I wanted to go over at a high level some things that I plan to write about over the next several weeks. I put out the book to give people an introduction on climbing and I am not sure what the next one will be but I wanted to go high level for all of you.

1)    Structural analysis on tower – this is going to heat up. After the incident in West Virginia it’s going to be a major issue. Why, because the industry is going to be adding a ton of RRHs to the towers and only experienced tower crews will be able to beef up the tower. It is going to add a lot of work and you will need to know how to do it. 

2)    RRH explosion – there are going to be more RRHs put on the towers than ever with the explosive growth of LTE. From all the carriers. I am not talking about 3 or 6 on a tower. I am talking about 12 to 24 on a tower.

3)    Small Cells – if the tower companies are smart they will be preparing for the explosion of small cells. They are in the perfect position to do it.

4)    Career change – many of you climbers are going to be offered a chance to shift your careers from climbing to engineering to tech work, why, changes will come. We will need people to do testing, drive testing, improve structural integrity, install new systems, and more. We will need crew leaders and foreman and project managers, none of this is out of reach.

5)    Field testing – To save money the carriers are going to be forced to use climbers and techs to do the drive testing. With LTE is can be done with an app in a smart phone. Evolution baby!

6)    Safety – You will see a rise in safety personnel, I would like to think that I would be a great safety architect, but who would pay me? Safety will have a big emphasis this year only if NATE and OSHA do their jobs in enforcing the rules they administered.

7)    Paperwork – No, it won’t go away, but with companies like Field Dailies putting out innovative ways to do it with your Smartphone it may get easier and less time-consuming.

8)    Rules – You will be held to tighter rules in your company because they will lose work if you are caught doing something stupid.

9)    Decommissioning – You heard me, as 2G and 3G wind down, we need to make space and lessen the load on the towers. Decommissioning the old equipment on the towers is a quick and easy way to do that and it may save the carriers some rent costs. The only loser is the person holding on to the old phone because it’s cheap.

10) Read books and keep learning – I say this because I plan to put out more books this year. Selfish plug for my stuff. However, if you want to advance then plan to learn. The more you learn the more you earn. In this profession it is hard to take classes but you can read, learn on-line, and reach out for more information. 

Do a future tower climber a favor. Let them know how beautiful it can be to enjoy the view and work with nature. Whether you’re in the city or on a mountaintop, you will feel free and alive. Have them get the book to prepare them to identify the hazards and the thrill of being on a tower!  

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