GNG News Guy
05-28-2008, 03:15 PM
http://i.dslr.net/urls/21/1521.gif (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/7-Tower-Deaths-In-5-Weeks-94803)
Tower climbing is one of the world's most dangerous professions (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/86842) (in terms of death rate per 100,000 employees), something a recent body count spike only highlights. Last month I noted (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/93904) that five climbers died in a one week period. Two more deaths this month brings the total to seven deaths within five weeks and has brought even greater attention to industry safety practices (http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/28/fatal-bandwidth-6-cell-tower-deaths-in-5-weeks/). Three of the accidents occurred on AT&T projects, but AT&T is quick to claim it's not because of their HSUPA upgrades (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/94624):A spokesman for AT&T Mobile confirms that Jonathan Guilford was working on a tower for an AT&T 3G network, but denies that his death or the others had anything to do with the June deadline. "That is a software upgrade," says William Marks. "You go to each tower and use a laptop to perform the upgrade at the base station at the bottom of the tower. There is no need to climb towers."
Of course while the HSUPA upgrades are software, upgrading a market from EDGE to HSDPA does involve hardware work. After the first two deaths last month, AT&T sent this notice to its tower construction subcontractors:AT&T requires you to hold, at a minimum, a half-day safety refresher training course this week with all of your construction employees and subcontractors providing services for AT&T. Upon completion of the safety refresher training this week, AT&T expects that you will reinforce this training with additional random safety checks at the construction sites to ensure that appropriate safety measures are being used.
Wireless Estimator (http://www.wirelessestimator.com/t_content.cfm?pagename=Breaking%20News) has more on the seventh death, a TV tower worker in South Florida. While accidental deaths from elevated structures aren't exactly rare (there were 18 in 2006), the concentrated number of cell tower fatalities are. The industry was fatality free between December 2007 and April 2008.
Tower climbing is one of the world's most dangerous professions (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/86842) (in terms of death rate per 100,000 employees), something a recent body count spike only highlights. Last month I noted (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/93904) that five climbers died in a one week period. Two more deaths this month brings the total to seven deaths within five weeks and has brought even greater attention to industry safety practices (http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/28/fatal-bandwidth-6-cell-tower-deaths-in-5-weeks/). Three of the accidents occurred on AT&T projects, but AT&T is quick to claim it's not because of their HSUPA upgrades (http://www.thegng.org/shownews/94624):A spokesman for AT&T Mobile confirms that Jonathan Guilford was working on a tower for an AT&T 3G network, but denies that his death or the others had anything to do with the June deadline. "That is a software upgrade," says William Marks. "You go to each tower and use a laptop to perform the upgrade at the base station at the bottom of the tower. There is no need to climb towers."
Of course while the HSUPA upgrades are software, upgrading a market from EDGE to HSDPA does involve hardware work. After the first two deaths last month, AT&T sent this notice to its tower construction subcontractors:AT&T requires you to hold, at a minimum, a half-day safety refresher training course this week with all of your construction employees and subcontractors providing services for AT&T. Upon completion of the safety refresher training this week, AT&T expects that you will reinforce this training with additional random safety checks at the construction sites to ensure that appropriate safety measures are being used.
Wireless Estimator (http://www.wirelessestimator.com/t_content.cfm?pagename=Breaking%20News) has more on the seventh death, a TV tower worker in South Florida. While accidental deaths from elevated structures aren't exactly rare (there were 18 in 2006), the concentrated number of cell tower fatalities are. The industry was fatality free between December 2007 and April 2008.