Once again we see the lack of leadership or accountability with EMT and Directors. Why should anyone expect other at this house of cards? Construction services are targeted to be gutted, while the leadership makes changes for stockholders. The working class once again takes the hit, while the leadership starting at Jay, refuse to acknowledge fault and fall on the sword to save livelihoods. 900 + to be cut. Stop chasing the fiber obsession and get back to basics. Towers got Crown to the place it is, now they turn their back on everything and everyone who sacrificed efforts to be great.
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It’s not just tower folks who feel that fiber is a drag on the business Elliot management thought so as well. Oh how soon we forget their 30 page report on “reclaiming the crown”. The data they compiled was astonishing. Talk about jay brown being caught with his pants down. HA!
The tower folks posting on this page remind me of a bunch of children. They get the axe after years and years of overpopulated staffing and poor management and their reaction is name calling and pointing the finger elsewhere.
@4mvd+1nOAjiG7 Wrong. You can have small cell without fiber. Crown can build the small cells and outsource the fiber placement to another carrier. Verizon provided their own fiber to Crown small cells all over Miami.
Maybe the reason why we’re failing is because people who work in network don’t understand the network.
@4kny+1nOAjiG7, what segment of CC did Elliot Management call out for being mismanaged? Hint: it wasn’t towers. Enough said.
@4ogv+1nOAjiG7 Eventually they will get to Network. You will just be the last to get laid off. But your time will come, too.
Nope still dense. I meant crown not fiber, don't out words in other people's mouths.
“No wonder you guys (fiber) are going under.”
Seems like an awfully strange statement to make when 30% of towers is being cut.
Are you dense? They said crown does fiber for small cells... What part of that means they think you can have small cells without fiber?? No wonder you guys are going under.
Lol this guy thinks you can have small cells without fiber!
Fiber is only good for cash flow, not for profits, and Crown only does fiber to support small cell builds. I'm not sure why this is so difficult for the fiber people to understand.
“Fiber is a failure and we keep throwing money and resources on it. What’s so different about throwing money and resources into tower construction?
Those who think that fiber is a success, please tell me why SBA and AMT are doing better than we are when they don’t have an inch of fiber in the ground.”
Fiber is not a failure, if it was they’d be cutting positions like they are doing in towers. You keep telling yourself it is though. I’m sure your therapist is going to get sick of hearing about it real quick.
AMT and SBA are doing better because they didn’t try to expand into construction services that none of the carriers want to use. I know it is hard for you to understand, but it has nothing to do with fiber.
Fiber is a failure and we keep throwing money and resources on it. What’s so different about throwing money and resources into tower construction?
Those who think that fiber is a success, please tell me why SBA and AMT are doing better than we are when they don’t have an inch of fiber in the ground.
The biggest failure with tower construction was that it was ran by people with zero telecom experience. They had a whole industry to hire from and did it with crown lifers and fresh college graduates. They could have had the pick of the litter from wireless 10 years ago and let their egos prevent any success.
“The endless money pit called fiber and small cells is draining this company. If we didn’t have that distraction, more time and resources couldve been devoted to making tower construction services work.”
This is by far the funniest and saddest post on here. The program was a failure and then you want to fix it by throwing more resources on top of it??? That is why these cuts are happening, to many resources for not enough business… buy hey, let’s add more people to it… Its thinking like this that got towers to this point.
@4mmk+1nOAjiG7 You are aware that 5G NR technology covers shorter distances, right. You can't just put up Towers wi--y nilly. Hence the need to supplement with SC on light posts, utility poles etc. I don't expect Towers people who have no real knowledge of RF technology to comprehend that. Towers is just used to building steel structures for tenants to lease vertical space then maintaining the site ie weed abatement, cleaning up after the me-h heads, homeless etc. Over paid, over glorified facilities maintenance personnel called Tower Techs.
@4voe+1nOAjiG7, “stop blaming fiber”? The endless money pit called fiber and small cells is draining this company. If we didn’t have that distraction, more time and resources couldve been devoted to making tower construction services work. We already know that SC is a loser and fiber can’t make money unless they find a way to make money on the spare strands by selling enterprise services. The problem is the ILECs of the world know how to place fiber cheaper and faster than we can do we can’t compete in that space. Another CC fail which affected us in towers.
The truth of the matter is that CC has become a three ring circus with clowns running things.
I think alot of what has happened can be traced back to the Tower Reorg a couple years back, moving away from the Area/District model where Crown had local relationships (who's brilliant idea was this?), then placing people in high level positions that were newer or had no idea what they were doing (see PS & MB). Crown loses Verizon Construction work which Crown had been performing for 20+ yrs, loses Sprint to TMob consolidation, fumbles Dish Deployment and takes on AT&T work that Crown is not setup to perform successfully. In addition to that, Leadership allowed many good PM's/CM's walk away that knew the customer and their processes, hired vendors to help fill that gap which ate the margins and backfilled/hired people like PC's to fill CM roles with zero experience. There may very well be a downturn in applications, but anyone on the tower side has seen that carriers SPEND constantly to upgrade & enhance their network, now is no different. Is ANYONE giving up their cellphones or calling carriers or comcast to have their landline turned back on? Crown was it's own worst enemy. People who made these decisions should own up to thier mistakes and be held responsible. Regardless, the layoffs are what the EMT deemed necessary to correct the mistakes they have made along the way and right the ship. But ask yourself this. Do you have ANY confidence in the EMT to make the right decisions going forward when they are the one's that got us here in the first place? Good luck to us all!
