Scrambling to meet demand

Right now, cellular carriers are scrambling to build out capacity to meet demand that has swelled due to customers' seemingly insatiable appetite for mobile data and the desire to stay ahead of the competition in a crowded marketplace. Consequently, these are boom times in the tower-construction industry. As often happens in such circumstances, inexperienced and inadequately trained contractors and personnel are rushing into the sector, because there's an enormous amount of work available, which is especially attractive in a slow-recovering economy.

"The workforce shortage in this industry is huge right now," Schlekeway said.

Jones echoed this sentiment.

"We're busier now than we ever have been," he said. "For example, T-Mobile has said that its 2013 build will take all of the competent climbers that were available in the U.S. at the end of 2012. AT&T has said that their wireless buildout [in 2013] is going to be the largest in the company's history.

"So, there's a huge influx of new companies with new employees, a lot of inexperienced — or zero-experience — employees," Jones continued. "They don't want to throw these guys to the wolves, but these companies are under constant pressure to get that site done and move on to the next one. Everyone sees dollar signs, and training costs money — but it also costs time."

Kisting agreed.

"If you're telling them to run at 60 miles per hour in a 45-miles-per-hour zone, they can't be safe," he said.

Kisting also believes that some of the wireless carriers are shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak, because the adage "haste makes waste," is an apt description of what is occurring right now.

"We can achieve world-class service for our carrier customers if we are able to work with them to properly plan and work the proper plan — and we are seeing effort toward this with carriers like Verizon and U.S. Cellular," Kisting said.

"But we also have a whole section of our company that is dedicated to responding to quality issues from other people doing work," he continued. "Sometimes, [our customers] end up hiring [the wrong] contractor, and we have to spend a significant amount of time and effort helping them recover from an experience like that."

NATE has been working to educate carriers regarding what a qualified contractor looks like, Schlekeway said.

"There's a direct correlation between the quality of their networks and the quality of their crews," he said.

Given that carriers really can't afford the time and money required to fix shoddy work done by crews that are unqualified or hurried, they should try to use better crews, which also tend to be safer. To ensure that carriers are getting top-notch crews, NATE has been urging wireless companies to hire only its members — and one major carrier has taken such a step.

"U.S. Cellular has it built into their contracts … that you have to be a NATE member if you want to do work for them," Schlekeway said. "If we could ever get to the point where we set this in stone, like we have with U.S. Cellular, it would do a wonderful service to the industry.

"That's not to point the finger at the carriers, but they are in a race right now to build out their networks … and sometimes we push back, because there are unrealistic deadlines placed upon our companies and people on the ground, and that's when safety can be compromised."