Eastern Companies Look To United States for Tips on RAN Sharing

Chinese tower companies are looking to American Tower and Crown Castle International to learn tips of how radio access network (RAN) sharing construction can be utilized in order to save money for telecom and radio operators. The China Times reported, “RAN sharing significantly reduces infrastructure costs for telecom operators by mutually sharing those resources — including cell sites and towers, base station equipment, and transmission networks. This could theoretically eliminate duplicate structures, a salivating prospect considering the daunting up-front investments needed to build new 4G networks.” As 4G technology expands around the world, international companies are looking at the United States’ infrastructure. American Tower and Crown Castle use RAN sharing, and they do it well. Both companies have become very successful buying or constructing towers and leasing space to multiple users. “In Taiwan, all towers are already shared across cell phone carriers, making the US “rental model” not an immediate option. But it may become the rising standard now that more professionals will be needed to maintain 4G systems. Taiwan’s National Communications Commission, however, will encourage cell phone carriers to continue sharing remaining towers because of concern over public complaint. Available land is an ever-present issue in the construction of new towers and facilities on Taiwan’s cramped and mountainous terrain,” the China Times reports.

The FCC May Be Inclined to Approve a Sprint/T-Mobile Merger

While it’s been highly debated whether or not the FCC would approve a merger between the third and fourth major mobile carriers, there’s reason to believe that this deal could go through. Despite the fact that AT&T’s proposal to buy out T-Mobile was denied a little over two years ago, industries are changing and Sprint is in a completely different position than AT&T. Oligopolies may have been something that were frowned upon years ago for fear of reducing competition, that isn’t the case these days—as recently illustrated by the airline industry. The top 5 airlines in the United States are Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, and US Airways. A few weeks ago American Airline and US Airways partnered, taking their number of enplaned passengers from 91,153,375 and 54,204,283, respectively, to total 145,357,658, which surpasses Delta’s year to date number of enplaned passengers and their fleet size. American Airlines and US Airways are in similar positions to T-Mobile and Sprint when looking at the mobile carrier market. Neither of these companies is at the top, but they are certainly close.

Continue reading here. 

With More Americans Dropping Landlines, Tower Construction Will Increase

According to US Telecom, “U.S. households are continuing to “cut the cord” and replace landline telephones with wireless voice service, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Although the CDC data showed some slowing in cord cutting, wireless-only households are on track to reach between 43 and 45 percent of all telephone households by the end of 2013.These data provide ongoing support for USTelecom’s view that providers of traditional telephone service are no longer dominant in the provision of voice communications.

Continue reading here. 

A Strong Wireless Infrastructure is Imperative to Public Safety

With the major mobile carriers updating their 4G LTE equipment and constructing new towers to fill in gaps, people may believe that because cell service is improving then other problems will be solved as well. The FCC has been issuing reports about how location data from 911 calls isn’t being translated to the emergency responders, and delaying their response time. Alcatel-Lucent, French global telecommunications equipment company, discussed the necessity to build a strong public wireless infrastructure in LifeTalk: Public Safety Communications E-Zine. In this article, Bill Schrier, Chief Technology Officer for the City of Seattle, explained why we are unable to use the system that already in place by the major carriers. “The most common question — especially from cash-strapped legislators and city counselors — is, ‘Why can’t we just use the commercial carrier services? They’ve got 3G wireless service offerings with data capabilities. They’ve got 4G wireless offering with significantly more data capabilities. They’ve got these technologies. Why don’t we just use those commercial services? That’s what we do now for nonmission critical applications!’ The answer, of course is that you don’t want to have mission-critical public safety data communications competing with every teenager’s ‘LOL’ message to their friends,” Schrier explains. Instead of solely relying on the commercial services already in place, there should be a plan to keep the lines of communication open should some disaster take place. However, budgets are being cut and the commercial networks aren’t able to handle the influx of users.

Continue reading here. 

What Data Do Authorities See When Conducting Cell Tower Dumps?

