Editor’s note: This op-ed runs long — but it’s the most direct argument we’ve published on carrier-contractor power dynamics in years, and it doesn’t stop at complaining. Clif Peterson names the problem, backs it with sourcing, and puts three specific asks on the table for AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Worth the read. By Wireless Estimator Contributor Clif Peterson For nearly …
Hunter Deeley named FCC enforcement chief in move toward national-security-focused oversight
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr named Hunter Deeley Chief of the Commission’s Enforcement Bureau on August 31, elevating him from Chief of Staff and Deputy Bureau Chief to lead the office responsible for policing compliance with the Communications Act across every regulated entity the FCC oversees, wireless infrastructure included. Deeley succeeds Patrick Webre, who moves into a senior role in the …
FCC rules RF limits protect humans only, clearing way for Harmoni Towers’ 260-foot Montana tower
The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau has cleared the way for Harmoni Towers to build a 260-foot cell tower in Montana’s Swan Valley, ruling against a group of local residents who argued the site would harm nesting eagles and other wildlife. The August 20 decision does more than resolve one tower fight — it puts the Commission on record stating, more …
Dish Wireless’s bankruptcy exit slides to December as tower companies press their $7.6 billion claim
Dish Wireless’s exit from Chapter 11 keeps sliding to the right, and tower companies are the reason why. A Houston bankruptcy judge said last week that if Crown Castle, American Tower and SBA Communications get the trial they’re pushing for on roughly $7.6 billion in disputed lease claims, the hearing to confirm Dish’s bankruptcy plan won’t start before December 2 …
New York’s ConnectALL broadband grants got $38 million more expensive and 34,000 connections smaller
New York quietly widened the price tag on its two flagship broadband grant programs by roughly $38 million over the past two years — while cutting the number of homes and businesses those same programs promise to connect by about 34,000, according to an analysis published August 18 by the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute (ACLP) at New York …
New York Times’ Paxton cell tower ownership story asks one real question — Then answers none of it
COMMENTARY Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, is facing a new round of financial scrutiny after The New York Times reported August 10 that he has drawn six-figure income for years from a cell tower company he co-founded in 2005 — one that landed a site on the grounds of a Frisco, Texas …
SpaceX’s terrestrial network has a timing problem: Nobody’s buying new phones
SpaceX’s plan to compete with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon runs into a market reality that has nothing to do with satellites, spectrum, or rooftop small cells: people are holding onto their phones longer than they have in years, at the exact moment SpaceX needs them to buy new ones. A network that requires new hardware, launching into a slumping upgrade …
GAO audit flags BEAD fraud risk, but the program’s own track record undercuts the headline
A new Government Accountability Office report has BEAD sitting in some uncomfortable company: the $16.9 billion broadband grant program made GAO’s list of federal initiatives most structurally exposed to fraud, alongside Medicaid, SNAP, and disaster assistance funding. The report, “Combating Fraud: Managing Risks in Federally Funded, State-Administered Programs” (GAO-26-109100), published July 23, reviewed 20 of the largest federally funded, state-administered …
FCC adds foreign-made robots, power inverters to covered list over national security risk
The FCC has updated its Covered List to add two new categories of foreign-produced equipment: advanced robotic devices — defined as mobile robots including humanoids and quadrupeds — and connected power inverters. The action follows determinations by a White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body with national security expertise, which found both categories “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of …
SpaceX wants to be a fourth major network, but it’s building around towers, not on them
SpaceX used its first earnings call as a public company this week to say out loud what the industry had been speculating about for months: it intends to build a terrestrial mobile network and go head-to-head with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told investors during the Q&A that the EchoStar spectrum “does have terrestrial components, so we …
24 hours to take down a cell site? EHT’s fundraising “investigation” doesn’t survive its own timeline
The Christian Post ran two stories on a Maryland Lutheran church’s rooftop cell site, an industry media outlet picked up the coverage, and then Environmental Health Trust published a triumphant press release on July 14 crediting its own “investigatory” work with getting the site removed — “one of the fastest, most gratifying results from an investigation in EHT’s history,” in …
Alleged Iran-linked Minnesota water hack should be a wake-up call for mobile networks, too
Iranian hackers likely breached dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota this week, according to U.S. and state officials cited by The New York Times, temporarily knocking at least one city’s well and treatment plant offline and forcing other municipalities into manual workarounds to fend off attempted intrusions into automated operations. No water was rendered unsafe to drink. But the …
Massachusetts’ top court: Local health boards can’t shut down cell towers over RF fears
Four years ago, Wireless Estimator reported that some members of Pittsfield’s Board of Health privately doubted their own cease-and-desist order against a Verizon cell tower would survive a legal fight — even as the board voted to spend $84,000 defending it. On Thursday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court confirmed those doubts were well-founded, ruling that the board never had the …
31-year-old tower foreman killed in Minnesota cable strike; first industry fatality of 2026
A 31-year-old tower foreman died on July 15 after being struck by a transmission line his crew was removing from a 300-foot self-supporting tower in Castle Danger, Minnesota, ending what had been the safest year on record for the tower industry. The Lake County Sheriff’s Office received the call at 2:35 p.m. reporting a worker was struck by a cable …
Carlton Structural’s owner faced four felony drug arrests while OSHA investigated a fatal NJ gin pole failure
A tower technician died on December 4, 2025, when a gin pole failed while crew members lowered an abandoned FM pylon from atop a 347-foot self-supporting tower at 1825 Murray Ave in Atlantic City, New Jersey, fatally striking the employee. Six months later, OSHA issued five serious citations against the company responsible, Carlton Structural Services Corp., totaling $24,116 in penalties. …
NATE applauds FCC Chairman Carr’s plan for big auction of prime mid-band spectrum
NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association today applauded FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s and the Commission for voting at its July 22 Open Meeting on a draft order to auction 160 megahertz of prime, mid-band spectrum in the Upper C-Band (3.98-4.14 GHz). The draft order will harmonize terrestrial wireless operations across the full C-Band, creating a contiguous 440 megahertz “super-band” spanning …
Judge ends EchoStar’s obligation to build its own mobile network — but the real fight with tower companies continues elsewhere
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has released EchoStar from its longstanding legal requirement to build and run its own nationwide cell network, closing out one of the key conditions the government placed on the 2020 T-Mobile/Sprint merger. But the ruling won’t settle — and may only complicate — the far bigger fight EchoStar is waging with the tower companies …
WIA report and independent analysis agree: Satellites can’t replace cell towers as BEAD pulls back satellite funding
The timing lines up in a way that’s hard to ignore. Just as a new report commissioned by the Wireless Infrastructure Association — alongside a separate, independent analysis reaching similar conclusions — argues that satellite direct-to-device service can’t replace terrestrial cell towers, the federal government is moving to strip roughly half the broadband locations awarded to satellite providers under the …
American Tower’s rights to Detroit cell site upheld a second time, case heads back to appeals court
Adamo Construction, LLC has filed a new appeal with the Michigan Court of Appeals challenging a Wayne County Business Court ruling that, for the second time, rejected the company’s bid to unwind American Tower’s rights to a cell tower site on Detroit property Adamo bought secondhand for $45,000 after it was sold off in a tax foreclosure. American Tower’s interest …
Carrier capex says the money’s still there. Help wanted postings say the legitimate companies aren’t.
Across the wireless construction industry, a complaint has become too common to dismiss as isolated grumbling: legitimate wireless communications contractors say they can no longer compete with illegal 1099 crews and foreign nationals working outside U.S. labor law, who are underbidding compliant companies on price because they carry none of the costs — insurance, workers’ compensation, proper tax withholding, safety …
