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#036 - Improving Cell Tower Inspection By Using Drones with AT&T's Art Pregler
#036 - Improving Cell Tower Inspection By Using Drones with AT&T's Art Pregler
ratings:
Length:
33 minutes
Released:
Feb 16, 2017
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
AT&T has 65,000 cell sites around the U.S. which require constant maintenance. Some of these cell sites can be towers that are hundreds of feet high and others can be massive stadiums with hundreds of antennae. The site maintenance is accomplished by 15,000 tower technicians. Technicians perform their tasks by risking their lives, physically climbing up the cell towers, or burn lots of time walking around stadiums for entire weeks, testing signal strength. Art Pregler is the Director of Construction & Engineering Mobility Systems at AT&T. The company moved from a drone "exploratory phase" in 2015 to "fully operational" in September 2016, with an entirely outsourced model—hiring 3rd party drone service providers. AT&T employs these drone service providers to inspect their cell towers via aerial photos, videos, photogrammetry, and even machine learning. Ian coaxes Art to reveal how—among other things—using drones decreased AT&T's cell site maintenance times from one week, to just four hours, a 900% savings.
Released:
Feb 16, 2017
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (99)
#003 - How To Get a FAA 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card: Attention commercial drone pilots: learn from Ian how to get access to a little-known FAA program which essentially grants you a "Get Out of Jail Free" card that can be used to help you get out of trouble when operating your drone commercially. Please... by Commercial Drones FM