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Why is Wireless Talent Leaving the Industry?

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Why would they? Maybe the sudden slowdown in 5G has something to do with it.

If people are leaving, how will this hurt the ecosystem?

It’s not just climbers, but the ecosystem of talent will be affected.

That’s what I look at, each job type, each type of job being downsized. I may not cover everything, but I cover a lot of it.

If you want the short version, here it is. The 5G build is slowing down quickly. That means contractors and companies lose work. That means they have to lay people off. That means people are out of work. Workers have to pay bills and support their families, so they are moving to other industries to make money.

I would bet even the carriers will downsize. They will lose people along with the rest of the ecosystem.

There, I just saved you 15 minutes of drudging through this detailed report. Now you can skip to your section or job and just read about it. What’s another 2 minutes?

Read on wireless fan! You know you want to.

The Mystery of Losing Wireless Talent

I was talking to my friend, Brad Larson (shameless plug) from CommScope, who mentioned how the wireless telecom industry is losing talent. He knows people who either got laid off or left to go to other industries. I see it too. The talent pool is definitely dwindling. Not only through attrition and retirement but, (as the 5G builds dwindle), people get laid off. 

The current talent pool may be too heavy for the industry, or is it? Is the talent pool for wireless shrinking mainly because we were shorthanded until we were bloated? Not through any industry mistakes, it’s just the wireless deployment cycle. 

No wonder people are leaving for greener pastures.

We know the number of wireless and telecom jobs are declining due to automation and less deployment. It will continue to do so for the next 3 to 7 years? Another reason to leave if you have another opportunity. Who can wait that long if they’re not working today?

As always, the cycle repeats itself. The work peaks, then declines. Usually over a 5 to 10-year period. This is how the cycle works. It happened in 3G, 4G, and now 5G. It will happen again. Unfortunately, this time it was around 5 years. We also have more automation than ever. 

Since 3G, a lot has changed in how we deploy. We had people at the site that could do anything, not just tower work, and commissioning, but integration and troubleshooting as well. Thanks to AT&T the turf system back in the 4G build helped destroy that model. All the carriers adopted it to save money. Shareholders love that. Unfortunately, after they started it back around 2008 a lot of young climbers died.  

Why didn’t I like it? Let me give you a list.

  • We lost work because suddenly crews that didn’t train or have good equipment or take safety seriously, could come in and underbid us. 
  • The model spread out from carriers’ work to state and local work, broadcast, and other industries. It eroded the entire ecosystem for work.
  • It took experienced climbers and made them move to other industries.
  • It took away any security that these jobs could have.
  • It made the climber a common construction worker which became a commodity. 
  • It devalued a skilled segment of the industry. 

Hey, that’s what I saw.

However, I want to cover more jobs and skills in this article. I often focus too much on the climbers. So, let’s look at them along with other skill sets. 

But, do we need them?

Well, if you remember just 5 years ago, everyone was desperately trying to get more climbers, PMs, technicians, and so on. We were worried because there were so few wireless workers in the industry.

Today with the slowdown, they are being let go. Sorry, but that’s the cold truth, the industry no longer needs them. So, while we need some people, the ramp-up has changed into a ramp-down. Just like we did in 3G and then 4G. The cycle repeats itself.

This time, many people get to retire. Not me. I think I’ll stick around to see 6G, why not? I like this stuff and as long as I can get paid, I will drudge through this and get ready for the next G. In fact, I am looking forward to it. Oh, all the drama around 6G, all the what-ifs. Sorry, I digress, let’s talk about today.

Tower Climbers

Guess what, carriers are not giving up the GC turf system. Why? It’s profitable. But what are the long-lasting effects of the turf model? I have some ideas.

For one, tower climbing was once a skill that took time to acquire and you more or less had apprenticeships to train people. You also taught your climbers additional skills, like connectorizing cables, using test equipment on the tower, grounding, civil work, and sometimes electrical work. In other words, when you had a good climber, you trained them with new skills. 

Today, that model went out the window. Unlike broadcast tower climbers, who still take their time, telecom climbers are about being quick. Then, they had to lower the training standards from months to a few days. At least we have apprenticeships now.

