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Subscribe • Advertise Tuesday, May 21, 2019Volume 7 | Issue 99

T-Mobile, Sprint Make More Compromises; Pai Now Supports DealBased on more concessions from T-Mobile and Sprint, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday he’ll urge his colleaguesto approve the proposed $26 billion merger. It will also require Justice Department approval.

The combined company will sell Sprint's Boost Mobile prepaid cell phone brand and commit to deploying a 5Gnetwork covering 97 percent of the U.S. within three years of the deal closing, Pai stated Monday. The sale of BoostMobile is designed to address potential competitive issues that have been identified in the prepaid wirelesssegment. Boost Mobile will be “set up to be a real competitor,” FCC officials told reporters. Chairman Pai believes thistransaction “is now in the public interest.” Continue Reading

Strong, Swift Reaction to Pai's T-Mobile, Sprint SupportReaction to the news that after making concessions, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai now believes the merger of T-Mobile andSprint is in the public interest, was strong and varied Monday.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr supported the decision, “because Americans across the country will see morecompetition and an accelerated buildout of fast, 5G services.”

But Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel expressed "serious doubts" about all of the promised developments. "I'mreviewing the conditions that have been proposed by the carriers and blessed by my colleagues," she tweeted.Continue Reading KansasT-Mobile Tower Proposal Denied by Wichita CouncilWichita City Council in Riverside, Kansas blocked a proposal for an 80-foot T-Mobile tower on May 14, The WichitaEagle reported. This was the second T-Mobile tower proposal denied by the council, the first being set to go on RobSnyder’s property in Riverside one year ago.

Many residents opposed the tower, and civil rights attorney James Thompson backed a resident group in an effort tohalt the proposal. Their biggest concerns were the aesthetics of the tower, and the potential effect on property values.Council member Cindy Claycomb rallied against the proposal, and said the visual appearance of the tower was “theheart of the issue.” Continue Reading

May 20, 2019 at Close

Best Tower Stock For Game of Thrones Fans?According to MarketWatch, Crown Castle might be the best Game of Thrones (GoT) stock to own.

Why? MarketWatch analyst Michael Brush cited the show as being a, “data pig clogging up the internet.” GoT fans

(17 million viewers strong) are still buzzing about “The Long Night” Battle of Winterfell and it’s blurry and dark imagerywhich flooded social media outlets. The GoT cinematographer blamed it on HBO’s signal compression, but thenetwork content provider said the culprit was strained internet infrastructure.

Therefore, in Brush’s estimate, any company that can provide more capacity for gamers, viewers, bloggers, tweetersand facebookers is a positive for the show. Crown Castle CEO Jay Brown said he expects to nearly double thenumber of small cells deployed in 2019 compared with 2018. Continue Reading

Klobuchar, Cortez Masto Introduce Bill to Speed Deployment of NextGen 911Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, co-chair of the Senate Next Generation 911 Caucus, and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-NM, introduced legislation to accelerate federal efforts to modernize the nation's aging 911 systems.

The Next Generation 911 Act creates a federal grant program to help state and local governments deploy nextgeneration 911 systems. Most 911 call centers were built when much of America used wired phones. The upgradesare urgently needed to enable the 911 call centers to handle text messages, pictures, videos, and other informationsent by smartphones, tablets, and other devices when faced with an emergency.

"In America, infrastructure means more than just roads and bridges—it includes critical technologies,” statedKlobuchar. “This legislation will bring our 911 systems into the 21st century by providing state and local governmentswith the resources they need to update our emergency response networks and keep our communities safe."

Proteus Services Names New Chief Technology Officer.Proteus Services, LLC promoted Nash Higgins to Chief Technology Officer. Higgins created Proteus’ DAS programand brings over 24 years of industry experience to the wireless telecommunications business. He is a graduate ofNew Mexico State University with a Master of Science, Electrical Engineering degree and Texas A&M University witha Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering degree.

President Wanda Kielty said, “Nash has developed a reputation for achieving very complex technical solutions andhas the right strategy for driving innovation and evolution in next generation fiber IP-based communicationsnetworks.”

Three Towers as Tall as The Statue of Liberty Planned for BrowardA 325-foot tower is set to go up in Pompano Beach, FL by the end of the year, the South Florida Sun Sentinelreported. The tower will be part of Broward County’s new $59.5 million public safety radio system that will consist ofthree towers. The radio system will be used for police, paramedics, and firefighters to respond to emergencysituations.

