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Top 10 Tower Shots

 

brought to you by our Tower Shots Sponsor:     We receive tower shot submissions from around the globe. From a monopine down the block to a lattice tower in the mountains of Norway, these structures keep us connected in more ways than one. Our photos originate from owners, analysts and tower climbers alike. One of our most popular sections, ‘Tower Shots’ would cease to exist without you, so a huge thank you to those that take the time to photograph these majestic towers and the extra time to send pictures our way. We appreciate you and look forward to publishing even more incredible images in 2022. Below are some of the most popular images that we shared this year.

Microwave Site in Alaska by Chris Kramer.    2000' broadcast tower for WPDE in Dillon, SC by Michael Finley.   Photo by Jeff Little.   Contributed by Jay Panozzo.   Mt. Allison, San Jose, CA broadcast antenna install by Wireless Infrastructure Services.   Washington by Scott Birdsell.   Del Rio, TX contributed by RiverView Wireless.   Pensacola, FL contributed by Louis Raben.   Mark Uminski sent this photo to Inside Towers and says, "This was taken in Shanksville, PA on 9/11. They depict the deployment of emergency communications towers and associated radio and microwave backhaul equipment at the scene. I was CTO at Crown Castle at the time and helped coordinate the logistics of deploying these assets in conjunction with all of the carriers in this market area. It was a tumultuous day but I was extremely proud of how everyone worked together – carriers, our contractor and vendor partners and on scene first responders – to assist in setting up these vital communications links." Photo credit: John Armour. #NeverForget   Sunset moon silhouette in Hyannis, NE contributed by Eric Varela.

Tillman Infrastructure Builds Its 1,000th Tower

By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor

Tillman Infrastructure (TI), a privately held New York, NY-based tower company, constructed its 1,000th macro tower in the U.S at the end of 2020, starting with its first tower build in May 2017. Founded in 2016, TI believes it reached this milestone faster than any other towerco in the country. In an exclusive interview with Inside Towers, Suruchi Ahuja, TI President and CFO and Alexander Schwartz, TI Vice President, Business Development talked about the company’s progress to date and its outlook for the next several years. Ahuja attributes the company’s success to several factors. “Our ‘carrier first’ approach allows us to partner with the mobile network operators in ways that our goals align with their goals. Our team has extensive wireless carrier experience and understands carriers’ operational needs. Carriers are leveraging existing infrastructure but 5G needs a lot of new infrastructure. We install new tower infrastructure on their schedules,” says Ahuja. Continue Reading

Tailoring Small Cells That Please Both Carriers and Municipalities

By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor

The small cell business is ramping up: not to the anticipated levels of hundreds of thousands of units just yet, but by meeting the needs of municipalities, radio and antenna OEMs, and carriers as they come. One company laying a sound foundation for the future of small cells and C-band deployments, one buildout at a time, is Raycap. Raycap, who acquired Stealth® Concealment Solutions in 2018, is ready for those really large orders with thousands of poles, but in the meantime, it can easily handle smaller orders. “At Raycap, we got a chance to start from scratch in our designs, development, layout, and facility logistics,” Ken Wedholm, Raycap Eastern Regional Sales Manager representing the Stealth product line, told Inside Towers.  Each municipality wants to protect its cityscape, whether it is historic or modern, and each neighborhood has a unique aesthetic and requirement for its small cells. “Some cities don't want the same poles that they have two cities over. They want something unique and special to them,” Wedholm said. “That's why we’ve always been extremely nimble in our manufacturing capabilities. We have the capabilities to switch gears on a dime to manufacture a different product, type, style or configuration meeting any custom needs.” Continue Reading

The Ronin Lift: Powered Ascent for Every Climber’s Tool KitThe Ronin Lift: Powered Ascent for Every Climber’s Tool Kit

The brainchild of a team of engineers with a shared background in designing rescue hoists and winches for helicopters, the Ronin Lift is a game-changer in the tower industry. It allows climbers to ascend to height quickly and safely, and it’s affordable enough to be in the hands of every at-height worker.

Ronin CEO Bryant Bertrand said his team “decided to embark on an adventure” in 2016 when they started to design an ascender available to every climber, regardless of skill level, and inclusive of all at height industries.

“Give Us 60 Seconds and We’ll Give You 90 Feet”
Released in 2018, the Ronin Lift is easy to use, lightweight (at less than 25 pounds), and can support a working load of 400 pounds. Features like powered reverse, a variable lift speed of up to two feet per second, a hands-free brake, and a hot-swappable battery pack make it ideal for tower climbers, arborists, utility workers, and other at-height professionals. The product was developed to the relevant ANSI standards in the U.S. and is certified to European standards. Watch how it works here.

Fighting the Fatigue Factor
Bertrand described how the Ronin Lift helps prevent accidents by fighting the root cause: Worker fatigue. Continue Reading

Home for the Holidays?

By Martha DeGrasse, Inside Towers Contributing Analyst

Not everybody wants to be home for the holidays. Some have been stuck at home for almost two years thanks to COVID and are now wondering if it’s safe to travel to see relatives this year. Others are in the process of redefining home this holiday season, like the 12,000 refugees who have migrated to Amarillo, Texas to escape violence south of the border. For these people, home is about to get a lot better, thanks to a program called Amarillo Connected. Amarillo Connected is the brainchild of city CIO Rich Gagnon, who secured $12 million in funding through the American Rescue Plan to connect schoolchildren within Amarillo’s refugee population, as well as others living in underserved areas of his city. He and his team evaluated several potential solutions, finally choosing Mimosa Networks’ fixed wireless point to multipoint system that transmits in the 4.9 GHz – 6.425 GHz range. Continue Reading

FCC Ponders More C-Band Restrictions

The FCC is considering putting more restrictions on wireless use of C-band, including a nationwide power reduction. That occurs as the Biden administration works on how best to free up that spectrum for 5G without risking interference to aviation communications. Wireless deployments in the band were delayed from December 5, given concerns by the Federal Aviation Administration, but are now scheduled to launch January 5, 2022. 

In answers to questions from Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Rosenworcel said information the agency received from the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics suggested wireless 5G operations could cause erroneous aviation radio altimeter readings, reported NextTV. This occurred after the agency approved rules for wireless use on the band. Continue Reading