Views and News November 20, 2015
Here it is! Views and news!
What’s going on in the industry?
- Free the Indoor Small Cell! That’s what I want the carriers to do. You see, they should make it so that the contractors can install the indoor enterprise small cells, the current process, more or less, is that you need to go through the carrier to do it. I think that they should change that and create a process where the contractors could purchase the approved small cell and install it for the enterprise. This would be better for all the businesses because it would free up the small cells to be installed indoors where ever needed. My opinion here but I think it would really help.
- AT&T is going to offer a $7,500 reward if someone can help them arrest the bum that took down a tower, do you have any leads?
- Something that has been bothering everyone ion the tower industry is “What Happened to Ernie?” If you haven’t been able to keep up, this is Ernie Jones, he died in an elevator accident on a tower, he was over 500 feet up. I got the story from someone who reached out to me to make sure that others don’t make the same mistake. Please, when working at a tower site, pay attention to what you’re doing! Ernie was just shy of 65 years old.
- There was a tower climber, Trevor Flum, who died in a car crash last year. His cousin, Kevin Flum is trying to become a musician, specifically a rapper. He has a real shot at making it. I think if we all vote for this kid he may be able to perform live in Dallas on New Year’s Eve.
- For all of you interested in working on broadband deployment, you don’t necessarily have to be a carrier and wait for the money to trickle down. Make sure to stay in touch with the other communications companies, you see the FCC released over $16M to Skybeam LLC, Daktel Communications LLC, Federated Telephone Cooperative, and Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative. So get busy and call them!
- 2 guys working on a mountain top got stranded when the helicopter could not take off.
- The Wireless Deployment Handbook for Small Cells, CRAN, and DAS!
- So many people who work in this industry understand that you need to show your credentials to so many people. Specifically customers but the companies need to be responsible for all of the workers certifications. I have found that many companies let them expire and don’t track them the way they should. That is why I wrote a post about keeping them up to date. I found a way to easily present them in the field as well by using a QR reader app on a smartphone. The QR reader app is free and easy to get on the iPhone or on Droid. The service to load up your credentials is called QRedentials and is a subscription service. I really think it’s easy to use and any company that gets asked to show their certification should have this. You could continue to carry the binder around and if that works, great. I was just trying to find an easy way to manage and show your certifications out in the field. Go ahead and play with what I have on the blog.
- I have a podcast which you can subscribe to! iTunes or Stitcher or Player.FM, Listen then please, go to iTunes and leave me a review!
- Wireless Deployment Handbooks are here!
Don’t forget to share and forward to friends (or enemies)!
Quote of the week:Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another…Napoleon Hill
Feedback! What so you think? Reply and tell me!
Thank you Tower Safety, http://towersafety.com/ for supporting this newsletter! Your resource for OSHA and tower rescue training. Soon, drone training will be available. For more information reach out to Tower Safety at 480-313-0678 today!
Back to Top
CommScope got the approval of Verizon to use the ION-E for iDAS!
American Tower brings up the challenges of DAS and small cell installation. That story is here.
ExteNet’s investment in DAS and small cells makes investors very happy!
Interested in DAS testing? RCR did a good story and video on it here.
Crown Castle just won’t stop believing in small cells, so much so they are making more moves to improve their small cell dominance!
What does the Ericsson and Cisco partnership mean to small cells, I have an article here. I have to tell you, unless both sides commit to make this work, it may have problems. My opinion is that if they are all in then it should work but most times one partner will sell the other’s equipment but the other will not give a great price break or support the deal the way they should. I have seen this when other companies partnered. Often it can be one sided. Also, one partner may look at the other as a lead magnet, but then steal the customers or undercut the partner price for the customer. Remember that both sides add margin.
Cox is offering a small cell turnkey service, read more about it here.
Back to Top
The USA senate pulled the Mobile Now bill from the table because they want more time to look it over. The bill is going to free up 500MHz of spectrum. In case you’re wondering how that will affect you, look at it this way, more spectrum means more deployment which will mean more work for all of us! It the wireless business ecosystem I cherish so much that sends work our way!
The FCC is reaching out to states to stop them from limited broadband builds, and the states are really getting pissed off that they are being bullied, at least that’s how they feel. The FCC feels that some states should not limit broadband deployments.
The FCC will give the broadcasters some more time after the auction.
Back to Top
Tower News
The new AGL magazine is out!