Don’t get me wrong, there are great climbing schools out there, but so many people took shortcuts in the past. I think we’re doing much better today, but we all know there are loopholes out there.

the new training must be working since the number of deaths this year is much lower, but even one is too many. 

So now, when a large industry build comes, like 5G, we just hire younger people to climb, like we expect to see in construction jobs. The climber has slowly become a commodity. 

However, that has changed as the US’s economic downturn has changed. Assuming these Zippia statistics are correct. Stats below from this Zippia Article.

  • 12,181 tower climbers currently employed in the United States, (2022)
  • 4.3% of all tower climbers are women, while 95.7% are men. (Step it up, ladies!)
  • The average age is 45, (seems old to me unless you go beyond telecom).
  • Ethnicity breakdown: White (57.7%), followed by Hispanic or Latino (18.1%), Black or African American (12.2%), and Asian (6.6%).
  • Sacramento, CA pays an annual average wage of $53,283, the highest in the US.
  • Tower climbers are 82% more likely to work at private companies in comparison to public companies.
  • Over 49% are high school graduates or GED, 25% to 30% have some college.
  • They also say 18% are in telecom, 12% in construction, 12% in professional, 11% in manufacturing, 11% in technology, and the rest are scattered. I have no idea what all those industry breakdowns mean. Maybe the tower is used in a different context for other industries.

Now, back in 2015, Wireless Estimator reported over 29,000 climbers in the US. So, from then until now, we had a huge decline. I know that after the 4G climber boom, many left the industry and they had to build back up again. Maybe it never recovered from that loss. 

The above numbers fluctuate greatly. Who knows what the real numbers are. On a personal note, I am trying to find an annual tower climber count. I can’t seem to find anyone tracking that statistic. I am open to ideas on how to track this. It doesn’t have to be accurate, but ballpark numbers would be helpful.

You may not remember but when the 5G deployments started happening, we had a shortage of climbers. Unfortunately, it didn’t mean a big pay increase for them, instead, they just trained more people. I would think they make more money now than back in 2015, but I am guessing. 

Maybe some came back thinking it’s better this time. I would bet that most of those people were older, not the 20-somethings we had years ago. Maybe I think that because I am older, not sure.

Here is what I’ve seen, and please, keep in mind my world view of climbers is very limited.

  • More and more Hispanics are becoming climbers. They can break into this industry with little training and some construction experience. It helps to be healthy and strong. After a few years, they are experienced. Maybe this can be part of their path to citizenship. I don’t know about legal or illegal but I do know they can do the job. They also understand that they have to work when it’s available.
  • While I see climbers that are of all ages, they are getting older and older. I don’t know what this means in general, but I don’t see as many early 20-somethings as we had 10 years ago. 
  • Many climbers go to the highest bidder and when times are good, they have more companies that will take them.
  • Loyalty is split. Some climbing companies will work for companies that may pay less if they are guaranteed work. We all know that work will dry up, like I said before, this work is cyclical.
  • I have seen a rise of climbers from Western Europe, Ukrainians, and others who have come over to live in the States. As long as they have their green cards, they can experience life in America. 

What can climbers do as the market turns down? They could try to work in other areas, like broadcasting or water tanks. They could also transition to a new job with new skills, like estimating or construction management. They could work in construction. They have options. They can transition.

Unfortunately, the toughest part of the market is as things ramp up and wind-down is when we bring in many people just to say goodbye in a few years. So sad.

Project Management (PM)

One often overlooked job in the industry is PM. The PMs in the industry are everywhere. We have them in with the OEMs as well as all the carriers. PMs are everywhere

But, here’s the thing, as contractors and carriers cut costs, (meaning headcount), they will downsize the PMs as required. This may seem like bad news, but you know what, PMs are used everywhere in literally every industry.

There are PMs in all construction as well as software. Even IT projects have PMs to manage builds, planning, and growth. If you have your PMP then you can take it to almost any industry that does projects. It’s a transferable skill. 

So, if you’re a PM and you see the industry slowing, you have to make a decision. That would be to hang onto where you’re at or start looking. Looking may help align something down the road. If you have a good LinkedIn presence, you have a shot to find something. There are also Facebook groups that target a specific industry. I have a tower climber group but maybe I should add PM Careers.

