Monday, October 27, 2014 Volume 2 | Issue 207

Inside Towers Page 1

T-Mobile Makes Changes to Keep Others Out The secret cell tower snooping devices have been all over the news lately. A lot of customers want to know how they can stop this, the ACLU wants to know how the government is going to handle this situation, and carriers are doing their best to let everyone know who requests information from their towers and when. T-Mobile has been quietly upgrading their network to make it more difficult for surveil-lance equipment to eavesdrop on calls and texts, according to the Washington Post. “The upgrade involves switching to a new encryp-tion standard, called A5/3, that is harder to crack than older forms of encryption,” Ashkan Soltani and Craig Timberg of the Washington

Post explained. “Testing by The Washington Post has found T-Mobile networks using A5/3 in New York, Washington and Boulder, Colorado, instead of the older A5/1 that long has been standard for second-generation (2G) GSM networks in the United States. More advanced technologies, such as 3G and 4G, already use stronger encryption.” T-Mobile didn’t explain the extent of the network up-grades, but said in a statement, “T-Mobile is continuously implementing advanced security technolo-gies in accordance with worldwide recognized and trusted standards.”

More Congested Networks Coming Your Way AT&T AT&T announced during their third quarter earnings release that they have added more than 500,000 connected cars to their network. CFO of AT&T, John Stephens, noted, “We reached our 4G LTE build target in the third quarter four months ahead of schedule. The nation’s most reliable LTE network now covers more than 300 million people. We continue to improve our self identity and add capacity to help keep our network best-in-class.” Even though their LTE network is almost complete, continuously adding connected cars to the network will slow down connections. Not only is AT&T connecting GM and Audis to its LTE network it’s providing the 3G connectivity linking Tesla and new Volvo vehicles in the U.S. America Movil Says No to T-Mo America Movil is not talking to anybody at this stage about a possible purchase of T-Mobile US, Chief Executive Daniel Hajj told a conference call on Friday, according to Reuters. Germany's Monthly Manager Magazin on Thursday said America Movil was a possible buyer of the company, citing people familiar with Deutsche Telekom. (Reuters)

Sprint Learns from 2012 Superstorm Sandy When Hurricane Sandy hit the northeastern seaboard things went haywire, especially in the telecommunications sector. The area wasn’t used to storms such as this, and the infrastructure didn’t handle the storm very well. The FCC reported that 25% of the cell towers in 10 states were knocked out during the storm. While Sprint wasn’t the only carrier to lose sites, they did share what this storm taught them. Ann Goodman of Green Biz reported, “Among the key learnings from the debacle, said Tanya Jones, manager of Sprint Corp.’s vital Emergency Response Team Opera-tions: How better to rebuild; where better to stage; how bet-

ter to ‘future-proof our technology to ensure our equipment is upgraded and our personnel equipped’ for disaster.” During the hurricane, Sprint was able to provide critical communications services to various first responders and emergency agencies using vehicles such as COWS (Cell On Wheels) and COLTS (Cell on Light Trucks). “While a disaster is a disaster, I subscribe to the theory that the climate is changing weather patterns. You see more forest fires in the west and more hurricanes; you see increased water and air temperatures and storm activities; and there’s been an uptick in se-verity of storms,” Jones said. Carriers must stay prepared to handle any type of climate change that comes their way. Kalamazoo City Commission Agrees to Sell Tower Leases Last week, the Kalamazoo City Commission in Michigan voted to sell the revenue from 16 cell tower leases resulting in $4.6 million for the city. Crown Castle will receive 14 cell tower lease contracts for 50 years, ending after 2064, in exchange for a lump-sum payment of $3.9 million. The city also will sell the revenue from two other cell tower lease contracts to SBA Assets LLC for a period ending af-ter 2028 for a lump-sum payment of $720,000. According to MLive.com, “Commissioner Barb Miller at first expressed reservations about approving the deal, saying some people are worried the city is losing a revenue stream down the road for a one-time deal.” Miller explained, “My biggest problem is it ties our hands for 50 years.” However, The city will keep the rights to any new lease revenue for city property not involved in either proposal. In the Crown Castle International proposal, any new revenue involved in a new lease agreement for the 50-year term would be split with the city receiving 80 percent of the proceeds. Fluvana to Build Multi-Million Dollar Communications System

Fluvana County, Virginia, is about to have a brand new multi-million dollar emergency communications system to cover the county with radio and TV service, according to WVIR-TV. Fluvanna County is one of four localities in Vir-ginia the feds call "disadvantaged" for broadband and cellu-lar service. The county hopes new towers and technology will change that. Sheriff Eric Hess noted that there were dead zones where communication cuts off in the Bremo and Kent areas as well as along the river. Fluvanna's emer-

gency services coordinator, Cheryl Wilkins, says radio and cell service covers only 25 to 30 percent of the county. WVIR-TV reported, “A private company will put up three towers in some of the most rural parts of Fluvanna: Kents Store, Bremo Bluff, and Columbia. The county is preparing to hire a contractor to build a new multi-million-dollar e-911 system, including high-tech radios for countywide coverage.” Hopefully, this new communications system will keep emergency personnel in constant contact with each other and enhance cell service in the area.

