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Friday, July 7, 2017 Volume 5 | Issue 132

Disagreement on How to Trim Trump’s $80B Rural Broadband Price TagExperts say President Donald Trump’s plan to bring broadband service to rural areas won’t be easy and will becostly — about $80 billion. However the White House initially proposed spending $25 billion over 10 years on ruralinfrastructure.

Policy experts disagree on the best methodology to use and how much of the tab the federal government shouldpay for, reports Bloomberg. “Our suspicion is the president’s plan won’t be sufficient,’’ said Johnathan Hladik, policydirector for the Center for Rural Affairs, a Nebraska-based non-profit that advocates for small farms. “We’re happyhe’s saying it. You also have to do it, and that’s where it gets tough.’’

Only 55 percent of rural Americans have access to download speeds faster than 25 Mbps, compared to 94 percentin urban areas, according to a 2016 Congressional Research Service report. Advocates say high-speed internet isnecessary for everyday life and business. Inside Towers has reported several members of Congress who representrural areas have constituents who must do their school work or some of their business in fast food parking lots toget WiFi. Continue Reading

Massachusetts$140 Million Project on Track to Bring WiFi to MBTA Trains

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has plans to erect four75-foot monopoles along the Ipswich section of the railway to improve WiFi serviceon trains, reported The Local News. An additional 320 monopoles are planned for

the communities north of Boston, including Manchester, Gloucester, Beverly, Rockport, Hamilton, Wenham,Swampscott, Salem, Lawrence, Rowley, and Newbury.

The inMotion-managed project is being met with opposition by the community. “People are going to be looking atmonopoles in their backyard,” town manager Robin Crosbie cautioned. Continue Reading

Repack May Impact Nearly 700 FMs, Study Shows

The first column indicates counts for the scenario where only TV stations that are going off-air are considered. The second indicates FMs affectedby TV stations that are changing channels. The last column shows the results when both stations going off-air and those changing channels areconsidered. The combined total is not a simple sum of the first two columns because some FMs are affected by both a channel going off-air and astation that is changing channels.

Nearly 700 FM stations are likely to be affected by the television channel repack, concludes a study conducted byV-Soft Communications. The analysis identifies 678 FM stations that may need to reduce power, shut down, oroperate from an auxiliary facility as work is being done on a neighboring TV station antenna to ensure tower workersafety from RF exposure, NAB tells the Commission; the broadcast trade lobby commissioned the work.

The report lists FM stations likely to be affected by TV antenna modifications by full-service and class A TV facilitiesin three cases, according to the engineering consulting firm:

· For TV stations changing channels due to repacking.· For TV stations going off the air. Tower work will be needed to remove antennas.· A combined total considering both channel changes and stations that are going off the air was determined. Continue Reading

Irish-made Airborne Network Seeks FCC LicenseA new airborne datalink system is close to production, and will be capable of reaching 1,000 Mbps download andupload speeds, claims Dublin-based Aeronet Global Communications Services, which has been testing itstechnology with a customized helicopter, reports Runway Girl Network.

Aeronet CEO Brian Russell explained the high data transmission speeds are achievable because the firm’sequipment mimics the way 4G cell towers communicate. “The way 4G cell towers talk to each other in a staticenvironment, we’re making that work in an aerial environment. So very high-capacity point-to-point datalinks. It’sboth air-to-ground (ATG) and it’s air-to-air, forming a mesh.”

Aeronet is seeking licenses in the 1,000 MHz spectrum range from the FCC. The project is similar to the AirborneWireless Network, according to Russell. Each aircraft in the network would carry three antennas: one on theunderside for ATG communication, one in the nose cone to connect to the next aircraft, and one in the tail toreceive transmissions from the air. The datalink system is on schedule to launch in 2018. CaliforniaLA County Firefighters Oppose Cell Towers: RF Makes it Too Hot VIDEO The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) opposes cell towers being built near and atop their firehouses,put in place by the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) to improvecommunication among emergency responders. Firefighters believe the structures represent radiation and otherhealth safety hazards and have they’ve voiced their concerns with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors,reports KABC-TV.

LA-RICS plans 177 towers in total. As of 2016, eight were completed and another 51 were under constructionbefore the project stopped because of the concerns.

Firefighters and residents said they were not alerted of the cell tower construction and oppose the project, whichthey believe was pushed through before federal funding expired, reports KABC-TV. The board decided toinvestigate alternatives and ask for an extension on funding from the federal government. Continue Reading

July 6, 2017 at Close

Qualcomm to Post Q3 Results July 19Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) will publish the company's financial results for its third quarter fiscal2017 on Wednesday, July 19 after the market closes on its Investor Relations website. The earnings release willalso be furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Form 8-K, which will be available on the SECwebsite.

Qualcomm will also host a conference call to discuss its third quarter fiscal 2017 results on July 19 beginning at1:45 p.m. Pacific Time (PT) here. An audio replay will be available here and via telephone, following the live call for30 days.

NAB Calls Microsoft’s White Space Plan “Nonsense”UHF white spaces, the unlicensed frequencies between television channels, are the latestflash point between broadcasters and other industries. Microsoft supports the Commission’sproposal to preserve one UHF “white space” channel in each market now that TV

broadcasters are transitioning into the channel repack post-auction. It urges the FCC to do that immediately and notwait until final TV channel assignments are made, saying the issue is vital to “support investment by semiconductorand device makers and to enable broadband internet access for rural and underserved Americans.”

