Chris Horne to FCC Forum: AM Colocation Here and Real!
Washington, DC – For the second time this year, the issue of co-locating wireless antennas on existing broadcast and non-broadcast structures took center stage in the nation’s capital with the Federal Communications Commission sponsoring an expert colocation workshop on May 1. LBA Group’s chief technical officer, Chris Horne, was among panelists dissecting the issue.
The upshot? “Workshop participants were all enthusiastic about colocation opportunities, but most agreed there are financial, political and cultural issues to overcome,” Horne said following the all-day meeting. “This was a step forward in advancing ideas to overcome these issues.”
The workshop opened with remarks by several FCC representatives, including Jane Jackson,
who is associate chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. The bureau’s deputy
chief of spectrum and competition, Jeffrey Steinberg, outlined the legal framework for colocation
before the first of three panels addressed the issue.
The panel in which Horne participated—Colocations on Non-Traditional Towers and Other
Structures—considered such applications as public safety and radio towers, utility infrastructure,
and rooftops. Horne specifically made the case for bringing wireless antennas to existing AM
radio towers. His essential message: Break down the AM-wireless wall!
LBA Technology long has been in the vanguard of AM tower colocation, which Horne reiterated
in his remarks. LBA offers the patented CoLoPole™ RF Isocoupler for single AM towers, the
CoLoCoil™ AM Isocoupler for isolating multiple coaxial cables on directional antenna systems,
and the CAMI microwave isocoupler for single coaxial AM isolation.
LBA founder and president Lawrence Behr is a recognized authority on colocation. The
company has engineered, patented, and successfully applied colocation technology. Behr chairs
a subcommittee of the Wireless Communications Association International that is working on
resolving issues between AM and broadband entities.
Behr testified in January at an FCC forum. He called for greater promotion of the colocation
solution to help meet the need for proliferation of wireless antenna sites. He also recommended
that the permitting process be streamlined at the state level and that financial inducements be
offered to encourage AM station owners to share their towers.
LBA has developed several industry-leading proprietary approaches to AM collocation.
Read more at https://www.lbagroup.com/associates/am-wireless-colocation.php. For colocation
assistance, contact Mike Britner at 252-757-0279 or mike.britner@lbagroup.com.