Be willing to look beyond your present capabilities. You have the opportunity to expand your experience beyond wireless or telecom. 

Construction Management (CM)

I broke this out of PM because it’s a different skill set and job. Although, in most organizations, this falls under PM. 

We will need CMs to go out and inspect sites, but growth determines jobs. We’ve had growth and I know many climbers were able to move into this but they have to have an understanding of spreadsheets and BOMs to make it happen. They also had to be able to walk the site and estimate the work with accuracy. They also had to be able to update CDs, what we call redlining CDs to match what’s actually at the site compared with what the architect drew on the original drawing. 

Following the PM lead, as site expansion drops, the CM is less and less in demand. This sucks, I know, but the CM is there to walk sites and red-line drawings. As that work declines, so will the CM head count.

What can the CM do? They can look into other industries and try to transfer that skill set over to electrical or construction. They could try to see if generator deployments are increasing or if DAS construction will take off where they are. I think they have to work outside the industry if this is what they want to do.

They could also try to transition into the PM role and work more on the planning and tracking side of the business. They could look into getting a PMP certification.

What I am saying is they have options. Don’t feel trapped in wireless. Be willing to look at what else is out there.

One more thing, there are transitions to being an estimator, quality inspector, close-out specialist, and so on. You have more options if you can think outside the box.

Site Acquisition

Here is something that seems to be ongoing, site acquisition.

This is generally a combination of paralegals and someone in the market who can go to the local municipality to pull and file paperwork for permits and approvals. This is tedious work and is generally what slows down a lot of deployments. However, it needs to be done. There are so many municipalities in the US and each one seems to have their own rules and requirements. When deployments ramp up, it all starts with the site acquisition teams. They not only have towers and rooftops, but they also have ROWs, parking lots, and lamp posts. 

This will slow down but never stop completely. This doesn’t mean much though, they downsize these teams quickly because when it slows, you need a much smaller team very quickly. 

These are usually people who can do more than just site acquisition for wireless companies. They also can work in construction, retail, fiber rollouts, and so on. Some go on to take their bar and become lawyers.

One of the key things that come out of the site acquisition team is the CD and structural study. These are required at every site before changes can be made. The structural study validates that the tower can hold the new equipment. 

The CD on the other hand is what most people look at to make sure there is room, and what work will need to be done. Sure, someone has to walk the site, but not all site acquisition teams walk sites anymore due to cost and time. Most just look at the CDs and Google Earth to determine what needs to be done. 

IT Networking and Routing

Let’s not forget the skills that are required for routers, backhaul, and data centers. This is something that most companies require the bare minimum and overwork who they have. Crazy.

Yet, this is going to continue but not like we know it today. 

There are so many IT techs and engineers. This is a very diverse industry, but I am going to focus on the teams that work on wireless deployments. This is generally the techs and engineers that do the planning and deployments. Most don’t even go to a site; they have the installation or C&I teams handle that part.

These teams get super busy prior to and during the rollout. They have to be on top of what’s happening. It’s usually a PM that tracks it and today we have a lot of software that does most of these skills.

When this work tapers off, they generally start looking outside the industry, which isn’t hard to do. They generally have to be where the work is and that could be anywhere.

They should always have work, there are routers and servers everywhere that need to be configured and constantly updated. The Cloud didn’t solve all the problems, although it’s way easier to offload and let the Cloud provider take care of more and more.

Network Operation Centers (NOC)

The NOCs get larger when they’re tracking the rollout. Then when the rollouts slow down, they generally start to downsize and move into a maintain and operate mode. This means you have fewer people and they can be less talented. 

What less talented means is that the software they use has gotten smarter to track alarms and people at sites. So fewer people and fewer engineers.

The troubleshooting engineers are cut back to a minimum or given double duty doing something else until they’re needed. 

So, NOCs will be getting smaller. Many should be coming back onshore in the US but I am not sure how that will work moving ahead. On the upside, every industry uses NOCs, so if they’re lucky, they can find a new NOC or they can level up their skills and take on something new.

Radio Frequency (RF) Engineering

Let me tell you something, RF Engineers used to be the bomb!! They could do almost anything. I’ve done it in the past. Today, for planning anyway, it’s mostly software. You may still need RF guys on the product side or to troubleshoot, but the RF modeling is generally outsourced. In fact, most carriers send that over to a software group that maintains specific software to do the modeling. 

