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Subscribe • Advertise Thursday, June 3, 2021 Volume 9 | Issue 108

Verizon CEO Sees Resurgence of Mobile, Birth of Fixed Wireless Like a big animal awakening from hibernation, America is stirring from its quarantine-induced slumber. Verizon has a front row seat to what Time Magazine termed “The Great Reopening” of the country, Hans Vestberg, CEO of Verizon Communications, told Phil Cusick, Managing Director of J.P. Morgan, during the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media Communications and Conference last week.

“We are seeing good traction in our stores, with much more traffic coming into them,” Vestberg said. “So clearly we definitely see that the market is coming back around.”

Cell tower handovers, which were down in some urban areas up to 70 percent during the last year, according to Vestberg, have almost recovered to pre-COVID numbers. “People are moving around much more,” he said. “We’ll see a steep curve depending upon how people return to urban areas in our distribution chains.” Continue Reading

New York Reception in Affluent Hamptons is Far From First Class Shore towns know to expect an influx of seasonal visitors that put a strain on local resources, including available bandwidth. However, as The New York Times reports, the surge in people working from their northern Long Island, NY, resort homes has put a perpetual demand on wireless services.

Hampton residents say there are times when they have no reception at home, sending them out into their yards or cars in search of a signal. Resident Bess Rattray spoke with a New York Times reporter, saying the poor reception is "bananas in this day and age.” She pointed out that the lack of cell service could be life-threatening, saying, “We all know, in the emergency services, there are places where radios and cell phones might not work. You go off the road in one of those places and you’re sort of out of luck.” Rattray added that the problem was practically inconceivable "in this incredibly wealthy area, and so close to the biggest metropolitan area in the country.” Continue Reading

Man Bites Dog: Texas State Legislature Unites on Broadband This week, the Texas Broadband Bill (HB5) passed with strong bipartisan support, posing a sharp contrast to recent in-fighting between the parties over voting rights legislation that prompted a walkout by Democrats. In late March, the telecom bill was announced by Gov. Greg Abbott and received unanimous legislative committee backing from the onset, reported Texas Public Radio.

The bill, authored by Rep. Trent Ashby, establishes a budget and a Broadband Development Office, including forming a broadband development program and map. According to Texas Public Radio, the office will also establish a statewide broadband plan within one year of the bill becoming law (on September 1, 2021). Continue Reading

It’s All California Dreamin’ With Connectivity in San Jose In a forward-thinking move, Verizon, AT&T and the City of San Jose, CA were already working in harmony when the pandemic descended, according to city administrators. As GovTech reports, because the telecoms were already actively installing cell tower poles in underserved neighborhoods, San Jose residents did not suffer the equity divide reported in other locations. Deputy City Manager, Kip Harkness, referred to his city's arrangement as a "virtuous cycle."

Harkness explained that prior to the pandemic, Verizon and AT&T “signed on with us and, between the two of them, would install 4,000 5G small cells. And so, for the last 18 months prior to the pandemic, we were actually scaled up and had that fully going, so that fortuitously by the time we went into shelter-in-place, we had a fully digital system already built.” He added that the city had also moved to paperless permitting, which kept the process from getting bogged down in paperwork. “When the pandemic hit, there were no pieces of paper to be lost, we were able to permit at 70 [small cells] a week,” Harkness explained. Continue Reading

GAO: FCC’s Role in Disaster Recovery is Not Clear Confusion about the FCC’s role in response to back-to-back hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017, may have contributed to confusion and delays in the federal response, the Government Accountability Office concludes in a new report. The storms severely damaged the islands' critical infrastructure, including networks, Inside Towers reported.

Federal agencies faced unprecedented challenges in the hurricane's aftermath that complicated efforts to address telecommunications outages, according to the GAO. The Department of Homeland Security is the lead agency in federal disaster response, and the FCC has a supporting role related to telecommunications issues. Continue Reading

June 2, 2021 at Close

With Merger Complete, O2 Sets Out to Upgrade, Expand Network In the largest merger globally in a decade, with a price tag of US$44 billion (compared to Sprint/T-Mo at $26 billion), the joint venture of and Telefónica, known as Virgin Media O2, launched yesterday promising to aid in the ’s recovery from the pandemic by investing in 5G and fiber optics, the new company said at its launch.

“We are ready to shake up the market and be the competitor the country needs at a time when choice has never been more important,” Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2, said. “Through investment and innovation in cutting- edge infrastructure and future technology, we will connect more people to the things they love, support communities across the country, help businesses to grow, and power the U.K. economy.” Continue Reading

North Carolina Cell Tower Stands, Lawsuit Falls From Lack of Funds Citing rising legal expenses, citizens who filed a lawsuit against Fayetteville, NC and Crown Castle are now asking for the matter to be dismissed. As the Fayetteville Observer reports, although the citizens would still like to see the cell tower eradicated, they do not have the financial resources to keep fighting for its removal.