Back to Top
Fiber takes a lot of work, but they don’t have wireless in this article. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/13/these-photos-show-how-the-internet-gets-built-with-cables-a-big-machine-and-lots-of-dirt/?wprss=rss_business
Nokia says we need more IoT standards. http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/iot/articles/412976-nokia-emphasizes-need-more-iot-standards.htm
Need fiber in Georgia? Tower Cloud is putting down 25,000 miles of fiber.
LTE-U Versus Wi-Fi, the debate continues.
Harris County figures out how a public safety LTE system could sustain the costs incurred, in other words, how FirstNet will continue to fund its system after the $7B runs out.
Let’s use Wi-Fi for more than passing data, let’s use it to power devices! More information here.
Back to Top
Sprint to create regional offices after downsizing. Now it will have 4 regional presidents that will all report to Mr. Claure. I will keep my phone ready in case they try to recruit me for one of those president gigs.
Sprint appears to be in bad shape, they might even have to lease out the network. Is that so bad? Maybe someone else could do a better job. Maybe Softbank is going to just give up.
AT&T seems to think that most M2M communication will be the cellular system. They admit most people start with Wi-Fi then go to Cellular. I don’t understand why it would not be like your smart phone which chooses Wi-Fi first then if the Wi-Fi drops it goes to the carrier’s system.
T-Mobile wants to push Verizon out of the auction or at list limit what those deep pockets can bid on.
Sprint offers a 50% discount on anyone leaving Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile.
Sprint continues to slowly roll out LTE across the country.
Back to Top
Battery life is improving for Drones!
Back to Top
Alcatel-Lucent takes LTE and Wi-Fi to the enterprise. https://techzine.alcatel-lucent.com/all-wireless-enterprise-lte-and-wi-fi?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokuK7MZKXonjHpfsX57uspXqOzlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4JT8F0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEOTbfYVrlrt6UJWgemXSjrtqDIZoxAZZ13gZA4
Want to save on DAS costs, Alcatel-Lucent came up with a low power radio head just for DAS and it saves not only on power but on cooling.
Alcatel-Lucent made it’s CPRI interface very simple for use with DAS systems so that people can use their low power radio head in new DAS systems. What a great idea!
Cisco said that they thought the Nokia takeover of Alcatel-Lucent will fail, but is it because they mean it or are they scared? This article thinks that they are running scared, which is may be why they partnered with Ericsson.
Nokia strikes back at Cisco, the Nokia CEO implies that if his merger is such a bad idea, then why did Cisco and Ericsson do the same thing?
Back to Top
Interested in Milimeter Wave Active Component characterization? IEEE has a free class. https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=1074634&sessionid=1&key=C79D5A8C8C385038E68D9DDC06109AEA&sourcepage=register
Learn more about the Smart RAN. https://youtu.be/zhB9swXiKPU
What is LTE? http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/110711-what-is-lte
Define DPoE: DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network)
Interested in 5G? Alcatel-Lucent has a white paper on it.
LTE quick guide as a good tutorial.
LTE Roaming explained http://www.tutorialspoint.com/lte/lte_network_architecture.htm
LTE Roaming architecture. http://www.tutorialspoint.com/lte/lte_roaming_architecture.htm
CommScope has free eBooks for you to download! They added on about microwave communications that I think you should check out. http://www.commscope.com/Resources/eBooks/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=blogging
How does Wi-Fi work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmabFJUKMdg or try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=METB1o4UAT8
Learn about LRM Radio at Tait’s online courses. They have a list of courses here.
Nationwide SAR Initiative training for Law Enforcement https://nsi.ncirc.gov/(X(1)S(nituqbbxnkutkve3r1a52t1o))/training_online.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Telecommunications Best Practices for Missing Children https://www.ncjtc.org/AmberAlert/Courses/DistanceLearning/Telecommunications/Pages/default.aspx
MIMO Tutorial http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/lte-long-term-evolution/lte-mimo.php
How MIMO works http://electronicdesign.com/dsps/how-mimo-works
Interested in learning more about fiber? http://fiberu.org/
Fluke will give you a handy fiber cleaning pocket guide!
Are you Rope Access certified? Do you know about SPRAT? It is rope access certification for anyone who would be on a tower, in a tree, or scaling a wall.
LTE Tutorial: http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/lte-long-term-evolution/3gpp-4g-imt-lte-advanced-tutorial.php
Back to Top
|