Seventy-seven days after CommScope filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against Rosenberger’s worldwide companies, CommScope issued a short press release yesterday announcing the complaint that alleges Rosenberger misappropriated CommScope’s trade secrets related to base station antennas, including trade secrets related to CommScope’s proprietary software programs and CommScope’s base station antenna hardware. In its …
Broker’s certificate of insurance ‘boilerplate’ loses in T-Mobile’s lawsuit against contractor’s insurer
Selective Insurance Company of America (SICA) must cover T-Mobile’s costs in a lawsuit alleging the carrier’s antenna installation contractor damaged a building in the Bronx, NY, a split State of Washington Supreme Court said Thursday, settling a critical issue at the center of a Ninth Circuit coverage dispute that may shape how the standard Accord insurance form is viewed from …
Crown asks court to rule on California county’s unlawful node application fees
Crown Castle Fiber LLC, in a U.S. District Court of Western California filing, is requesting that the court restrict Santa Barbara County, California from charging unlawful, unreasonable and excessive fees in order to deploy wireless infrastructure within the county’s rights-of-way. Crown said the county is putting it in the untenable position of having to pay fees in excess of what …
With a likely fine on the horizon, AT&T reaches a truce in an FTC data throttling lawsuit
AT&T has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a 2014 lawsuit that alleged the wireless carrier of deceiving its unlimited-data subscribers when it slowed their connection speeds, according to a court filing Friday. The parties requested a 90-day stay so the FTC could finalize the proposed settlement, the value of which wasn’t disclosed. The FTC sued …
Insurer must provide bankrupt Monarch Towers and its owner coverage following two tech deaths
A Florida federal judge on Friday ruled that a tower erector’s insurance company doesn’t have to represent and indemnify Sarasota, Florida-based Broadcast Tower Technologies in a lawsuit following a July 8, 2013 accident in New Town, North Dakota that resulted in the death of two tower techs, but it does have to represent the contractor’s bankrupt company and its owner. …
DOJ greenlights T-Mobile-Sprint merger, requiring them to give up 20,000 cell sites
The Department of Justice today approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, allowing the $26 billion deal to move forward after years of exploration by the nation’s third and fourth-largest wireless companies. The merger required the approval of the DOJ which enforces antitrust law, and the FCC which directs the telecommunications industry. In May, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai broadcast his …
Dueling Centerlines may end their ‘mark’ lawsuits following Solutions’ bankruptcy
Centerline Solutions, LLC (CS) of Colorado filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on July 12, and it could end a lawsuit they filed last August against Centerline Communications, LLC (CC) of Massachusetts in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado regarding a service mark dispute. In its complaint, CS said that CC brought an action before the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board …
Anatomy of a triple fatality citation: Judge rules OSHA didn’t understand industry standards
An OSHA Review Commission Judge has vacated a proposed $12,934 OSHA penalty against tall tower erection firm Tower King ll, Inc. of Cedar Hill, Texas that was issued following a tragic accident on Sept. 27, 2017 when a gin pole broke loose from a 958-foot WSVN TV tower in Miami Gardens, Florida after its bridle slings failed, killing three erectors, one of whom was the …
Crown sues after New York town says it will tear down 152 of the company’s nodes
Crown Castle filed an action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the Town of Hempstead on June 28, 2019, after officials terminated a license agreement and demanded that Crown Castle remove all of its 152 facilities from the town’s rights-of-way (ROW). Crown is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Hempstead’s …
ATC says Air Advantage is taking advantage of them by not paying rent since 2015
American Tower Corp. filed a lawsuit last Friday against Air Advantage LLC of Frankenmuth, Michigan for not paying rent on 28 towers the company owns. Air Advantage, an internet provider for both wireless and fiber-based internet, executed the agreements between 2011 and 2013 that all used the same standard contract form and language that allowed a late payment fee to …
