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 …
New content rich Daily News Briefs now available from Wireless Estimator
Known for its original feature news content, Wireless Estimator has expanded its editorial offerings with its Daily News Briefs, industry stories that are too important to miss, and oftentimes are not covered by industry media. The new section, separate from Wireless Estimator’s featured articles, is light on NIMBY news which is important for readers of local newspapers and other suburban …
FBI investigating a string of fiber cuts; AT&T posts $250,000 reward
AT&T said yesterday that the company is offering up to $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for fiber vandalism across Alameda County in California. AT&T spokesman Jim Greer said vandals cut fiber in two different manholes about 10:30 p.m. Monday at Altamont Pass and Carroll Road in Livermore, causing Internet service to go out. …
Many wireless contractors will be required to provide a week of paid sick leave in 2017
Based upon an executive order signed by President Obama last week, wireless contractors with contracts from the federal government, as well as their subcontractors, will be required to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave a year starting January 1, 2017. It is likely to affect the cost of FirstNet’s deployment of the $7 billion 700 MHz nationwide …
India High Court: Use your landline if you don’t want cell towers installed
In a rather unorthodox response to a petition by residents alleging that a cell tower was being constructed in their neighborhood in violation of a local recommendations of an inter-ministerial committee, India’s Delhi High Court dismissed their plea and basically said that residents of Vasant Kunj should stop using their cell phones and revert back to using landlines, and then, …
Indiana looking for firm to manage its 300 cell towers on park land
Indiana is working on plans to design and build Indiana’s first new inn at a state park in more than seven decades, and Gov. Mike Pence has said the lodge will be paid for solely by the leasing of untapped capacity of more than 300 cell towers on DNR land. None of that cell capacity has been leased yet, state …
Path aligning microwave dishes now takes minutes with new Sunsight Instruments tool
At every CTIA show there are a number of great product introductions that attendees surgically dissect, especially contractors, who want to see if evolving technology will help them to cut down on their installation expenses. Equally as important, however, they want to ensure that it will allow them to avoid return trips. For companies doing microwave path alignment, Sunsight Instruments …
CommScope’s new antenna delivers three beams from a single antenna unit
Wireless network operators have a new, unique antenna option from CommScope to relieve overloaded cell sites and support high concentrations of subscribers in special venues. CommScope expects the Tri-Beam to find major acceptance as a capacity enhancement solution to overloaded macro networks and high-capacity locations.” The innovative Tri-Beam Antenna uses new lens technology to deliver three beams from a single …
Time Warner’s fiber-optic backhaul supports close to 20,000 of the country’s cell towers
Charter Communications’ bid for Timer Warner Cable appears to have little opposition, and the $55 billion deal might be approved by the FCC by the end of the year. Included in the sale are two important industry assets, towers and backhaul. Although Time Warner’s total of 653 structures hasn’t grown considerably over the years, but will be complemented by Charter’s …
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 …
Boca Raton, Florida is fast becoming the corporate hub of choice for tower owners
Thanks to early siting entrepreneurs Jeffrey Stoops and Marc Ganzi, Boca Raton, Fla. is fast becoming the hub for tower owners’ corporate offices as witnessed by numerous key players’ offices in a two mile stretch along and off of Congress Ave. SBA Communications CEO Stoops used to run his company from its corporate office off of Broken Sound Pkwy., almost within shouting …
Fish fry investigated by U.S. Cellular and the culprit isn’t a cell tower
Commentary Community newspapers suck dry every opportunity they get to write about cell tower rejections, protests and lawsuits because their audience is local, but most wireless industry media refrain from triggering their readers’ boredom thresholds with aggregated NIMBY comatose clutter. However, out of dozens of daily Google alerts Wireless Estimator receives with gag reflex headlines – Harlem says hell no…, …
Shentel to acquire Ntelos in a $640M regional deal that doesn’t include towers
Mid-Atlantic regional wireless carrier Shentel announced that it will be acquiring another carrier, Ntelos, in a deal set at $640 million, including net debt. The transaction will double Shentel’s subscriber base, but not its 151 tower count since Ntelos’ 103 towers were sold to Grain Management earlier this year for $41 million. Sprint is heavily involved in the transaction and …
Vertical Bridge picks up 43 Townsquare towers and the ability to share in marketing 250 more
Townsquare Media is the latest broadcaster that sees the benefits of selling their broadcast towers that they see as a valuable, but unnecessary asset. The company has announced a deal to sell 43 towers to Vertical Bridge, a company owned by Digital Bridge Holdings for $22.8 million. However, Townsquare will still keep 250 towers, which Vertical Bridge will market to …
Routers, fiber line cut blamed for massive cell phone outage in the Southeast
Cell phone service was restored Tuesday at about 8:00 p.m. after a major outage in the southeastern United States that began approximately five hours earlier in the day. In a statement issued by AT&T at 10 p.m., the carrier said: “Wireless and wireline service has been restored for all customers in parts of the Southeast affected by a hardware-related network …
In a surprise move, SBA walks out with cash and away from its investment in DAS
Five year DAS ride for SBA unexpectedly ends In a deal that took many industry observers by surprise, DAS developer ExteNet Systems, Inc. announced that Digital Bridge Holdings and Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners will recapitalize the company with more than $1 billion dollars, and Digital Bridge’s CEO Marc Ganzi will assume the position of Chairman of the Board. Key members of …
Crown Castle’s tenants per tower take a slight dip as revenues show a marked increase
Although Crown Castle’s site rental revenues for the second quarter were up $26.3 million over its 2014 quarter, the tower owner’s average tenants per tower for sites operated for 10 years or longer fell off slightly in all BTAs. The tenant per tower average in the top 100 BTAs for sites operated 10 years or more was 2.9 compared to …
Rubio’s bill will expedite deployment of wireless infrastructure on Federal properties and free up spectrum
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, joined with subcommittee chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and fellow members Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) to introduce the “Wireless Innovation Act of 2015” yesterday, a bill to reallocate spectrum used …
NWSA delivers a detailed overview of their tower worker certification program to OSHA
In response to OSHA’s request for information regarding communication tower safety due by Monday, the National Wireless Safety Alliance provided an emphatic ‘yes’ to the agency regarding its question: Is there a need for a standardized, industry-wide training or certification program? Provided by NWSA consultant Chuck Slagle, a former Sprint EH&S executive, the safety alliance said, “The NWSA will standardize …
CTIA & PCIA deployment lawsuit charge: 3000% small cell size structure increase is an ‘imagined horrible’
CTIA – The Wireless Association and PCIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association, have joined together to urge the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reject a lawsuit filed April 24, 2015 by Cumberland County, Maryland and cities in California, Washington and Texas that is asking that the court vacate the FCC’s 2014 Infrastructure Order adopted last fall to …
