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Tower Climbing is a Hard and Dangerous Job
Climbing a tower is hard work, but it is also the most dangerous job in the country as this article explains why.
I saw an important piece on RCR Wireless News this week and wanted to blog on it. It seems that climbing towers, which is central to our whole industry, is not only hard but still extremely dangerous.
Year to date seven people have died working in this profession with five of those losing their lives within 12 days of each other this spring. In 2006 the industry lost 18 people to accidents.
Experts say that it is difficult to pinpoint any industry deployment trends that can be tied to this great loss. Certainly the wireless industry is going through a period of great growth on the Tower Infrastructure side and with 3G rollouts. The industry continues to be active in encouraging safety throughout and does a very good job of providing the safety equipment that tower workers need. The industry group most vocal about safety is probably the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) which works hard to stay at the forefront of tower safety.
Experts tend to agree that proper use of climbing harnesses and lanyards is amongst the most effective safety measures that can be taken by anyone climbing a tower. This is an important issue not just for the major cellular companies doing widespread deployments but also for the many small, independent wireless ISPs around the country, some of whom may have personnel that have not been specifically trained to climb towers and in fact share that job only occasionally.
It seems almost axiomatic that when tower problems arose during my tenure as a WISP operator it was at night and in inclement weather with rain or sleet or snow accompanying the problem. Encouraging proper safety procedures is something everyone in the industry should do every day especially in inclement conditions. Sometimes, especially for the small carriers, the rush to fix a problem or deploy a site can seem overriding but the cost of a death is far, far more disruptive to your operation than any small service outage.
This year as we remember those we've lost, think also of those we still have and how to keep them safe.
Tim Sanders
The Final Mile
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