Carr: U.S. Needs to Ramp Up to 60,000 Cell Sites a Year

 
Returning to the Competitive Carriers Association’s 2018 Annual Convention yesterday was a homecoming of sorts for FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. He gave his first speech as a Commissioner at that event, one year ago.

He said the agency began attacking a long list of pending items last year, including a swap-out order, or when a provider looks to replace a utility pole to add new antennas.

The FCC acted on twilight towers, built between 2001 and 2005, which did not necessarily go through historic review.  However, other parts of the federal government must now weigh in. The item could open up “thousands of existing towers [to] co-location,” Carr said. His colleague, Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, wants the issue to be wrapped-up, Inside Towers reported. Continue Reading

Trump Administration Voices Pro-Infrastructure Deployment

The big takeaway from Friday’s 5G event at the White House is that federal agencies, members of Congress, private industry and their associations are all pulling in the same direction when it comes to infrastructure development. Wireless Infrastructure Association President Jonathan Adelstein spoke with Inside Towers following the event, saying there was an emphasis on the “indispensable role of infrastructure to enable 5G.”

He said there’s an “intense focus and coordination” on infrastructure deployment now, with leadership from the White House, in concert with federal agencies like the FCC, National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Congress. FCC’s Brendan Carr, for example, discussed the order the agency passed last week to ease small cell siting in a public right-of-way. Carr emphasized how quickly China is deploying cell sites compared to the U.S., according to the WIA executive.


Adelstein indicated many localities are working with industry on siting small cells because they want updated technology. The FCC’s recent order is meant to reign in unreasonable practices. “We need cooperative relationships with localities” to site 5G, emphasized Adelstein. Continue Reading

NAB Calls Graduated Scale FM Repack Funds a No Go

NAB this week urged the FCC to drop its proposal to reimburse FMs that are co-located on a television tower impacted by the TV channel repack on a graduated scale, depending on how long the disruption lasts. NAB says the concept “fundamentally misapprehends the dramatic and damaging effect of going off air for FM stations and their listeners.” Potentially “hundreds” of FMs located on or near towers supporting repacked TV stations may have to operate at reduced power or shut down entirely for “extended” periods to protect tower workers, according to NAB.
 
Under the agency’s proposal, stations off the air for 10 or fewer days would be eligible for 50 percent of the expenses for interim facilities. Stations off the air for 30 or fewer days would be eligible for 75 percent, and stations off the air for more than 30 days would be eligible for 100 percent. The proposal is “arbitrary and capricious,” and could disproportionately impact small and rural broadcasters and listeners, the association says in a filing. Continue Reading

FCC Hears About Muni Denying Crown Project and The $350K Bill

As the FCC prepares to vote on an order to ease small cell siting today, Inside Towers reviews Crown Castle’s recent experiences to see why the towerco supports the Commission’s planned changes. In a recent lobbying visit, Crown Castle representatives told FCC officials, the company favors the agency’s efforts to limit localities’ application fees. Calling the proposal, “timely and necessary,” the towerco cited an example from July from Hillsborough, CA (pop. 11,420).

There, the company submitted applications covering 16 nodes and was assessed $60,000 in application fees. The town denied the applications, and then invoiced Crown for an additional $351,773, “most of which appears to be related to outside counsel fees — all for equipment that was not approved and has not yet been constructed,” the company told the FCC in a recent filing. Continue Reading

Muni Input Brushed Aside on Small Cell Siting, Say BDAC Reps

Two municipal representatives on the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee say localities’ concerns were brushed aside as the Commission prepared the small cells siting streamlining item, to be voted on next week.

Debbi Goldman, the representative for Communications Workers of America on the BDAC’s Model Code for Municipalities Working Group, calls the draft order “inconsistent” with the working group’s recommendations and an overreach of federal authority,” in a filing this week. The proposal sets “presumptively reasonable” siting costs at $270 per year per site, according to Goldman, who adds the working group didn’t reach a conclusion about fees because “of a lack of agreement.”

“The draft order ignores our work, choosing instead to further the interests of the wireless industry over that of the public,” Goldman writes. The proposal also limits local aesthetic requirements and historical review. She also takes issue with this, noting those standards are set based on local community concerns and have a direct bearing on a city’s “economic development, historic preservation, property values, tax levels, and jobs.” Continue Reading

Cell Tower Outages Drop Overall, Isolated Areas Show an Increase

The majority of cell sites in the Carolinas remained operating as of Monday, however the percentages of outages in some counties rose. North and South Carolina are still experiencing heavy flooding due to the storm that began as Hurricane Florence.

In North Carolina, out of the 5,790 total cell sites, 683 were not operational as of yesterday. That compares to 787 cell sites not working on Sunday.  

In Onslow County, 50.7 percent of the 227 cell sites were not working yesterday. That compares to 38.8 percent the day before. In Jones County, 38.3 percent of the 47 cell sites were offline, compared to 23.4 percent out the day before. Duplin County remained steady with 36 percent of 89 sites offline. Carteret County had the most cell sites out of service as of Sunday when 45.6 percent out of 103 sites were not operational. Monday, the outages dropped to just over 30 percent, with 31 sites out.  Continue Reading

Most Cell Sites Pummeled by Florence Are Still Working

 
The majority of cell sites in the Carolinas remained operating as of Sunday, days after Hurricane Florence made landfall. Now a tropical depression, Florence pummeled the Carolinas and parts of Georgia and Virginia with wind and rain, leaving widespread flooding. More than 700,000 people remained without power in the Carolinas as of Sunday, WWAY-TV reported.

In North Carolina, 86.4 percent of the 5,790 total cell sites were operational as of Sunday. 787 cell sites, or 13.6 percent, were not working, according to the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS). That’s down significantly from Saturday, when 18.4 percent, out of a total of 1,063 sites, were not working, according to DIRS. New Hanover County had the most non-operational cell sites, 134 out of 287, on Saturday. Continue Reading