The 40-foot cell tower stands in the downtown business district. When it was constructed last autumn, both Crown Castle and the city of Fayetteville say that all necessary permissions had been granted, allowing them to proceed. However, detractors claim that all parties were aware of an impending challenge from townsfolk who say that the approval violated town rules. Rather than waiting for opponents to file their challenge, Crown Castle stuck to its agreement with the city and installed the cell tower. Continue Reading

Viasat Takes FCC to Court Over SpaceX License Mods By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief UPDATE Viasat has gone to court to try to stop the FCC from allowing more SpaceX Starlink satellites to launch. Viasat asked a federal appeals court to review the Commission’s decision to modify SpaceX’s license on environmental grounds.

The FCC originally approved a 4,409-satellite constellation, which included 2,825 satellites in orbits of 1,100 to 1,300 kilometers and 1,584 satellites at 550 kilometers. In April, the agency okayed a SpaceX application to modify that license, moving the satellites in the higher orbits to 550 kilometers and adjusting the size of the overall constellation to 4,408 satellites, Inside Towers reported. At the time, SpaceX said it sought the modifications to reduce latency, or signal lag, between space and the ground and enhance the customer experience. Continue Reading

California Broadband Coalition Wants State Delay of $7B Budget The California Broadband Coalition along with allies from a variety of education, health, government, and equity organizations are asking Governor Newsom to “divert and delay” implementing his $7 billion broadband budget package from the final state budget in June. The coalition, however, is urging an immediate investment of $4 billion to create a statewide, open access, middle mile network, which they feel is the only long‐term solution to universal access and affordability.

“Of course AT&T and other incumbent providers oppose this investment—it will break up the localized monopolies they’ve enjoyed for years,” the coalition said in a statement issued last week. “About half of all Californians have only one option—or none at all—for broadband at speeds of 25 Mbps, and at higher speeds like 100 Mbps, the options and availability dwindle even more.” Continue Reading

Beasley Media Group Founder George Beasley Dies at 89 Long-time radio owner George Beasley died yesterday in Naples, FL, according to his family. The Beasley Media Group founder and Executive Chairman of the Board was 89 years old.

He grew up working in the tobacco fields in his hometown of Ararat, Virginia. He enlisted in the Army and pursued an education degree through the G.I. Bill. Upon completing his B.A. and M.A. from Appalachian State University, he taught in Virginia, before moving to North Carolina in the late 50’s to become a high school principal and coach. Continue Reading

American Towers’ African Sites Will Be Powered by Lithium-ion Batteries Polarium, a company that provides energy storage solutions built on lithium-ion technology, yesterday announced a new deal with ATC Africa, the African subsidiary of American Tower Corporation. Since 2017, Polarium says it has helped ATC minimize greenhouse gas emissions and its overall carbon footprint as it transitions away from diesel fuel as the primary fuel source at its sites to energy storage built on lithium-ion battery technology.

Polarium now plans to establish a factory in South Africa to produce energy storage solutions for use in Africa. ATC has signed a multimillion-dollar lithium-ion battery bulk purchase agreement with Polarium, which will support a new energy storage manufacturing plant in South Africa, while securing thousands of lithium-powered backup solutions for ATC’s African markets over the next few years.

Once established, the new factory will be able to produce about 100,000 batteries per year, with the flexibility to expand to 300,000 batteries per year.

Africa SBA and Paradigm Agree to Buy 1,400 Towers in Tanzania SBA Communications and Paradigm Infrastructure are joint venturing on acquiring 1,400 towers in Tanzania for US$175 million, according to Mobile World Live. The portfolio belongs to Airtel Africa, a company that recently sold off 1,300 towers to Helios, one of Africa’s major towercos.

Airtel said in a statement they are selling their infrastructure assets to reduce debt and assume “an asset-light business model.” Roughly $60 million of the income from the sale will be used to improve network and retail outlets in Tanzania. The rest will go toward retiring the company’s US$3.5 billion debt.

The portfolio will continue to be managed and operated by Airtel Tanzania according to a lease agreement under the new owners, Mobile World Live reports. The agreement also includes a “memorandum of understanding” on the potential acquisition of 1,000 towers in Chad and Gabon.

Yellowstone Park Can’t Bear Ugly Cell Towers Yellowstone’s National Park Service and Verizon Wireless have reached a deal to remove an “unsightly” tower near Old Faithful, reported National Parks Traveler. The updated tower will be relocated in the same general vicinity but will likely have a decreased height.

According to the park’s superintendent, Cam Sholly, the tower move will resolve "scenic resource degradation" while still improving cell coverage in the Old Faithful area. He added that the new tower should be “invisible to the public.” Continue Reading

Our fourth annual Spring Showcase highlights select, high-caliber organizations playing a key role in our industry, particularly as we evolve into a 5G world. Their products and services are some we’ve come to rely on whether we’re climbing towers or navigating regulatory hurdles to network deployment. These companies are essential, from the ground up.