For all the contractors that had a lot of work, it will move over to the private network teams. They will use you, or a software package, to do most of their planning and reports. It all depends on where the strength of that particular company lies. If they have a good team, they may try to do it all themselves if they can support the salary and licenses. If not, then they outsource to an RF contractor.

Either way, this work will continue, business as usual.

Commissioning and Integration (C&I)

OK, for those of you that think everything is plug and play, pull your head out of your ass because it’s not. We have to go to the site and power up the equipment. What equipment? Radios, BBUs, routers, servers, and so on. There is still physical equipment that needs to be powered up and configured.

This is no longer hard to do, but as of today you still need someone who knows how to read schematics, test DC power, verify DC power, and configure the equipment. It takes some skills. I’ve seen BBUs burn when it’s done wrong.

Why don’t they trust installers to do this? They want to but in the past installers have done things wrong and when things are wrong with DC power, things burn up, (see my note above). It can get ugly. So, it’s a different skill set that requires someone who knows what they’re doing. Crews used to have this skill set, but that changed when their pay got reduced. 

Anyway, these guys usually ramp up and ramp down. It’s usually an independent contractor or a GC that has teams that do this. 

I’ll be honest, I am not sure what these guys will do, but they always seem to find work. They can transition over to other jobs. CMs have done this in the past and some installers can be trained to do this work. I would think when the work dries up, these guys move into something else pretty quickly.

If you do C&I, don’t fret, plenty of carriers may be doing this and private networks are starting to take off. I would think there’s always work out there for you.

Structural Engineers

Towers and rooftops need to have the structure measured and approved. You can put too much on the tower and expect it to hold up in a hurricane. The same goes for a rooftop holding all that weight and the weight of the batteries that need to be added to support 4 to 8 hours of downtime.

In the old days, when there were towers without structural drawings nor proper paperwork to support them, we had to send climbers and engineers out there to do the tests. Today, almost all others have structural studies attached to them, in some way, all we have to do is make changes in the program to see what needs to be done. 

If it can’t hold the additional weight, then we need to get a structural team to design an upgrade, if it can be upgraded, then do the work. 

If the tower is maxed out then a new tower has to be found or someone has to be removed. Maybe build a new tower, if it makes financial sense. When adding new, this is more common than you may think. Although, many offload to a smaller pole. Today’s radios transmit more spectrum so fewer radios may be needed.

So, this work may have ramped up, but these guys are always busy. The crews that do structural upgrades generally get paid more than other crews, this is a special skill set that requires precision changes, maybe welding, and the ability to match the drawing to a tee. 

Data Room, Rack, and Site Design

For the tower sites, believe it or not, at one time this was a big deal. Now there are so many sites built that we’re adding more than designing new sites. We put shelters on the sites and we made drawings of the inside and out. We had to look at cooling and heating depending on where you’re located.

We then had people who would make drawings for racks and cabinets, using CAD to determine if something would fit. They were supposed to look at the power draw and heat to see if the cabinet or shelter could take the additional power draw and heat. 

The idea is that the carrier can show where each piece of equipment is placed. Then identify it in a drawing by name, make, and serial number. Then have an identifier showing which rack it was in and possibly how it was wired.

Today, Data Rooms are a huge thing, especially now that we’re moving over to the Cloud and Edge data rooms. Something has to show where each piece of equipment is located so some remote NOC can understand what the site looks like and possibly look at a drawing to determine what needs to be changed. 

When the tech shows up, you want them to know exactly where to go to swap out a unit. Someone has to document and it has to be available quickly.

Trust me, in the past many units were powered down because of confusion. Crazy! FYI, powering down a live unit means customer disruption, and that means complaints, and that means unhappy bosses.

Power requirements matter. The data center will need a lot of power and the power has to be ready for expansion. This has to be considered when designing the room. As you add equipment, you may need to add and expand power. Planning for this in advance really helps. If you’re lucky, this is a problem you will have because growth is good.

