The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) has granted a request by U.S. Cellular for a waiver of the Commission’s rule requiring quarterly inspection of registered antenna structures. In its waiver request, U.S. Cellular stated that it uses the Network Operations Center Tower Alarm Monitoring Process (NTAM) system for nearly all of its towers. The remote NTAM system continuously monitors the towers to ensure that lighting failures are detected and rapidly corrected. Pursuant to a Commission rule authorizing the WTB to relieve all inspection obligations for antenna structure owners using monitoring systems that meet certain criteria, the WTB found that quarterly inspections for U.S. Cellular’s towers monitored using the NTAM system were unnecessary and relieved U.S. Cellular of all inspection requirements for those towers.
