Cell Tower Stocks Beware: PBS Frontline Explores 'Cell Tower Deaths'

Cell Tower Stocks Beware

The PBS series Frontline will air an investigation tonight on the risky business of building and repairing cell phone communications towers in a documentary called “Cell Tower Deaths.” The program, produced with Pro Publica, will look at the disturbingly high rate at which cell tower repairmen are falling off towers and dying on the job.

In a news release on the documentary, PBS asserts that tower climbers who install and service antennas are about 10x more likely than the average construction worker to die on the job

“High death rates among climbers are caused in part by demanding project deadlines, which lead some climbers to cut corners on safety equipment or to ‘free climb,’ a dangerous practice in which the climber is not attached to the tower,” PBS says in the release. “Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations prohibit free climbing, yet it was involved in about half of the fatalities FRONTLINE and ProPublica examined.”

The documentary asserts that cell phone companies are shielded from accountability for the deaths “by relying on layers of subcontracting to carry out the tower work.”

You’ll want to keep an eye this week on shares of cell phone tower operators like American Tower, SBA Communications and Crown Castle; there’s also room for criticism here of the major U.S. mobile carriers – AT&T, Verizon,Sprint and T-Mobile.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/05/22/cell-tower-stocks-beware-pbs-frontline-explores-cell-tower-deaths/