Carr Supports T-Mobile/Sprint and, with Associations, 5G Job Training

The combining carriers "came in with some particularly strong" commitments on their transaction, Carr said in a Communicators episode set to have been televised over the weekend and posted here. "This is going to be a really good win for rural America" on 5G, he said. "At the end of the day, this is a good deal."

Critics call the deal anticompetitive. NTCA Vice President-Legal Jill Canfield said in an interview that T-Mobile's promises for a rural buildout are "overly ambitious" and raised concerns the new company would fall short of its plans. If the combined carrier doesn't bring as much infrastructure to rural America as promised, she added, "there's no way to pull back from the merger once it goes through."

"Competition is the best way to win the race to 5G, not concentration," Incompas CEO Chip Pickering told us. Historically, he added, larger companies focus on building out networks in larger cities, and smaller companies build out smaller markets.

Asked for comment Friday, a T-Mobile spokesperson referred us to a May 20 blog post by CEO John Legere detailing the company's merger commitments.

Ensuring that rural Americans have access to next-generation connectivity is a top FCC priority, Carr told The Communicators. Commitments for a faster rural buildout will help close the digital divide, he said in Q&A.

Carr provided reasons why 5G broadband is crucial to small towns: to provide better connectivity to support local job creators and to facilitate telehealth services. Deployment should also provide jobs across the country as providers install new cell towers. Carr mentioned the FCC is investigating whether cell components from Chinese manufacturer Huawei pose a potential national security threat, and if so, what steps would be taken to swap out any such components already installed in the U.S. wireless infrastructure. A pending bill would include possible funding (see 1905230066), the commissioner noted.

The FCC could move forward with an NPRM as early as this summer for a $100 million telehealth pilot program using USF money, Carr said. He said an order could follow shortly afterward. He's been a proponent of such a program. Advocates for telehealth didn't comment Friday.

5G Jobs

Carr noted the shortage of trained workers to help with the 5G and related rollouts. Fixing that has been one of his priorities, and of the wireless and tower/infrastructure industries, too. "How do we make sure we have the skilled workforce in place" for small-cell 5G and related infrastructure buildouts? Carr asked. "There’s a workforce shortage." He noted that many thousands of workers may be needed.

Association executives told us Friday they are working on this issue and are aware of the challenge. The heads of the National Association of Tower Erectors and Wireless Infrastructure Association said they are partnering with many stakeholders and that finding more workers, keeping them on the job once hired and getting them the proper education are big issues industrywide. There are about 29,000 tower technicians now, some of whom may also help install the smaller cell antennas that help transmit 5G and things like distributed antenna systems in buildings, NATE figures show. "We think the industry could absorb and easily put to work another 20,000," said Executive Director Todd Schlekeway.

At WIA's just-concluded annual show, ConnectX, this was a big issue, too. "We’re hearing at ConnectX that there’s a vast shortage of tower crews and in fact other utility workers as well," said WIA CEO Jonathan Adelstein. "There’s issues of finding a qualified workforce for small cells and in fiber. But right now, the shortage is most acute in the tower sector. This is the most acute labor shortage since 2013-2014 when we were undergoing the large 4G" buildout, is what he heard. "We have a very steep pole to climb to find the right workers," he added.

NATE and WIA spend a lot of time on this, their leaders said. WIA has extensive training for members and recently hired Grant Seiffert as vice president-workforce development and executive director of its Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program (see 1904230023), Adelstein noted. NATE gets money from the Department of Labor for advanced rigging training that the group provides for free, Schlekeway said. With members recently visiting Capitol Hill in a so-called fly in, they're "all in in trying to get some momentum for that to move forward," he said of the Communications Jobs Training Act (HR-1848). Carr spoke approvingly of the bill, saying that "to ensure that America wins the race to 5G, we need to double the number of tower crews that are building this."

NATE would like to see about a dozen more certificate-based post-secondary programs to train would-be communications infrastructure workers. "Because we haven’t got in the front door at many of those traditional two-year schools, vo-techs, kids who go to those schools don’t know" about these jobs, Schlekeway said of vocational-technical and other existing programs. He noted Carr has visited Aiken Technical College, which Schlekeway called the "gold standard" for such education, with a 7-week basic and 12-week advanced course. Carr also wants to see this replicated.

Carr also said the FCC is looking at whether to place annual spending caps for the USF. That item may be released soon (see 1905240064).