Cell tower data dumps have been all over the news these past few days—made a topic of conversation during the investigation of 10-year old Jessica Ridgeway’s murder. Jenna Lee of Fox News spoke to David Kennedy, CEO of TrustedSec, about what the government sees when they take the data received from a cell tower. “They would see everything you did on your phone in those local cell tower areas. They would see everybody you called during those specific times, possible SMS data or your text messages, and GPS locations. All of those can be triangulated and grabbed from those cell towers in a tower dump,” Kennedy said.While not too many people disagreed with the way authorities used this data in the investigation of Jessica Ridgeway’s murder since it led to her killer in a roundabout way, many people are wondering what else this data is being used for. “All of this is being done without a warrant, which means they can go out and pull as much information as they want to with little rhyme or reason to why they need to do it and I think that’s the major concern,” Kennedy explains. When it comes to finding a missing child or locating a criminal, dumping cell towers doesn’t seem too extreme but Kennedy does point out that there should be major oversight on what this data is being used for and who is using it before they can have access to it.

Read more at InsideTowers.com.

AT&T Upgrades Network at Broncos Stadium with Largest Cell Site

We all know what it’s like to be at a game or a concert and want to post a picture to your social media sites and just not being able to connect to the network. This was often the case for AT&T customers who frequented the Bronco’s stadium in Denver, Colorado. AT&T set out to rectify this problem and put almost $10 million into a network upgrade at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. They added the equivalent of 11 cell towers, all dedicated to serving AT&T customers at the Bronco’s stadium. The network equipment is housed in a nondescript building adjacent to the stadium that now serves as AT&T’s largest cell site in the Rocky Mountain region. In August, Russ Trainor, the Vice President of Information Technology, shared that, “I think from where we’re at now we’re at a good point in technology-wise compared to other venues. And we’re still driving, we’re still adding.”

Read more at InsideTowers.com

Douglas County Turns Down AMT’s 20K Bonus For Cell Tower Lease Extension

http://insidetowers.com/douglas-county-turns-amts-20k-bonus-cell-tower-lease-extension/

Wisconsin Gets New 4G Cell Phone Tower in Oak Creek

http://insidetowers.com/wisconsin-gets-new-4g-cell-phone-tower-oak-creek/

What Makes Property Suitable for Cell Towers?

http://insidetowers.com/makes-property-suitable-wireless-towers/

Nokia Solutions and Networks Introduces Small Cell Solutions with Macro Base Station Capacity

http://insidetowers.com/nokia-solutions-networks-introduces-small-cell-solutions-macro-base-station-capacity/

The Miami Dolphins Team Up With AT&T to Enhance Mobile Experience at Sun Life Stadium

http://insidetowers.com/miami-dolphins-team-att-enhance-mobile-experience-sun-life-stadium/ 

Florida Cell Tower Battle Lands in Federal Court

 Vertical Assets, a communications tower construction company based in Atlanta, was denied a permit to construct a cell tower in Panama City, Florida. The 150-foot tower was planned to be erected on West 19^th Street and Florida Avenue. However, the Panama City commission unanimously rejected the proposal for the tower saying that there were safety and neighborhood compatibility issues.

Vertical Assets has taken this matter to the federal court because they believe the city discriminated against their proposal and they violated the federal Telecommunications Act. Another company was permitted to construct a similar tower three years ago without having to get the city commission to approve it. Vertical Assets’ tower would have AT&T as its main carrier but they would allow emergency agencies to use the tower at no cost. 

CTIA—The Wireless Association Announces 2014 Board of Directors

This week, CTIA—The Wireless Association hosted MobileCON 2013 in San Jose, California. MobileCON is a mobile IT and enterprise event designed for the IT executives and professionals. During this event, the CTIA announced their 2014 Board of Directors.

"CTIA's members provide U.S. consumers with the world's best wireless service and consistently make significant investments in the U.S. economy. Among the 2014 Board of Directors' goals is to make certain the U.S. wireless industry remains the world's leader in innovation so that Americans continue to benefit from wireless telecommunications. One of the key components to this is making sure more spectrum is made available for commercial wireless use. By working together and with the expert guidance of our board, CTIA will work diligently to ensure appropriate public policy that recognizes the need for the U.S. wireless industry to remain the best in the world," said Steve Largent, President and CEO, CTIA.

