The Pennsylvania Wireless Association (PWA) last week centered a conference about 5G and FirstNet around Lincoln’s “hallowed ground” of the Gettysburg battlefield. The two-day event featured a bus tour of the historic site and a social at the park’s museum on Wednesday followed by a second day of in-depth discussions on 21st Century telecommunications issues.
Keynote speaker and CEO of Vertical Bridge, Alex Gellman spoke on the modern day skirmishes between local and federal authorities regarding mandates on deployment policies. Gellman said the pushback against small cells will continue as several states now have telecommunications bills that have stalled, Pennsylvania’s included.
“Refrigerator box-sized equipment is not a small cell,” he said. Gellman said macro towers are having a renaissance, however, as search rings for FirstNet sites starts to proliferate. “It’s hard to beat the economics of a macro. The fundamentals have not changed; you need a place to put a signal and need to connect it,” he said. Gellman said the appearance of huge pension funds as financial investors bodes well for the long-term stability and growth of the tower industry.
October 30, 2018
