approximately 320 feet to the ground from a 420-foot guyed tower. Based on reports by the Trego County Sheriff’s Office, a coworker on the tower with the deceased heard the deceased “click” his safety harness on, then …
Big tower build bonanza for towercos and contractors announced by Sprint
Sprint CFO Tarek Robbiati last week gave the industry an early holiday present – thousands of new towers to be built across the nation. At the 45th Annual UBS Global Media and Communications conference, Robbiati said the carrier intends to spend upwards of $4 billion on its network during fiscal 2017, which ends in March 2018, and expects to increase spending …
FDH Velocitel restructures after QualTek acquires Velocitel assets
Following QualTek Services’ recent acquisition of the assets of the Velocitel wireless turf and Site Safe businesses from Willis Stein & Partners and Vision Capital, FDH Velocitel’s remaining business units have reorganized into FDH Infrastructure Services (FDH-IS). FDH Velocitel’s infrastructure engineering businesses, FDH and Stainless, have been restructured to preserve both entities’ long traditions of service excellence to the wireless, …
Tower techs’ overtime lawsuit puts travel time compensation under an industry microscope
An Illinois class action lawsuit filed in August of 2014 by current and former tower techs of Heights Tower Service, Inc. (HTS) could be headed for a jury trial after a U.S. District Court Judge on Nov. 29 ruled against both sides’ bids for summary judgment regarding the complaint that accuses HTS of failing to properly compensate its employees for …
Phillip Burtner named President of the Pennsylvania Wireless Association
The Pennsylvania Wireless Assocociation Board of Directors named Phillip Burtner, P.E. as President of the Association. Burtner replaces Chris Pleibel who served in the position for the past ten years. “I would like to thank Chris for the vision, guidance and leadership he has provided to our organization over the past decade as board member and president,” Burtner said. “Our …
Hytera lawsuit alleges Motorola uses anticompetitive practices
Hytera Communications filed a lawsuit in federal Court Monday alleging that Motorola Solutions (MSI) is feeding its monopoly status in the land-mobile-radio (LMR) sector by pressuring dealers to not offer lower-priced Hytera radios. The complaint also states that due to Motorola’s monopoly, U.S. users are comparatively paying up to five times more for some radios than in other countries where …