The one-year term as board members of the CTIA will begin on January 1, 2014. The Board of Directors will be comprised of:

• Robert Vrij, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Sales, Alcatel-Lucent
• Charles Townsend, President and CEO, Aloha Partners II, L.P.
• Dr. Guy (Bud) Tribble, Senior Vice President for Software Engineering, Apple, Inc.
• Manny Becerra, Executive Vice President & President of Mobile Services, Assurant Solutions
• Bret Comolli, Chairman, Asurion
• Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO, AT&T Mobility, AT&T
• Thorsten Heins, President and CEO, BlackBerry Limited
• Ron Smith, President, Bluegrass Cellular, Inc.
• Marcelo Claure, Chairman and CEO, Brightstar Corporation
• Slayton Stewart, CEO, Carolina West Wireless
• Wirt Yerger, III, Manager, Cavalier Wireless, LLC
• Pat Riordan, President and CEO, Cellcom
• Steve Largent, President and CEO, CTIA-The Wireless Association
• Jay Shedd, President and CEO, DOCOMO PACIFIC, INC.
• Angel Ruiz, President and CEO, Ericsson Inc.
• Mary Chan, President, Global Connected Consumer, General Motors
• Mike Woodward, President, Emerging Devices, HTC America, Inc.
• S. Douglas Hutcheson, CEO and Director, Leap Wireless International, Inc.
• Jeff Gisoo Cho, Vice President, LG Electronics USA
• Rip Gerber, President and CEO, Locaid
• Eddie O'Brien, VP, Worldwide Sales and Marketing Operator Channel, Microsoft Corporation
• Jeff Miller, Corporate Vice President, Global Sales, Motorola Mobility
• Matt Rothschild, VP Sales and Marketing, Americas, Nokia, Inc.
• James Hyde, President and CEO, nTelos Wireless
• John Giere, President and CEO, Openwave Mobility
• George Appling, President and CEO, Personal Communications Devices, LLC (PCD)
• Richard Ruhl, General Manager, Pioneer Cellular
• Peggy Johnson, EVP and President of Global Market Development, QUALCOMM, Inc.
• Mike Narula, President and CEO, Reliance Communications LLC
• Gregory Lee, President and CEO, Samsung Telecommunications America, L.P.
• John Sims, President, SAP Mobile Services
• Justin E. Hinkle, Chief Operating Officer, Smith Bagley, Inc. DBA CellularOne of N.E. AZ
• Dan Hesse, CEO, Sprint Corporation
• Jeff Gordon, President and CEO, Syniverse
• John Legere, President and CEO, T-Mobile USA
• F.J. Pollak, President and CEO, TracFone Wireless, Inc.
• Kenneth Meyers, President and CEO, U.S. Cellular
• Dan Mead, President and CEO, Verizon Wireless

Parents Have 3 Weeks to Convince Sprint to Move Cell Tower

The parents of students at Poinciana Elementary School in Collier County, Florida have three weeks until Sprint’s 75-foot tower will be turned on. In those three weeks they are determined to convince Sprint to move the tower to another location away from the school. There is now a sign hanging on the cell tower warning people to stay away from it because the radio frequency emissions may exceed exposure limits. But the FCC, even though they aren’t technically working right now, still have rules in place to limit the amount of RF emissions so people in close proximity to the tower aren’t affected.

Parents gathered at a school board meeting last night to discuss the tower but there’s nothing that the school board can do because Sprint operates the tower and doesn’t want to move it. If Sprint does agree to relocate the tower, it could cost at least $200,000, and it’s still an issue of who would pay for it to be moved. 

What Problems Could the Connected Car Cause Cell Phone Towers?

Last week at the PCIA’s 2013 Wireless Infrastructure Show, the Connected Car was a topic of discussion. As the wireless industry continues to expand, industry leaders are looking for new ways to bring wireless technology to every aspect of our lives including time spent in the car. It’s not news that people enjoy using their phones in the car. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, “31% of U.S. drivers ages 18-64 reported that they had read or sent text messages or email messages while driving at least once within the 30 days before they were surveyed.”