The new system will replace one that was overwhelmed during a shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood InternationalAirport in January of 2017, and another shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February of2018. The other two towers set for Tamarac and Hollywood will be just as tall, and residents in these cities haveexpressed concern over the plans. Continue Reading

Washington (state of)Not Playing This GigGig Harbour, Washington is not keen on welcoming 5G to town, reports the New Tribune. The mayor and city councilcast a "no" vote last February, but FCC rules override local government objections.

“The FCC has tied the hands of our local leaders [the Mayor and City Council members] by threatening legalrecourse if they oppose or obstruct permit requests from the telecom industry,” noted the committee in a writtenstatement. In response, the city has created a website to incite community concerns about potential health issues.

Speaking on behalf of Verizon, public relations contact Heidi Flato said that 5G fears were unfounded. “5G works thesame way garage door openers, TVs, baby monitors and every past generation of wireless have all worked with radiofrequency waves,” she explained. Continue Reading

White Paper: Testing Passive Networks in Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)In the last decade, worldwide consumer demand for cellular services has driven network operators to strive for betternetwork coverage and within that coverage footprint, better network capacity. Since more than 80% of cellular trafficcomes from inside a building, in-building coverage and in-building capacity have become a focus of this effort. Inaddition, emergency service providers require cellular access in all areas of large buildings, adding to the importanceof in-building coverage. This has created a thriving infrastructure of contractors who install and test DAS and workwith the often complex cable and antenna systems. This white paper will focus on these DAS-oriented cable andantenna tests. Download it here.

ITL LLC: Lighting The Way For Over 20 YearsBy Keara Piekanski for Inside Towers

For over 20 years, Nashville-based International Tower Lighting, LLC (ITL) has been in thebusiness of bringing the best in aviation obstruction lighting to the telecommunications industry.

Inspired to elevate aviation safety standards and product reliability through cutting-edge designand quality service, the company’s founders opened their doors in 1998 as manufacturers ofhigh-performance replacement parts. From humble beginnings, they have grown the company

steadily, earning loyal customers through a painstaking commitment to impeccable design, product quality andcustomer service, and systematically expanding the company’s product line to include a full range of obstructionlighting systems and tower lighting monitoring systems and services.

“ITL started small, with five people focused on spare parts for existing aviation obstruction lighting systems,” saidJack Burden, vice president of Sales and 18-year employee at ITL. “We specialized in producing replacement partsplus custom parts that were proving difficult for customers to find or get within a reasonable timeline. That was thebeginning, and the rest is history.”

Early in ITL’s development, its most loyal customers encouraged company founders to develop proprietary aviationobstruction lighting systems under the ITL brand. Then, as now, ITL listened to the needs of its customers, and soonbegan designing and manufacturing complete systems as well as anticipating the need for dependable tower lightingmonitoring software, equipment and services. Continue Reading

EdgePod Solutions in 20 Markets After One Year on the MarketSince EdgePresence introduced their EdgePods one year ago at Connectivity Expo, they have expanded into 20markets nationwide. Formerly known as Modular Life Solutions, the company is an owner and operator of edgepoints-of-presence (PoPs) for cell tower, edge data center and enterprise solutions.

According to the company, EdgePods are “purpose-built edge compute micro data centers, comprehensively andcompactly designed to include critical power, distribution, fire suppression, physical security and cooling.”

EdgePods are anchored at the base of cell towers, data centers, and enterprise campus locations serving as aturnkey solution for businesses looking to implement a flexible and dynamic edge strategy. They are currentlyoperational and tenant-ready in Jacksonville, Florida, with installs planned for May and June in Austin and Denver,respectively. The company’s six month plan adds 17 additional markets including Arlington, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit,Houston, Huntsville, Kansas City, Missouri, Lafayette, Las Vegas, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Rochester,Minnesota, San Diego, Santa Rosa, Tampa and Trenton, New Jersey.

“As the promise of 5G begins to be realized, tower operators, carriers, and enterprise companies are reconfiguringtheir networks to support edge computing and the ecosystem required to support content and cloud at the edge,” saidDoug Recker, CEO of EdgePresence.

EdgePresence will be exhibiting and showcasing its solutions at ConnectX, May 20-23 in booth #927 on the exhibitshow floor at the Hyatt Regency Orlando.

WIA ConnectX Golf Outing Gets Conference Off and Swinging

The lowest scoring foursome at the 5th Annual ConnectX Golf Outing brought it in with a 16 under par at theCelebration Golf Course in Orlando, FL yesterday. The group (pictured above) included Todd Van Boxtel with PhoenixTower, Jon Hester, Mike Murphy and Michael Davis with SMW Engineering Group. Tim House, Executive VicePresident of WIA thanked the players and sponsors. “It was a great event,” he said.

