FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr says he became worried when recently climbing a practice tower at Sioux Falls Tower & Communications, as employees began shaking the structure. The point was to give him a sense of the conditions on a taller, say 2,000 foot, tower. He thanked Sioux Falls co-founder Craig Snyder and National Association of Tower Erectors Executive Director Todd Schlekeway Thursday for the work their organizations are doing to train and improve safety for tower climbers, during a wireless event in Philadelphia.
Carr is helping to shape the Commission’s efforts to streamline siting rules for both macro towers and small cells to speed the transition to 5G. Up to 80 percent of new deployments will be small cells, Carr said, according to prepared remarks released by the FCC. “These deployments will look nothing like the hundred-foot towers that many people associate with prior generations of wireless service. In fact, when I was in Iowa a couple of weeks ago, I toured a manufacturing factory that not only presses and welds large iron sheets into tall towers, but increasingly builds ‘stealth’ enclosures for small cells. Some are incorporated into streetlights, and others look just like city trash cans.”
Cutting regulatory red tape for small cells “is a big deal because it can flip the business case for thousands of communities,” Carr said, reiterating remarks he made at a University of Maryland wireless event earlier this year. “Communities that might have been uneconomical for the private sector to serve, will now get their shot at next-gen networks.”
As the agency modernizes its physical infrastructure rules, the FCC is looking at the role that state and local reviews play in easing deployment of next-gen wireless infrastructure. There’s “no question” states and localities should be compensated for reasonable costs they incur in managing Rights-of-Way and access to public infrastructure, he said. But that doesn’t mean they should view each deployment as a revenue stream, either. The agency is reviewing its shot clocks on local reviews and wants to promote greater parity between the treatment of wireless infrastructure and other ROW uses.
June 15, 2018
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