Cooling has to be considered and designed around. Data centers, just like tower sites, can overheat if not designed properly. Heat design is critical to any electrical equipment. Remember when laptops would get hot? I do! This is a critical component to be considered. You must cool everything. We have to make sure that the data room or closet handles all the heat and has proper heat removal.

Today we use Air Conditioners, which also need to be maintained. We’re moving towards new models of liquid-cooled units, which I have worked on in the past. This means that the equipment’s heat exchangers sit in a liquid. The liquid is constantly moving from the equipment’s heat sink to a heat exchanger outside somewhere. Picture the outside heat exchanger looks like an older car’s radiator. This also requires maintenance but the power requirements for a liquid system are much lower without any pressurized cooling chemicals. However, liquid cooling may require antifreeze in colder regions, so the chemical requirement never goes away. However, maintaining liquid cooling is way easier to maintain and the skill set isn’t as critical as HVAC techs.

The location of the equipment matters in the design. Why? Power distribution is one, you want to have the right power at the right location. For instance, if you have power rectifiers, they may require 220VAC (in the USA) to use less current. More expensive to run, and cheaper to operate. 

Also, location matters in heating. If you start stacking all the hottest servers on top of each other, you could have overheating issues in a specific rack. Then you have to relocate when everything is live, meaning customer disruption and unhappy bosses.

Electricians

We’ve always had electricians do wiring at sites. They have to be licensed and certified for the area they’re working in. This is still growing as we expand power at sites and continue to put in new sites. They could be small sites, like poles here and there, lamp posts, or brand-new macro tower sites.

We need electricians to do designs for sites, plan power, and install everything. 

These people are always busy and have plenty of work. To be honest most teams just hire the local contractor and don’t have any staff unless they do a lot of builds or extensions. 

These guys always have work, they like the extra work, but in most cases, they aren’t married to telecom.

Cabling

Inside cabling for DAS and indoor networks will gain traction. This has been mostly handled by electrical wiring teams that have telecom experience. Now they have to wire fiber inside mostly, but also electrical and possibly data cables, like CAT 5 or CAT 6.

Think of all the systems to be built in arenas and buildings that will be added.

Beyond wireless coverage and expansion, think about the data centers. There is an explosion of Cloud and Edge data centers that will be added across the US. As we try to minimize latency, we have to add equipment closer to the end user. This means servers will be everywhere. 

Most companies hire contractors to do the initial wiring and then may have their techs do additional wiring. This is an industry in itself. They may have to design your runs and cable racks along with the rest of your design team. I am not sure how you would do it. Generally, most teams have an architect design this stuff up front and then just tell the Cabling contractors what to do. 

Sales Teams

Don’t think I forgot the sales teams. They are a critical component to growth but if they can’t sell anything, they’re out looking for work like everyone else. 

As private networks start to grow, they will need sales teams. The DAS companies are primed to move these types of networks. While they want to continue pushing DAS, they could easily add a small cell portfolio to be installed. They know the business of building design and probably just want more work. They may or may not have the proper sales teams, but if the business grows like we hope it does, then they will be selling even more systems to new and existing customers. 

Presales teams are critical when companies get bigger. These are the teams that may create the initial design and quotes to support the sales team’s account executives. If these teams work well, they can turn around quotes quickly. 

It’s not about just doing the quote; it’s about listening and understanding the customer. So, the first quote may be a fact-finding document to help the customer understand what you think they mean. Then as they push back, they begin to envision what they really want. Turning around a quote quickly helps the customer see what their vision is. Then, as you go back and forth you align. Sure, sometimes you get it right the first time, especially if you have a tenured relationship with your customer. Then you may already understand each other. But new customers or new ideas change the scope.

Remember, without sales, you don’t have customers. That means you don’t have any income. No income means no paycheck and people lose jobs. Keep that in mind.

Unfortunately, when the need for services or products declines, everyone takes a hit.

Financial Teams

Believe it or not, we need financial people like accountants, Chief Financial Officers, and financial planning analysts. Some PMs do the financial part of a project. These people and teams are needed in larger deployments and smaller companies to help get the finances in order.

The good news is most don’t need telecom, even though they may specialize in it. These people can work anywhere.

These guys get downsized too, that’s when things are really tough. 

Luckily, they can migrate to almost any industry. 