Many wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon, along with many insurance companies, have started campaigns to urge people to not text and drive. The Connected Car aims to lower the rate of texting and driving while bringing you access to more wireless technology while you are in your car. Iain Gillott of iGR discussed the features of the Connected Car in a webinar yesterday.

The Connected Car would have a built-in LTE connection to the macro network that can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot that is within the vehicle. Passengers will be able to access a wireless signal over the LTE connection. Gillott noted that, “We spend a lot of time in our cars as a society.” He says in the webinar that approximately 20% of Americans spend more than 60 minutes per day in the car.

While having access to technology like this on the road seems like a fantastic idea, what will it do to our networks and macro sites? “In-car data use increases bandwidth demand at peak network times and it adds to the network congestion problem,” Gillott explains.

Because the vehicle is moving, small cells will not work for cars so our macro networks will become congested. This is a challenged that supporters of the Connected Car face. Although this new technology is an opportunity for our mobile network infrastructure to grow, it’s not always easily achieved. It’s possible that our networks will be slow and over-capacity because of the Connected Car before more cell sites can be built to accommodate the influx in demand. 

SBA & American Tower Set Dates to Announce 3rd Quarter Earnings

SBA Communications and American Tower Corporation announced today that they will be announcing their 3^rd quarter earnings within the next few weeks. SBA will release their results on Monday, November 4^th after the market closes and they will host a conference call on Tuesday, November 5^th at 10:00am to discuss the results. SBA Communications Corporation is a first choice provider and leading owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure in North, Central and South America. By "Building Better Wireless", SBA generates revenue from two primary businesses - site leasing and site development services. SBA's primary focus is the leasing of antenna space on its multi- tenant towers to a variety of wireless service providers under long-term lease contracts.

American Tower will announce their 3^rd quarter results at 7:00am on Wednesday, October 30, 2013. Their conference call will be held at 8:30am that same Wednesday to discuss the results. American Tower is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of wireless and broadcast communications real estate. American Tower currently owns and operates over 61,000 communications sites in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, Ghana, India, Mexico, Panama, Peru, South Africa and Uganda. 

Ruckus Wireless Named Leader in IDC MarketScape

Today Ruckus Wireless announced that it had been named a leader in the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise WLAN 2013-2014 Vendor Analysis.” This study looked at a variety of vendors that are part of the wireless LAN (WLAN) market. Ruckus Wireless is a global supplier of advanced wireless systems for the rapidly expanding mobile infrastructure market.

“This IDC MarketScape assessed the enterprise wireless LAN market through the lens of indoor WLAN infrastructure, with an emphasis on the current 802.11n standard and various deployment architectures. Capabilities and strategies for the emerging 802.11ac standard also played a role in IDC's analysis, as did offerings in the service provider WLAN space for cellular offload and managed services. IDC projects the worldwide market for enterprise wireless LAN equipment will grow from $4.6B in 2013 to over $7.8Bby 2017, with the biggest gains coming within the service provider and education sectors,” Ruckus Wireless explained.

Ruckus Wireless offers a wide range of indoor and outdoor products to mobile carriers, broadband service providers, and corporate enterprises. Ruckus Wireless works to create technology that can increase network capacity in order to keep up with the growing demand of wireless and broadband services.

According to IDC, "Ruckus has a strong history of internal innovation, from the pioneering of IPTV to various advances in antenna technology, including being an industry pioneer in adaptive antenna array and many other advanced RF functionalities. Ruckus' BeamFlex™ beamforming technology and dual-polarized smart antenna arrays allow for efficient spatial multiplexing, and Ruckus claims improved coverage in tough environments with fewer APs.”

AMT Keeps “Outperform Rating”, CEO Sells 100,000 Shares of Company Stock

Yesterday, Deutsche Bank reiterated their “outperform” rating for American Tower Corporation (AMT). This means the analysts believe that the American Tower Stock is going to do better than the market return.