Why are you tower folks so bitter? Is it so hard to believe that towers expanded a construction service program that eventually failed? Why do you believe that towers could do nothing wrong? I’ve worked on both sides of the business and I can tell you that the tower folks 100% believed they were indestructible. It’s time to stop blaming fiber and start blaming the management decisions that got Crown to this point.
@3oby+1nOAjiG7 Send me your check, that's why Towers Construction Services was eradicated...
@3uyq+1nOAjiG7 You state facts. All the down votes must be those who resemble the remark.
@3gkv, I work in the fiber side and I would bet my next paycheck and fiber has more dead weight.
@3box+1nOAjiG7 If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. This time around, it's Towers' eggs. The reason the number is higher because there's a lot more dead weight on the Towers side.
@3uyq, yeah, CC wants to be a fiber company but is losing badly to AT&T, Verizon and Lumen. HA!
All the Towers folks can't grasp that CC just doesn't want to just be a tower landlord anymore. I have first hand experience with the Tower "techs"... I use the term loosely. They are just property maintenance and have little to no experience with actual tech work. They can't even use OTDRs let alone use the fusion splicers they have. Same goes for the SC/DAS techs.
Crown lost their identity a while ago. When they hired DS and all their crooked oil and gas & church friends. Now they are closing and building new offices to “centralize” the business. They’ll have their Facilities team spend millions (without real financial supervision) directed by JA, TS and their minions. They’ll spend even more traveling due to the business “needs” while doing a poor job and expensing 5 star hotels and dinners. Instead, they should get rid of all those “national things and stuff”, close more offices, let people work efficiently remote and stop micromanaging everyone doing their job, and start micromanaging the ones that really need it.
@2eov+1nOAjiG7 This explains the purple sneakers. Fake-it-until-you-make-it as a tech company exec. Sadly, we were absent a pre-filmed, "live" broadcast from our betters this week. 'Tis a pity.
Lose its identity? I think not! I believe Crown Castle simply made a choice and the EMT chose network over towers. Why would I say such a thing? I have heard to many times over the last 5 years how CC wants to be a tech company.
My thought is when the EMT decided it was as simple as let’s go with Network and then I can tell my friends that we are in the tech industry as towers is just a dirty word that sounds to much like construction and not enough like we are part of the tech industry.
Just my simple thoughts. I sincerely hope that what CC is doing is very intentional and through these layoffs it comes out a strong and viable company. At least then the layoffs served a purpose, best of luck to you all!
@1tdm+1nOAjiG7, yes correct. Towers are steel structures that don't need fiber. The carriers equipment does. CC obviously has a bigger picture they are seeing that horse blinder Tower folks can't seem to grasp.
Our towers aren't connected by fiber period. Not ours. Not anyone else's. At&ts equipment is connect by fiber, some of theirs, some of someone else's, some crown's. Same thing with everyone on the tower. Towers are steel. They don't need fiber.
@1xjh+1nOAjiG7 I'm pretty sure if that was the case CC would do it.
@1jhh, I can think of a better way to connect the towers. Use somebody else’s fiber. Even a 30 year lease on the strands from AT&T will cost less than building AND maintaining our own fiber.
@1zar+1nOAjiG7 Vertical space is finite as where to put Towers. Also there are very few carriers. Should I go on? Why do you think CC was salivating when Dish entered the fray? Owning the infrastructure is a way to make more money in a crowded market.
Correct, the Towers don't need to be connected. What good is a tower with no connection? They want to make more money, what better way than to also own the infrastructure.
I don't think you understand American Towers business model or CoreSites. These are both real estate companies, they aren't going to fiber route. The towers don't need to be connected... The equipment in them do and those belong to the carriers. Tower companies lease vertical real estate, they don't operate communication networks.
OP, you do realize that American Tower, CCI's direct competitor, just recently acquired CoreSite. Why is that? Anything wireless has to be physically connected to a wired network. But like most people, you think wireless just happens like magic.
Try to keep up!
@tdw+1nOAjiG7 You sound like you still live in a sun down town. Last time I checked, CC is not run by any minority groups. Yes CC has some boxes checked but the powers that be purposely put people of protected classes that have no experience in positions they should not be in. Just to say, "see, we give opportunity but "they" can't do the job" It's the oldest trick in the book. Try to keep up.
@alx+1nOAjiG7 Texas is now majority Latino. Houston, a Democrat-run city. Please try to keep up.
“ Crown went broke when it got woke”
Hardly. They are moving things to the wonderfully “un-woke” land of Texas where there is minimal diversity. God and g-ns are their religion. The Texas A&M graduates and church friends are prized over all others. Women have no rights to body autonomy. Etc.
That’s the exact opposite of woke.
They can’t stand that they have an empty corporate office in Houston that they paid a fortune for and no one wants to deal with any of their sh-t. They even made CP, CL, and KR move there last year to join the cult of “Purple”.
Maybe there are too many letters to remember and they have to go back to B3s but they don’t want to do that because “Be Accountable” and “Be Real” are too foreign of a concept for them.