Panic in the Industry

People are starting to panic now because there are larger layoffs, and more coming this year. Let’s face it, this is the slowdown we all expected. It still hurts when it actually happens. We have to ride the wave when it’s coming and learn to deal with the drop-off when it crashes.

We are losing wireless talent. We’re seeing companies reduce people more now than ever as they migrate to a cheaper model where growth is less important and managing the operation is important. Some companies move down in the talent and pay scales.

I am seeing a lot of people retire now, some by choice and some by force. This is the nature of any industry. 

The problem, as I see it, is that this industry is mature. When an industry is mature, they find it hard to differentiate and innovate. Everyone becomes locked into the “business-as-usual” concept. I think that is why we love to look at Silicon Valley’s innovation. In those markets, people became millionaires quickly through innovation by only using laptops and writing code. When you’ve been in telecom for years, you are doing things the way you’re told to. Silicon Valley found ways to make great things happen without all the bureaucracy and bullshit.

When will the Talent Shift?

We’re seeing it in 2023. In 2024, even slower. In 2025, it will probably be even slower. That means people lose jobs and they have to either shift to another industry or change job descriptions. 

Sure, some went to college and have a thousand certifications, but what good is that as the work dries up? Use that to move to the next industry.

As the world evolves you have to adjust your talents, maybe take a new position, or be daring enough to do something on your own. Playing in the status quo works for many of us, but not all. This is where we have to get creative.

The way I see it, we won’t ramp up before 2027 unless something happens. Chances are good it will be around 2030 before the industry takes off again. If it happens sooner, great, but I am not holding my breath.

In the Talent Pool Shrinking for Real?

To me, this is the real question. Why? Because if the cycle repeats, like it did for 4G and 3G before that, things slow down. It doesn’t matter what WIA, NATE, or CTIA says. It’s the nature of the telecom beast.

I would bet we see a ton of people leave wireless and telecom. Especially the tower climbers. They may shift to something in a similar field, like running fiber, pole work, specialized steelwork, or become project managers (PMs). They could even be estimators. They have options.

Unfortunately, so many people have to find new roles. Just because they can become a CM or PM doesn’t mean those positions will be there. It’s the entire industry slowing down. We will lose many people to other industries and (unfortunately) that’s normal.

If the 6G migration is anything like the 5G upgrade, then you will see all the industry associations crying about the talent shortage. 

I will say one thing, it seems like the salaries didn’t grow like I thought they would. If anything, they seem to be maintaining or even dropping. I don’t have official numbers, but let’s face it, inflation quickly outpaces the salary of the working people in this field. Is that fair? Of course not, in fact, it sucks. 

As the great downsizing happens, we’ll see even more salary erosion.

There was a day when experience could earn you a lot more money. It was not that long ago that went from a “well-deserved pay increase” to “helping you get a job at the same pay if you’re lucky”.

So yes, the talent pool will continue to shrink for the next 4 to 6 years. 

Is it for the lack of work? That’s part of it but it’s not the only thing, is it? Systems are more automated than they ever were, greenfield sites are not common but site upgrades are. AI and ML make troubleshooting and network upgrades easier than ever. Alarming is so automated that we set it and forget it.

Think about the site and system automation we built in.

  • We can get more into one radio and we’re deploying more and more integrated antennas than ever before.
  • We don’t run coax up the tower, now it is power and fiber.
  • No coax in an integrated antenna.
  • RF Engineering and optimization is moving into the radios and UEs, (as if we even care anymore).
  • Testing is done by the radio, not externally in most cases.
  • Optimization is automated and done by crowdsourcing devices in many cases.
  • Monitoring is being done by automated systems using ML and AI to prioritize alarms before they are sent and someone is dispatched to look at the problem.
  • Remote testing and troubleshooting are the norm, sending someone to the site is a last resort.
  • We can almost remotely do Integration.
  • Site walks are becoming automated, using drones and loading up to a server where someone uses AI to build the drawings and BOMs.
  • Data is kept in the cloud where anyone can access it to look at the site before determining if a dispatch is needed.

So much automation makes things hands-off.

On the other hand, parts still fail, we still have interference issues, and the carrier executives still find dead spots in their homes. This helps keep the field staff busy. 