Inside Towers had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with the people at the core of these companies. We’ve developed a series of profiles highlighting their unique capabilities and recognizing their wide range of contributions. Thank you to Ronin, B+T Group, Dynamic Environmental, Tower Safety, Petzl, Comptek Technologies, Flash Technology, Raistone Capital and Phillips Lytle for sharing your stories. It is our wish to amplify them. Read Inside Towers’ Spring Showcase here.

How Network Testing Ensures High-Quality In-Building LTE and 5G Deployments

Rohde & Schwarz's latest white paper deals with the entire indoor deployment cycle of mobile networks, such as distributed antenna systems (DAS) and small cells. It highlights the characteristics of these systems, the planning phase, installation and verification of the deployed system.

And finally, it describes mobile network testing solutions to verify successful mobile network deployments indoors. Access the full white paper here.

‘Intelligence by Inside Towers™’ Launch Discussion

In a special edition of Tower Talks, Inside Towers’ co-founders, George Reed and Eddie Esserman, join Business Editor John Celentano to discuss the introduction of a new publication - ‘Intelligence by Inside Towers™.'

Intelligence is separate from Inside Towers' daily newsletter. It is a quarterly market analysis report providing a deep dive into the wireless infrastructure ecosystem. It identifies market trends, evaluates mobile network operator and infrastructure company capital expenditures, offers investor perspectives, assesses relevant M&A transactions, and more.

As an annual subscription service, Intelligence by Inside Towers™ includes four quarterly reports and an exclusive Intelligence briefing following each published report.

Listen to the latest episode of Tower Talks on the Inside Towers website, Amazon Music, Spotify or iTunes to learn mroe. To be notified when the publication is live, visit here.

StressCrete Group Shows Communities Small Cell Poles Don’t Need to Be Stressful StressCrete® Group (StressCrete) is a third-generation family business, established in 1953, making it the longest-operating manufacturer of spun concrete poles in North America. Being family-owned makes StressCrete, “that ‘little-big company,’” says Luke van Vliet, Chief Growth Officer. This dynamic perpetuates versatility and gives the company a unique advantage. It has the resources and capabilities to launch large-scale initiatives, while maintaining a hands-on, customer-centric approach, often found in smaller shops. “We have a strong foundation and ownership that’s willing to invest and re-invest in the company,” van Vliet.

On track to double its size by 2025, StressCrete’s footprint has multiplied, with manufacturing facilities in five North American locations. The company is on a mission to “bring utility to communities,” says van Vliet. StressCrete produces an extensive line of high-performance LED decorative outdoor lighting fixtures, spun concrete and metal poles, plus pole arms, accessories, bollards and site amenities. It works across several industries, including municipalities, power distribution and transmission, electrical and communications, and sports lighting.

Already well-versed in street furniture, StressCrete saw an opportunity in telecom when wireless infrastructure started being deployed on light poles and lampposts. As many in the industry can attest, wireless infrastructure is not always welcomed with open arms. Resistance to change is not uncommon, thanks to aesthetic concerns and misnomers about the actual technology. Continue Reading

Perfect Vision Hiring Multiple Positions

PerfectVision's Infrastructure Solutions division is hiring several positions in Sales and Operations throughout the U.S. We are looking for additional Customer Pickup Specialists and Inside Sales Specialists in our California, Texas, Illinois, and Arkansas locations. We are also looking for a sales-driven candidate to fill our new Southeast Regional Manager position.

For 42 years, PerfectVision has been a leader in the Telecommunications Industry specializing in end-to-end solutions in manufacturing, sales, and distribution. We carry over 10,000 products, provide customers and authorized retailers a diversified product portfolio, and offer fulfillment and installation services supporting turn-key fulfillment nationwide.

Come join a company with an established history and continuous growth. Click here for more information and to apply. Feel free to email with any questions here.

CTG is Hiring

Communications Tower Group (CTG) is an experienced developer, owner and manager of wireless Infrastructure assets. CTG has Communication Towers, Distributed Antenna Systems and related Fiber infrastructure throughout the South. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC our group continues to expand our footprint and is seeking qualified candidates to join us here locally. Current opportunities for the following positions are open in the headquarters (click links for more details).

Program Manager Collocation and Sales Manager

All interested and qualified candidates can email their resumes to Ricardo Loor at [email protected].

Tower in the Summerlin Master Planned Community in Las Vegas Nevada contributed by Randy Gayer.

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Managing Editor: Jim Fryer Washington Bureau Chief: Leslie Stimson Business Editor: John Celentano Technology Editor: Sharpe Smith Contributing Analyst: Martha DeGrasse Reporter: Keara Piekanski Marketing & Advertising: Megan Reed Creative & Advertising: Cara Aston Advertising: Phil Cook

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