On 10/15, the Washington Post released a report regarding Verizon and ATT placing cell towers and equipment at the McCain ranch, which is 15 miles outside of Sedona, AZ.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/10/exclusive_verizon_gave_cell_to.html

A lot of fuss (and reasonably so) is being made about the fact that these two extremely large telecom companies, for free, put these sorts of facilities on the McCain private property, at the request of Mrs. McCain. As someone with a little bit of experience in the telecom field, I’d like to point out a couple of things here:

1) Just putting a cell tower(whether it is a COW, which is a tower on a trailer or doing an actual tower install) anyplace does not do anyone any good. You may as well put a cardboard box out in the middle of a field as get any use out of it: To get the thing to become useful, you need connections. Ahhhh, connections. What kind of connections do you require?

2) Well, if we were just building a tower out in the middle of the field and there were no telecom facilities (fiber optic cable, microwave, copper lines on distribution poles, etc.), then we’d have to build them – place facilities on telecom or utility distribution poles, etc.

Now, if WE are the ILEC(Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier – i.e., your local phone company), then WE own the poles(or we co-own the poles with the local electric utility – in which case, WE usually are the ‘custodian’ of the poles and WE say who can get on the poles to put their facilities on them or not). The ILEC in this part of the AZ is….Qwest. And Qwest has two C.O.s in the Sedona area(Central offices – these are the places where the big switches are located and where long distance-local loop-calls coming to your house/business take places. It’s the electronic version of a handshake).

If my company is not the owner of the poles, then I have to have an agreement with the owner to get rights to attach to the poles(called, interestingly enough, a “Pole Attachment Agreement”).
3) ATT and Verizon can get those cell phone calls incoming/outgoing ‘backhauled’ to the C.O. two ways: They can make arrangements with Qwest for what’s called ‘local loop’ circuits(and they would have wanted their very own, each) between the McCain ranch and Qwest’s C.O. in Sedona.

You can buy circuits in lots of different sizes – I’m going to assume that they got a T1, which is the basic ‘cup ‘o’ coffee’ circuit(your home phone is a mere fraction of a T1 ) and which can handle 24 voice channels(we will NOT try to discuss what a voice channel is, how much info it can carry, etc. here – suffice it to say that a good sized business is going to get themselves a ‘hose’ of the size of a T1 and I’m going to assume that the McCains were going to generate enough traffic through staff, the Secret Service, the campaign, etc. etc. to warrant a T1).

The second way, and if I were John McCain and I were running for president…and I were the Secret Service…I wouldn’t want just a T1 because, as we all know NOW (hi there, NSA and no, I don’t do pillow talk with the DH, so move along, nothing to see here) any phone call made on a regular phone company circuit is going to be listened to, recorded, sliced, diced and served up to some drooling NSA staffer in a closed room someplace. I’d want something SECURE – I’d want my own damn fiber optic cable (two fibers will do the trick)going from my place to the CO, and my own damn equipment IN the CO in a locked cage and secure facilities going out of the CO.

And this, my friends(as Johnny Mac is wont to say) is expensive. Not that a 15 miles local loop on a T1 is NOT, mind you. But again, each one of those companies will want their own PAA and their own facilities, etc. And the rules in the pole game are: There is only so much space on the pole for telecom facilities; it’s called ‘the communication space’. The stuff at the top of the pole, on the cross trees(if the pole has those) is ‘the power space’. You can’t put telecom stuff in the power space – US electrical standards will not allow for that. So, a certain distance down the pole, there is this area that is about 12-18”, that allows for cable tv, CLEC, etc.

Now, there is also a requirement that there be a certain amount of space between all the occupants of the communication space and then ultimately between everyone snuggled up there and the power space. As more cable, internet, and CLECs go out there and try to get into the space, many times, esp in rural areas, they exceed the amount of space in the communication space. Which means: The next co. that wants to go in that space has to ‘make space’ for themselves and the way they do that is: They have to pay to have a bigger pole installed in its place and have everyone’s stuff taken off the old pole and installed on the new pole.

This is called ‘make ready’ and requires ‘ride outs’ and ‘pole surveys’. So, if ATT and Verizon wanted to do that for Johnny and Mrs. Mac, they’d have to get the poles surveyed(ok..let’s do a quick calculation: 26 poles per mile x 15 miles x $7.50 a pole — $2,925…for each company), and get a certain number of poles replaced. In many rural areas, esp if it’s sparsely populated(which this area is according to the news article), I could imagine a scenario where half of the poles would need to be replaced with a bigger pole – we’ll go with the next size up from what is usual in really rural areas…we’ll go with a 30’ pole and as I recall, that’s about $500 a pole, so we are looking at $97,500 just for the pole replacements (see how this is mounting up?).

The cable and installation will cost anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000. And, they will also want to put their switching equipment(a rack with boards) in a secure cage in the Qwest CO, and companies always charge for renting space – that usually comes in the $750-$1000 a month range. At this rate, monthly charges for T1s to Qwest are starting to look really, really cheap.

4) OK, so we’ve got Johnny and Mrs. Mac their cell towers on wheels(or whatever, frankly, it looks as if at least one of the companies actually built them a 40’ tower, with dishes on it, which is NOT a COW) and we’ve got them connected to the CO in Sedona and they can make their phone calls and everyone is happy. Except for one thing – this equipment needs maintenance – all the damn time.

Weather, birds, just plain old ordinary break down – so there needs to be ATT and Verizon techs available within probably an hour’s drive to be able to service this equipment on a regular basis. ATT and Verizon may already have folks in the area, but if not, they’d have to find them and contract with them. These people are usually on call … and on a retainer. We are talking 24/7 coverage here.

So, how big a gift WAS this, really? Well, on the public docs(which were incomplete), they only admit to $22,000 construction(but that did not include the equipment; the total would have been over $100,000 for sure). So, to review and these are estimates:
Tower/equipment/construction: $100,000
Site Acquistion: -0-(remember, Cindy signed an agreement)
Antenna poles: 500
Power for the equipment 6,500
Antenna line equipment 4,000
Air conditioning for equip. 1,500
Fire/security 500
Hardware and software ……..I really don’t know, I’ve seen pricing of $45,000+
Capital Expense $113,000 + hardware and software

Operating Expenses a year:
Circuit: $6000
Electricity: $1200
Ops and Maintenance $10,500
Property Taxes: …………..(is AZ a personal property taxed state?)
Operating Expenses for the year $17,700 + property taxes

This is with the plain ‘get the T1 from Qwest’ scenario; if they go the ‘install the cable on the poles’ route; it will be much, much more. Now, considering how much ATT and Verizon have greased McCain’s palms with over the years, this seem like ‘coffee money’ – but for all of Cindy’s protestations about how she did this like anyone else, I can tell you that no one else out there can get ATT or Verizon to voluntarily and for free put cell equipment on their property for what amounts to their personal use.