What will the next talent pool be?

I see AI coming along. This means that developers, code writers, network security engineers, and IT teams will be a requirement. This is new tech and it can’t be offloaded altogether, in fact, I read that 6G may require AI to be the devices, not at the Edge or in the Cloud. 

Sure, we still need the people I mentioned earlier in this article, but times are changing and we will see some new developments in the future that are more about technology making decisions so we don’t have to. We need new skills.

  • I would think automation would be a key thing. AI and ML will be a factor.
  • I see security being a huge factor moving ahead. We need network security specialists.
  • Using apps will be critical. We need developers.

I am hoping the government gets smarter. I feel so often that the federal, state, and local governments are against tech advances. Unfortunately, they hold back a lot of advances unless there is something in it for them. Some see the advances as good, some don’t care, and some push back until they get something in return. 

How to move ahead.

You also have to think about where the growth is. Let’s look at where I see growth for the above talent.

  • The network infrastructure that the government is putting money towards will be huge. The BEAD funding to deploy fiber is going to eventually spark a lot of growth. Unfortunately, it may not happen until 2025 or 2026. That will spark tons of money for fiber, data rooms, and last-mile connections. 
  • We also have private wireless network growth happening in the US, thanks to CBRS. This could be outdoor networks or larger indoor networks. It could mean carrier-grade equipment as well. This should ramp up in 2024.
  • We have indoor wireless taking off beyond the larger venues, this is good for the industry as a whole. Today people rely heavily on Wi-Fi, which will include 5G going forward. It’s going to be a combination of the 2 technologies moving ahead. This is happening now but should see real growth in 2026.
  • Data rooms are always being added thanks to Cloud and Edge centers. This is an ongoing process. 
  • Smart energy will be growing as utilities start connecting everything they can. This is an ongoing process.
  • Cities will allow more private networks and encourage local businesses to build for various reasons. This is slow but hopefully, it will take off in a few years.
  • This may not help you, the reader, but as manufacturing takes off in the US, more manufacturing plants will pop up in the US. Probably in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Nokia is expanding its plant in Wisconsin. This will help because in the US plants have to be automated and robotic. We can’t rely on a lot of workers, but a lot of machines that need to be maintained. This is where you guys come in. All of this will be built around a network, wireless or wired, maybe both.
  • But these things generally take a lot of time to develop, keep that in mind. It won’t happen tomorrow. All of the above will have long sales cycles and perhaps longer funding cycles.

Now, how should you look at this? I am not sure where you are in the talent pool, but here are some ideas.

  • These are smaller projects, so they have to be managed accordingly. One PM may manage many projects simultaneously. 
  • The jobs will be very local for installers, with no per diem or unnecessary travel expenses. Costs have to be low.
  • Use your expertise and contribute where you can.
  • As you take on more responsibility, make sure you know the local permitting requirements and laws. You have to understand that doing this work may be different than doing larger projects. Everyone will be looking at the people working just as closely as the people running the project.
  • Support design where you can, they need to walk sites, make drawings, give estimates, and so on.

How do we bridge the talent gap?

I would love to say training, but let’s face it, this is not always the way, regardless of what DC tells you.

When it comes to software and IT, the younger generation will be moving into that arena. The exception will be the people already doing it. 

Don’t worry about Silicon Valley moving into telecom, they would not take the huge pay cut.

No, it will come from colleges, internships, and the self-taught coders. It has to be something that can be learned quickly or adapted from an existing technology. 

If it is to be, it is up to me. So, look in the mirror and make it happen. You know you have options. Keep pushing ahead.

Definitions

  • AI means Artificial Intelligence.
  • BOM means Bill of Materials.
  • C&I means Commission and Integrate.
  • CAD means computer-aided drawing.
  • CM means Construction Manager.
  • DAS means Distributed Antenna System.
  • Edge means servers that are close to the end user. 
  • GC means General Contractor
  • IT means Information Technology.
  • ML means Machine Learning.
  • NOC means Network Operation Center.
  • PM means Project Manager.
  • PMP means Project Manager Professional certification.
  • RF means Radio frequency.
  • ROW means Right of Way as in a tower or pole is put in the right of way of a city street.

Reference Articles

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