A tower tech was rescued Monday afternoon from a broadcast tower at WTVO-TV/WQRF-TV in Rockford, Illinois, after suffering what officials believe was a dehydration-related medical emergency 275 feet above ground, according to WTVO. Rockford Fire and the Northwest Fire Protection District responded to the station at 1917 N. Meridian Road just after 3 p.m. Monday, according to WTVO. The climber …
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 …
Trump nominates FCC’s Thumann, NATE’s 2026 Regulatory Champion, to fill commission vacancy
President Trump nominated Danielle Thumann Severs, currently senior counsel to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, to fill one of two open seats on the five-member commission, the White House announced Friday. For an industry that spends considerable time navigating FCC wireline, public safety, and infrastructure policy, the nomination carries a detail worth flagging directly: Thumann Severs spent a year in the …
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 …
Tower Family Foundation appoints PerfectVision’s Ryan Hutchcroft to the Endowment Committee
The Tower Family Foundation announced today that Ryan Hutchcroft, Director of Sales – North Region for PerfectVision, has been appointed to serve on the Foundation’s Endowment Committee. The Endowment Committee plays a vital role in ensuring the long-term sustainability and impact of the Foundation’s mission. While the Tower Family Foundation provides critical financial assistance to tower workers and their families …
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 …
AT&T loses bid to pause California’s copper service rules while lawsuit proceeds
A federal judge in California has rejected AT&T’s attempt to temporarily halt state rules requiring the company to keep providing basic telephone service, dealing the carrier a setback in its broader campaign to exit copper infrastructure nationwide. U.S. District Judge Linda Lopez of the Southern District of California denied AT&T’s request for a preliminary injunction on July 16, ruling from …
TIF and NATE release deep-dive training video on proper monopole collar ring mount installation
The Telecommunications Industry Foundation (TIF) and NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association have released a new training video providing contractors with a detailed look at the proper installation of collar ring mounts on monopoles—one of the most critical steps in building a safe and level antenna platform. The latest installment in the organization’s ongoing educational series emphasizes that proper planning …
From crisis support to college funding: Tower Family Foundation awards 40 scholarships and supports 29 returning recipients
The Tower Family Foundation, which supports the wireless construction industry’s men and women and their families in their time of greatest need following fatalities or serious injuries, has announced the recipients of its merit-based scholarship program for the 2026-2027 academic year. The Tower Family Foundation scholarship program provides a limited number of merit-based scholarships to employees of NATE member 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 …
AT&T, Ericsson show cell towers can spot drones — interception is still somebody else’s job
AT&T and Ericsson demonstrated something with real security implications outside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX on Friday, July 10: standard 5G cell towers, already blanketing American cities, can detect and continuously track multiple drones in real time using nothing but software layered on equipment that’s already up there. What it does not do is stop one. This was a sensing …