Inside Towers Page 2

Man Who Jumped from Long Branch Tower ID’ed The man who jumped to his death from a 400-foot radio tower in Long Branch, New Jersey, was identified as Christopher Zweidinger, 38, of the Whiting section of Manchester. He was pronounced dead at the scene after he jumped from the Y107 radio tower on Monday and landed in a vacant building, Public Safety Director Jason Roebuck said. Verizon Sells $6.5 Billion of Bonds to Refinance Debt Verizon Communications took advantage of the lowest borrowing costs in about a year with a bond sale to push out maturities on some of its $23 billion of debt coming due over the next four years, Bloomberg reported. The proceeds from the $6.5 billion offering will help redeem notes maturing be-tween 2015 and 2018, according to a regulatory filing. The sale, which may help reduce interest pay-ments for the largest U.S. wireless carrier, included $2.5 billion portions of 10- and 20-year securities and $1.5 billion of seven-year notes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Is It Time to Buy American Tower Corporation's Stock? By Anders Bylund, published in The Motley Fool

Is American Tower a buy today, one week before the cell tower operator reports third-quarter re-sults? Spoiler alert: I opened a real-money position in this stock a month ago, and American Tower has done absolutely nothing to undermine my analysis since then. In short, there's much to love about this stock and very little to dislike. What's so special about American Tower? Despite its flag-waving corporate name, American Tower runs a global business with operations on five continents. In particular, the company is open for business in exciting growth markets including India, South America, and Africa. As the next billion people connect to the Internet and to modern communica-

Inside Towers Page 3

tions networks, American Tower will play a part where the growth opportunities are the richest. This international focus sets American Tower apart from rivals Crown Castle and SBA Communications. Seventy-five percent of SBA's towers sit on American soil. The domestic part of Crown Castle's op-erations rises to 96% since less than 2,000 towers come from a recent expansion in Australia. But American Tower owns or leases 40,700 towers in foreign markets, alongside 28,500 U.S. sites. That's 59% international operations and only 41% domestic. And the company is still busy buying out established foreign tower networks, accelerating its international expansion. This is the key fea-ture that makes American Tower vastly more attractive than its industry peers. Continue reading here.

Georgia Board Hints They Will Deny Cell Tower Variance The Newton Board of Commissioners in Covington, Georgia have hinted that they will vote to deny the variance for a proposed cell tower. John Douglas vowed that he would be stingy when voting on requests for variances on zoning matters. He went on to explain that he planned to vote against a request that would allow a 150-foot cell tower to be built less than 100 feet from a nearby home. “This is one case where we need the wisdom of Solomon to do the right thing,” Douglas said earlier this week at the conclusion of a public hearing on the matter. “For a few minutes I was ready to vote for this, but now I will vote no.” He said that he is “stingy on variances” allowed in the 1st District, which he represents, in order to protect property rights, so he believes it is only right to be consis-tent. Commissioner Nancy Schulz also said she was uncomfortable voting in favor of the variance request. “I am very sensitive to both sides, but I am very uncomfortable with the fact that the prop-erty is zoned residential and we have a gentleman living on the property who will be impacted by this, so I will be voting no as well,” she said. Maine Town Approves Cell Tower Rules, Opponents Promise to Fight

A group of concerned citizens in Scarborough, Maine who call themselves the “Scarborough Families for the Responsible Placement of Cell Towers” are at-tempting to overturn a new set of rules that were recently approved by the Scar-borough Town Council last week. Council Chairman Richard Sullivan said that he felt the council had negotiated a compromise in good faith and that’s one of the reasons he’s disappointed that the anti-cell tower group has declared its in-tention to gather signatures to force a referendum overturning the new rules be-

fore there has been an opportunity to see how they’ll work. The new rules set up a hierarchy for the placement of cell towers and in the first instance require providers to co-locate on existing towers before making a request to build a new tower. The new rules also specify that the preferred location for any new tower would be in the town’s industrial zones. However, the new rules also create sev-eral Transmission Tower Overlay Districts. Some of the parcels included in the overlay districts are owned by the state or the Scarborough Land Trust. In all, Sullivan said the new rules provide better protection than the old rules governing the placement of cell towers and that the council did listen to the objections about keeping cell towers away from residential neighborhoods. In addition, he said the new rules give the Planning Board quite a bit of discretion in reviewing applications for new cell towers. Delay on Tower Vote Annoys Pennsylvania Residents

Inside Towers Page 4

Local residents in the Whispering Pines area of Plum, Pennsylvania are once again stuck waiting on the Plum Council to make a decision regarding a proposed tower near their homes. Last week, the Plum Council voted to table AT&T’s plan and conditional use applications for their 135-foot tower. The property is in an office commercial zoning district, and the borough planning commission in Sep-tember recommended approval of the applications. “One of our technical experts had to tend to a personal matter and was unable to attend [the meeting],” AT&T spokesman Dan Langan said. “AT&T expects to be ready for the next meeting.” The council's next voting meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. November 10.

Westell Technologies Announces New Sr. Vice President of Worldwide Sales Westell Technologies, a provider of in-building wireless, site management, and cell site optimization, has appointed Mark Skurla as the new Senior Vice Presi-dent of Worldwide Sales. Mr. Skurla returned to Westell effective October 21, 2014. Since April of 2011, with the sale of the Westell Customer Networking So-lutions business unit to NETGEAR, Inc., he has been serving as the Vice Presi-dent of Sales for the Americas, Service Provider Business Unit at NETGEAR. “With his industry knowledge and experience, we are pleased that Mark has re-joined the executive team of Westell,” stated Rick Gilbert, Chairman and Chief

Executive Officer of Westell. “His strong leadership and understanding of customers as well as the telecommunications market will help us strategically grow our business in wireless markets globally.”

We're not sure what these are called, but we call them "COW pods." Taken by Eddie Esserman at the The McGladrey Classic in St. Simons Island, Georgia.

Inside Towers Page 5