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The Telecom Digest for May 26, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 127 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives (Monty Solomon)
After a Tower Climber Falls, Stand Down Called for on AT&T Projects (Monty Solomon)

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Date: Fri, 25 May 2012 22:32:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives Message-ID: <p06240832cbe5ee2ced20@[10.0.1.2]> In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives Ryan Knutson, PBS Frontline, and Liz Day ProPublica May 22, 2012 This story was co-published with PBS Frontline, which will air a film version today. Check local listings. In the spring of 2008, AT&T was racing to roll out a new cell phone network to deliver music, video and online games at faster speeds. The network, known as 3G, was crucial to the company's fortunes. AT&T's cell service had been criticized by customers for its propensity to drop calls, a problem compounded when the company became the sole carrier for the iPhone. Jay Guilford was a tiny but vital cog in the carrier's plans. On a clear evening in May, Guilford was dangling, 150 feet in the air, from a cell tower in southwest Indiana. He had been sent aloft to take pictures of AT&T antennas soon to be replaced by 3G equipment. Work complete, Guilford sped his descent by rappelling on a rope. Safety standards required him to step down the metal pole, peg by peg, using a special line that would catch automatically if he fell. But tower climbing is a field in which such rules are routinely ignored. ... http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cell-tower-deaths/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/cell-tower-deaths/in-race-for-better-cell-service-men-who-climb-towers-pay-with-their-lives/
Date: Fri, 25 May 2012 22:12:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: After a Tower Climber Falls, Stand Down Called for on AT&T Projects Message-ID: <p0624082dcbe5eb1d35bf@[10.0.1.2]> After a Tower Climber Falls, Stand Down Called for on AT&T Projects Ryan Knutson, PBS Frontline, and Liz Day ProPublica May 25, 2012 This story was co-published with PBS Frontline. Following a worker's non-fatal 100-foot fall from a Texas cell tower last week, one of AT&T's construction management firms has instituted a stand down across several states, requiring that its subcontractors review safety practices. Plano, Texas-based Goodman Networks sent out a bulletin yesterday notifying workers of the mandatory safety stand down. ... http://www.propublica.org/article/after-a-tower-climber-falls-stand-down-called-for-on-att-projects Built for a Simpler Era, OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die An OSHA investigator documents the helmet of fallen tower climber. Ryan Knutson, PBS Frontline, and Liz Day ProPublica May 24, 2012 This story was co-published with PBS Frontline. When federal lawmakers passed landmark legislation creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, they intended to protect workers by imposing clear, uniform rules on their employers. The 1970 law assumed that the relationship between companies and the people they hired for dangerous jobs would be straightforward, employer to employee. No one planned for industries like tower climbing. Tower climbers, the roughly 10,000 workers who build and maintain the nation's TV, radio and cell towers, aren't hired directly by the corporations that rely on their labor. They're subcontractors, sometimes separated by a daisy chain of other contractors from the companies that ultimately pay for tower projects. ... http://www.propublica.org/article/osha-struggles-with-tower-climbing-deaths
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