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 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 …
Tower company executives’ ears will be on Sprint’s conference call tomorrow
Sprint moved its quarterly analysts’ earnings call to tomorrow morning in what some analysts believe is an apparent move to ease the concerns of investors after an article on a tech website said that the carrier was going to move its base stations from American Tower and Crown Castle sites to government properties “which costs much less”. The carrier had …
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 …
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 …
Wireless workforce and supplier requirements for 2016 continue to be mostly upbeat
To project whether 2016 will be a banner, bust or somewhere-in-between year for wireless construction, and service and supplier providers, one has to simply search for the devil or angel that’s always in the details. Unfortunately, conflicting details and limited industry information clouds accurate projections. But the industry overall appears to be still creating jobs and there should be a robust …
Court rules that AT&T will stand trial in tower injury lawsuit along with other defendants
AT&T, Inc. was denied its request last week to be removed from a personal injury lawsuit brought by Thomas Jeglum, 26, against the company in the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania after the California tower tech suffered serious injuries when he fell in 2013 from a stealth tower site in Allentown, Pa. while performing an AT&T Mobility LTE upgrade. Judge John M. …
Lack of tower crews and antenna manufacturers cited as reasons to revisit repacking deadline
The National Association of Broadcasters has asked the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider the 39-month repacking window following next year’s TV spectrum incentive auction. The trade group commissioned a study from Digital Tech Consulting. The study concluded that the Commission’s three-month window for filing for construction permits falls well short of the actual time needed to submit and process the …
Crown Castle will reinstate gag order keeping them from discussing carriers
Crown Castle CEO Ben Moreland said yesterday during the company’s Q3 conference call that Crown’s executives used to refrain from speaking with any specificity about carrier deployments, but “over the last couple of years, we’ve sort of relaxed that standard, and probably spoken a little bit too much occasionally around specific carrier deployment plans.” But Crown’s easing of carrier build …
FCC Commissioner’s new tower builds is based on a hazy crystal ball
Commentary — Making subsidies more flexible and removing legal hurdles are two of several changes the Federal Communications Commission should make to advance wireless infrastructure development, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly said Wednesday at the Competitive Carriers Association conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Another adjustment they should consider is providing their Commissioners with research that they’ve unearthed to provide direction rather than …
CM refuses $100,000 in back overtime as Crown Castle asks to put her case on hold
A former construction manager was offered $100,000 plus her attorneys’ fees by Crown Castle USA, Inc. to settle claims for back overtime wages she said she was due after she worked for 43 weeks that ended February 9, 2015, but she didn’t accept the offer and may now be responsible for her attorneys’ costs moving forward in a case that …
T-Mobile and Verizon tie for high LTE speeds in the U.S. but America gets a failing grade
T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless are almost tied for the fastest U.S. LTE data speeds, according to OpenSignal, a network testing firm. However, the U.S. was ranked number nine in the world for coverage, but received failing grades for its LTE speeds overall. Verizon was identified as having the most LTE coverage in America, followed by AT&T, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Sprint …
Small cells to be given extreme test during high Pope visit traffic
Crown Castle International’s devout Catholics might be praying to St. Vincent Ferrer, patron saint of builders, that their small cell network will support the data tsunami expected on Sept. 26-27, 2015 along the historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway, stretching from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to Logan Square, during Pope Francis’s inaugural visit where more than one million people are expected …
Key analyst likes Crown Castle, but sees American Tower with less acquisition exposure
Morningstar analyst Michael Hodel has provided an excellent overview of the industry’s three publicly-traded companies, American Tower Corp., Crown Castle International, and SBA Communications. Whereas there are almost daily yawn-inducing recommendations from analysts, Hodel’s insight and extensive analysis is worth the read. Although Hodel has previously said that his favorite amongst the towercos is Crown Castle, because he thinks it …
American Tower’s CEO unloads 47,000 shares and the 48-hour silly cycle begins
When a corporate insider such as an officer or director buys or sells their company’s publicly-traded stock they’re required to file a Form 4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. American Tower Corporation Chairman, President and CEO James Taiclet did that yesterday when he sold 47,000 shares in a transaction that occurred the day before at a price of $100.99, …
New top 100 U.S. tower owners unveiled with some first-time players and loss of a key owner
Wireless Estimator released today its top 100 tower companies in the U.S. that identifies the same three top consolidators as in previous years, American Tower Corp., Crown Castle International and SBA Communications taking the lead. Although first place American Tower is slightly ahead of Crown in the Top 100 U.S. Tower Companies list by less than 200 towers, it is an …