Former FCC adviser and fiber CEO gets five years for $270 million investor scam
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Elizabeth Ann Pierce, the former chief executive officer of Quintillion, a telecommunications company in Alaska, and the former head of the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), was sentenced last week in Manhattan federal court to 60 months in prison for defrauding investors in New …
Crown Castle Fiber says ComEd is pole dancing around regs with obscene pricing
Crown Castle Fiber has accused Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) of breaking FCC rules by charging excessive pole attachment fees and denying the company access to hundreds of poles. In its complaints filed with the FCC, Crown Castle alleges that ComEd refuses to recognize that wireless attachments are subject to FCC rules, and as a result, the utility has charged …
Favorable ruling upholds CommScope digital DAS patents leads Fast-Forward Friday articles
Article Media Favorable ruling upholds CommScope digital DAS patents Business Wire T-Mobile prepares for a Boost auction if Dish Network talks fail CNBC Nokia seeks rule change for 5G backhaul Fierce Wireless Mobile data use nearly doubles, CTIA annual survey shows CTIA Plaintiffs in FirstNet privacy lawsuit appealoppose AT&T brief Mission Critical LMR will continue alongside LTE Radio Resource 5G …
T-Mobile tried tower siting twice in Wichita, now it will be tried in court
T-Mobile and APC Towers have filed a lawsuit against City of Wichita over a denied conditional use application to construct an 80-foot wireless communication facility near 18th and Woodland. T-Mobile says it suffers from a significant gap in its ability to provide service in the North Riverside neighborhood, driven primarily by inadequate network capacity to serve consumer demand. The carrier …
Dems don’t want T-Mobile/Sprint merger, 10 States Attorney Generals state in lawsuit
Late last month Moffett Nathanson Research analysts set the odds of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger going through at 50/50. Today, it’s likely that the smart money is on the $26.5 billion mega deal failing after a lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan by a group of state attorneys general seeking to block the marriage of the third and …
Sprint’s 5G ‘E’ lawsuit against AT&T settled, ending what was considered a PR ploy
According to a court document obtained by Wireless Estimator, Sprint’s lawsuit against AT&T for deceptively marketing its upgraded 4G service as “5G Evolution,” has been settled. U.S. District Court Judge Vernon Broderick for the Southern District of New York said that both parties informed him during a status conference yesterday that they had reached a settlement. They’re required by tomorrow …
Tin foil hat testing and junk science being used to possibly remove 35 towers from Utah schools
Motivated by Sprint caving in to demands in California to remove a school cell tower, a South Jordan, Utah resident protesting the existence of two towers at the Jordan Ridge Elementary School has prompted a school board member to ask the community whether all 35 towers at school sites should be removed. Armed with recent inaccurate testing at an elementary school …
AT&T seeks to kayo Sprint’s ‘fake’ 5G Evolution lawsuit since consumers don’t understand 5G standards
AT&T has asked a New York federal court to dismiss a false advertising lawsuit filed by Sprint on Feb. 7, 2019 that alleges AT&T is deceptively marketing its upgraded 4G service as “5G Evolution,” arguing that Sprint can’t prove that their 5G Evolution ads make an express claim and “by attaching ‘Evolution’ to the term ‘5G’ the ads invoke the …
Free Press: FCC broadband gains overstated leads Fast Forward Friday news
Article Media Free Press: FCC broadband gains overstated B+C Huawei sues U.S. as ‘last resort’ to fight government ban UPI Was a cell tower illegally built in an Atlanta neighborhood AJC South Korea delays commercial 5G service over phone and carrier issues VB AT&T expects to hit second FirstNet buildout Milestone by year-end Missiona Critical Interoperability debate dominates carrier-selection panel …
ExteNet sues Crown and NY DOT over shot clock violation, wants Crown’s contract revoked
In a be careful what you wish for reality incident, a subsidiary of Crown Castle is being sued for violating an FCC’s shot clock deadline as set forth by Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, an action that carriers, Crown Castle and other vertical realtors petitioned the FCC to adopt. ExteNet Systems, Inc. filed its complaint on Monday against …