Broadcasters disagree, saying acting now would cut-off channel options for potentially scores of stations, especiallyin New Mexico, Utah, and the Tennessee/North Carolina border.

Microsoft counters the FCC doesn’t need to preserve the same white space channel nationwide, just one in eachmarket. The company cites 1,000 computer simulations per market that it says shows doing so “would have noimpact” on any full-power station and “minimal” impact on LPTV stations “even in the “worst-case scenarios,” in afiling describing lobbying efforts. Continue Reading

IllinoisGolf Course Location Put on Hold For Public Open CommentsCentral States Tower wants to put up a tower in Mundelein at the Countryside Golf Club for client Verizon. Eventhough it’s not pristine park land, the Lake County Forest Preserve District wants a public open house andmoratorium on the project first. Three towers already exist on district land but were grandfathered in after the landwas acquired, according to the Daily Herald.

A site close to a maintenance building parking lot was chosen as it represented the least impact on adjoiningproperties. Neighborhood opposition has prevented several towers from going up in the area. A representative fromCentral States, Richard Riley, told the Daily Herald the board was sensitive to public opinion. Wireless & BroadcastSiting Advisors, working on behalf of the tower developer, said an open house would add too much time andexpense to the project.

Mundelein Board Commissioner Chuck Bartels said if it can be done in a way that is not offensive to the neighbors,he would move to have the project go forward. The tower would generate an unspecified revenue stream for thetownship.

Tower Powered Cell Phones Possible After New ResearchAfter developing a battery-free cell phone, researchers at the University of Washington are setting their sights onadapting their base station design to enable cell towers and other wireless devices to power cell phones. The newtechnology was announced in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery onInteractive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies on July 1. Instead of a battery, the phone producespower from light or ambient radio signals, says Eurekalert.org.

Co-author Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science &Engineering at the University, said the project was difficult. “To achieve the really, really low power consumptionthat you need to run a phone by harvesting energy from the environment, we had to fundamentally rethink howthese devices are designed,” he said.

To save energy, the team eliminated the need to convert analog signals conveying sound into digital data. Instead,an antenna converts motion from vibrations in the microphone into standard analog radio signals that are emitted bycellular base stations. Speech patterns are encoded in the signals, and the phone’s speaker converts the signalsinto sound. With less options to use power, the device operates on solar power and ambient radio signalstransmitted from base stations and cell towers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will hold a stakeholder meeting July17, 2017, in Washington, D.C., to discuss the future direction of the agency's VoluntaryProtection Programs (VPP).

OSHA is seeking to reshape VPP so that it continues to represent safety and healthexcellence, leverages partner resources, further recognizes the successes of long-term participants, and supportssmart program growth. They will explore topics such as how the agency can enhance and encourage the efforts ofemployers, workers and unions to identify and address workplace hazards through the VPP.

Those wishing to attend must register by July 10 here. Attendees can choose from several levels of participation inthe discussion. For those who may not be able to attend in person, a docket has been opened to receive

comments. You can provide your input and/or read others' comments here. The docket closes September 15.

According to the press release, OSHA anticipates hosting a second Stakeholder Meeting tentatively scheduled tooccur immediately prior to the VPPPA National Conference the week of August 28th in New Orleans.

United KingdomThe UK Has Spotty Service With Connection Speeds...London IncludedIn the past, the United Kingdom government has made pledges to ensure a bare minimum broadband connectionspeed of 10 Megabits-per-second across the nation—but, according to a recent report, at least 12 local authorityareas failed to meet that standard, reports the Independent.

According to a study conducted by the consumer group Which?, several areas failed to register a 10 Mbpsconnection. Rural areas in Scotland are disproportionately plagued with poor connection speeds, but the study alsoshowed several boroughs of London lag behind the government-set standard, including Southwark, Westminster,Lambeth, Hackney and the City of London.

Using their Speedchecker app to measure speeds, Which? ranked the areas with the top ten performing internetspeeds as well as the poorest performing areas. Find the complete list here. Which? Managing Director Alex Neillencourages consumers to check their broadband speeds to ensure they meet minimum standards. “This will alsohelp to further highlight where problem areas are across the UK, putting pressure on government and providers tohelp everyone get a good broadband connection,” Neill told the Independent.

In response to the study, a spokesperson for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: “Superfastbroadband is now available to 93 percent of the UK, and we are reaching thousands more homes and businessesevery week. These figures don’t show what broadband is available. They show many people haven’t taken upspeeds that are already available to them.”

Way Too Much For Oklahoma

In our July 5 story “Hot Spot” Pilot Program Gives Rural Oklahomans Connectivity to Broadband we said $7 billionwas spent in Oklahoma alone on the program. Not even close. That was the national expenditure for the program.Sorry, Oklahoma, it’s OK.

Tower-Pro.com, Inside Towers’ companion Buyer’s Guide has over 3,500 listings in 130+ categories. Eachmonth we will be featuring one of our primary categories. This month, we’re highlighting Safety Training.

Should your company be in one of these categories?See if you’re listed and if you only have a basic listing, find out why you should upgrade here.

We will be randomly highlighting our enhanced listings in Inside Towers for added exposure.Email us with questions or for assistance.

Latest posting from the FCC 7/6/17

A safety climb install in Lake Elsinore, CA contributed by Kodie Huntley via Instagram.

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