Before Deutsche Bank released their rating, CEO James Taiclet Jr. sold 100,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 7^th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.73, for a total value of $7,273,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, Taiclet now directly owns 100,041 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,275,982. You can view the form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission here.

American Tower’s 52-week high is $85.26 and their 52-week low is $67.89. The AMT stock closed at $74.64 yesterday. Analysts at Nomura upgraded American Tower’s rating from “neutral” to “buy” back on September 16^th; whereas the analysts at Maquarie boosted the price target from $84 to $88 on September 17^th, giving American Tower an “outperform” rating.

American Tower released their 2013 Q2 earnings on July 31, 2013. They reported a core growth of 18.1% with a total rental and management revenue growth of 15.7%. The company expects the new business and core organic growth trends to remain favorable due to the carriers deploying networks worldwide. 

Why Is AT&T Selling Their Towers?

When buzz started spreading about Crown Castle International buying AT&T towers, many people may have questioned AT&T’s motive behind this sale. While AT&T’s main focus is providing their customers with exceptional mobile service, they have also taken to constructing cell sites in order to broaden the mobile coverage in many areas across the U.S. So why sell them now?

According to Trefis, “the sale of towers will help AT&T better allocate its cash to more important strategic ventures and take advantage of the surging data demand in the U.S. as well as abroad, it is not without its long-term risks.”

AT&T will be able to take the cash from the sale of its towers (reported to reach around $5 billion) and invest it into expanding their 4G LTE network. AT&T believes that they will generate more revenue through their LTE transition and possible overseas acquisitions than they can by keeping their towers.

“With subscriber growth stagnating, AT&T is looking to drive LTE adoption and promoting its Mobile Share data plans at the same time to increase ARPU levels. While shared data plans lock in users by allowing them to add more devices to their service plan, increasing 4G LTE adoption will incentivize the usage of more data-intensive applications and drive data consumption. Further, LTE as a network technology not only supports higher speeds but is also more efficient than current 3G networks at handling data, reducing AT&T’s maintenance and handling costs as LTE usage grows. However, all this will require continued 4G investment to not only increase LTE coverage but also improve network capacity,” Trefis says.
While AT&T will continue to build up their 4G LTE network throughout the U.S., they may also look into expanding the network into Europe. Oversees, less than 2% of people are on an LTE connection where as approximately 19% of the American population is on the network. 

The Need for More Spectrum and Cell Towers Is Apparent During Natural Disasters

When a natural disaster strikes, whether it’s a hurricane, wildfire, tsunami, or earthquake, they all have devastating repercussions. Among the effects caused by these tragedies are the family members desperately trying to reach their loved ones to see if they were alright. When Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast coast, the FCC reported that nearly 25% of the cell towers had been knocked out. USA Today noted that the limited technology and access to satellite networks inhibited the rescue efforts.

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti also showed how not having a well-developed wireless infrastructure can be detrimental. Haitian engineer, Charles-Edouard Denis, spoke with IEEE Spectrum about the impact of the earthquake on Haiti’s cellular infrastructure.

“Right after the earthquake, the only company that was still working was Haitel, but its network was quickly overloaded. It remained operational mostly because it utilized almost exclusively 30- to 60-metertowers that are built to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Digicel and Comcel were not operational at all, and since between the two they have more than 3 million subscriptions, a lot of people could not communicate,” Denis said.

“Most of the people trapped under the rubble were trying to use their phones to call family members to let them know where they were, but the service was not available, and no one came to help them. At a quarter to five in the afternoon, some people were not at work. They left early to either stop at a friend's house or at a supermarket. So family members had a hard time identifying the location of their loved ones and therefore could not help. Since Digicel has more than 2 million subscribers, this lack of telephone service caused a lot of deaths,” Denis explained.

Not only is there a need for more spectrum, because the demand for mobile spectrum is surpassing the available supply, there is a need for a stronger wireless infrastructure that is able to withstand strong winds in order to better assist people during natural disasters.

Darrell West, director of the center for technology innovation at the Brookings Institution, told USA Today that, “We need to make sure that there are strong backups because mobile has become integral to people's lives, and in a time of disaster sometimes it's their only lifeline to the outside world."