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Cell tower news: AT&T contractor layoffs; SBA expands

Welcome to this week’s edition of cell tower industry news, created by Jarad Matula and brought to you by Towercrews.net.

AT&T infrastructure investment slows, contractor layoffs

It’s been a rough week for some tower crews working primarily on AT&T towers this week. RCR’s own Martha DeGrasse reported that Wall Street analyst were hearing bad news from AT&T contractors. TelForce Group reports that MasTec had to release at least 15 construction managers and project coordinators last week and others were transferred to a Sprint project.
But wait, it doesn’t end there. The very next day she had the unfortunate duty of reporting even more AT&T contractor layoffs, this time centered in Portland, Oregon. Roughly 30% of the Velocitel crews working on AT&T projects were laid off, including 4 LTE construction managers. According to her sources, there are plenty of site acquisitions happening in the area, but as far as construction goes, things are very slow for our friends in rainier parts of the country. Send some positive, new job finding vibes out to the West Coast this weekend.

Oi Vey SBA

World Cup isn’t the only bustling activity happening in Brazil lately. Last week we reported American Tower’s latest increase in presence in Brazil, adding thousands of new towers to its portfolio. SBA Communications decided to step up its Brazil game as well, announcing it is acquiring 1,641 new wireless sites from Oi. This isn’t the company’s first Oi acquisition. If you’ll remember they purchased over 2,000 towers earlier this year, and roughly 2,000 in 2013. SBA says it will not only continue to acquire towers in Brazil, but also build new towers to increase coverage. Analysts say Brazil’s subscriber density per tower is around four times higher than in the US.
Apropos of nothing other than the fact it’s great, here’s a video from Henkels & McCoy of a cell tower antenna installation:

Regional/Local Cell Tower News

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Jarad Matula
Jarad Matula
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