@ NATE: Safety remains focus amongst explosive tower growth

OKLAHOMA CITY – Safety was the key message from SBA Communications Inc.’s Kurt Bagwell during his featured speaker spot at this week’s National Association of Tower Erectors annual event in Oklahoma City. Bagwell, who is president of SBA’s International operations, spent considerable time during his presentation talking about the importance of safety when it comes to the tower business and how safety and profitability are not mutually exclusive.
“Following the rules is easy to say, but hard to do,” Bagwell noted. “It all comes down to complacency. People just need to slow down and do it right.”
However, Bagwell noted this attitude can be difficult to maintain in an industry where tower builders are coming under considerable pressure from both tower owners and wireless carriers to get new towers up as quick as possible.
“Towers are a dangerous business,” Bagwell said, before jokingly adding that building bombs might be a more dangerous business. “It’s a dangerous business, but it doesn’t have to be.”
Bagwell provided a chart showing 83 tower deaths over the past eight years, but noted that those numbers were showing a gradual decline over the past several years.
Regulatory concerns
Bagwell noted that while the industry safety continued to be a challenge, current regulatory standards enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were sufficient if they were followed.
“OSHA has focused on telecom recently,” Bagwell explained. “There have been too many accidents that have happened. It’s not a big number, but it’s a small industry.”
One challenge in meeting requirements are so-called “multi-employer worksites” where OSHA has in the past cited multiple employers for hazardous conditions that violate standards.
Citing SBA’s international expansion into a handful of markets, Bagwell noted that while OSHA can be a “pain in the butt” the general level of safety standards in the United States tower of those in other countries.
“In some of these places we will bring in the latest safety gear and the workers look at this stuff like they are new cars,” Bagwell said. “This is stuff they have never seen before.”
Wireless pressures
Bagwell acknowledged that safety concerns were greater for towers built for the cellular industry as opposed to those built for television broadcasters citing the explosive growth of the sector and continuing need for more maturity in the space.
“There is more pressure on wireless deployments due to timing issues,” Bagwell noted. “Broadcast is more mature and has a lot of the same faces. Wireless is a lot of new faces.”
That pressure is expected to continue as carriers continue to expand their footprints due to competitive concerns, bolster capacity to handle the flood of data-hungry devices on their networks and begin deploying next-generation technologies to better handle demand.
While there are likely to be ups and downs, Bagwell said he thinks with continued expansion of 3G networks and 4G networks beginning to roll out there is plenty of work ahead.
“I think business is booming and will keep going,” Bagwell said. “2010 is a big year, 2011 will be another big year. … The work may change a bit, but it won’t ever cease.”
Bagwell also looked to sooth concerns from the audience when he said in response to a question about new micro cell sites that have recently been shown that these sorts of advancements can’t defy the law of physics.
“You can’t just drive down the road and throw them out and cover a neighborhood,” Bagwell said. “These are nice, niche product, but you still have to have these things up in the air.”
If anything, Bagwell added that these advancements could free up space on current towers to allow the addition of new antennas, boosting possible deployment needs.