To see the full day’s schedule for today click here. Connect XSQUAN Transitions to Full-Service Network Life-Cycle ServicesTelecommunications network infrastructure design/build services company SQUAN, announced Monday at WIA’sConnectivity Expo, it has achieved its long-term strategic objective of transitioning from a construction company to afull-service network life-cycle business. The company says it can now offer its client base end-to-end or specializedsolutions that can be customized to their current and anticipated needs based on rapidly evolving industry trends.

“The explosive growth of fiber-to-the-X and small cell/5G densification, is well aligned with the total turnkeyengineering and construction solutions SQUAN offers, providing us with a significant growth path,” said SQUAN CEODuane Albro. “This convergence of events, coupled with professional management, has enabled the company toexperience significant annual revenue growth for the past three years.”

A key component of the company’s growth plan was the realignment of its executive team. Recent organizationalchanges include expanding the responsibilities of executive vice president Keith Pennachio to include the role ofChief Strategy Officer. Additionally, Nick White has been promoted from Senior Vice President to President of thewireless division. General manager, Don Henry, has been elevated to Vice President and General Manager of theengineering division. Continue Reading Small Cells World Taps Into Indoor Coverage, 5GSessions on tap this morning for Small Cells World start off with a “State of the Market 2019.”

Speakers will answer questions like:

What’s the latest market progress for densification with small cells and adjacent technologies?What are the densification implications of 5G? What is being done to ensure 5G readiness?How will factors like spectrum, silicon and device penetration dictate 5G rollout?Is today’s densification predominantly indoor or outdoor or both? Will that change?Who’s currently deploying small cells: MNOs? Neutral hosts, system Integrators, IT consultants? end users?Which technologies are set to be the next game changers? What would make the industry grow faster?

Later, “Indoor Coverage Solutions and 5G readiness” will delve into questions such as:

Where’s the hard evidence that good mobile signal benefits property value?What are enterprise’s different options to get indoor coverage? What are the channels to market?How should we split the bill for indoor deployment between MNO and Enterprise?What are the different technical and commercial solutions available?How can indoor deployments be future-proofed to be 5G ready?Will mmWave be used indoors? How does that change our deployment thinking?What is the message to enterprise regarding 5G or 4G?

Jacksonville, FL

New Cingular Wireless PCS, 298 Cherry Ridge Drive, contractor is Ericsson Inc., cell tower equipmentupgrade, $30,000. Source: Jacksonville Daily Record

West Springfield, MA

Crown Castle, 120 Interstate Dr. $20,000 — AT&T to replace three antennas and add three antennas toexisting configuration; replace three remote radio units and add three remote radio units. Source: Business West

Wilbraham, MA

SBA Towers IX, LLC 720 Ridge Road $40,000 — Swap out six antennas and install emergency backupgenerator Source: Business West

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Recent ReleasesLatest posting from the FCC 5/14/19

Click Here

Communications Infrastructure Summit 2019June 26, Marriott Marquis, Atlanta, GA

Communications Infrastructure Summit - the first strategic industry meeting and debate for globalinfrastructure leaders to solve challenges aligned with 5G deployment. The unique gathering offiber, wireless, software, hardware and data centre companies will also provide first hand insighton cross-industry collaboration and convergence. If your business strategic objective is to lead intechnology development and network performance, don’t miss the opportunity to join the call toaction.

Speakers include:

Alex Gellman CEO & Co-Founder of Vertical BridgeCole Crawford, CEO of VAPOR IOJoshua Snowhorn, Chief Strategy Officer of EdgeMicroPhil Kelley Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy of Crown CastleTony Perkins COO Fatbeam

Click here for more information and to register.

SAC Wireless: Join the Largest Wireless Construction Company in the United States

SAC Wireless is looking for experienced tower climbers across the US who are ready to join our fast-growing celltower construction teams!

What you will get:

Competitive hourly pay rateUp to $125 per day per diemPaid time off and paid holidaysMedical/Dental/Vision/401kBest in class training programNew for 2019 – Quarterly cash incentive program

To apply, click here or send your resume through here.

HCI Energy's Hybrid Cube with satelite uplink in Lenexa, KS contributed by Kevin Kowalik, HCI Energy.Email your tower shots or upload them here. Please be sure to include the tower location.

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Managing Editor: Jim FryerWashington Bureau Chief: Leslie Stimson

Reporter: Keara M. Piekanski Contributing Analyst: John CelentanoMarketing & Advertising: Megan Reed Creative & Advertising: Cara Aston

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