Welcome to Let's Get Digital.
I'm Keri Charles, your host.
And today I have with me Patrick Halley.
He is the president and chief executive officer of the Wireless Infrastructure Association, also known as WIA.
WIA represents over 140 companies that develop, build, and own and operate the nation's wireless infrastructure.
and is the leading authority on all things wireless.
I have been connected to WIA for, my gosh, ever since I got in the industry for 10 years now.
And Patrick, thank you for coming on the show.
I know it's your second time with us.
Yeah, delighted to be here, Kerry.
Always good to talk with you.
Awesome, awesome.
Well, let's just dig right in because we have a lot to talk about and you are sitting in DC right now, right?
I am the nation's capital busy time here in DC.
I can imagine.
So hopefully we'll get a little bit of the inside scoop today.
Let's talk first about who is WIA and also the benefits of membership.
Yeah.
So as you said, we are represent the industry that builds, operates and maintains wireless infrastructure.
I like to say that if you're anywhere in the United States and you're connected to a wireless network, there's a high likelihood that it's one of our members who is built,
operated and maintained that infrastructure.
Our mantra is connectivity everywhere, connecting every person, everything and every organization everywhere.
And frankly, it is the members of WIA from the carriers to the infrastructure companies to the tower companies, smallest
in building, the OEMs, you name it, and all of the companies in the services side that support all of those other companies as well and make that connectivity everywhere vision
possible.
So your flagship event is Connectivity Expo can connect X and it's coming up soon.
I have not missed one of these events for 10 years.
It is the place to be.
Can you talk a little bit about the event, the dates, the location, highlight the tracks, maybe a few sessions or keynote speakers?
Yeah, really excited about ConnectX this year.
It's going to be in Chicago, quintessential American city, one of my favorite cities.
We're really excited to get to Chicago.
It's just a great city.
It's a fun city, ton of telecom, you know, located there in Chicago.
So it's a great host city.
And, you know, it's going to be a great event.
It's really the one event in the entire year that brings together the entire digital infrastructure ecosystem.
It's effectively an event version of our association.
All the carriers.
will be there.
All the tower companies will be there.
All of the services providers who are working on behalf of those companies will be there.
Ericsson, know, Nokia, virtually any company in our space is going to be there.
If you want to be there to make deals and do a lot of business development, you can do it.
If you want to have fun, you can do it.
If you want to network and learn, you can do it.
If you can't find what you need at ConnectX, you're not looking hard enough because it really does cater to, I think, every sector of the digital infrastructure ecosystem and
really, frankly, all of
different roles and responsibilities that people have.
So really excited about it.
May 12th through the 14th at the McCormick Center in Chicago.
All three of the host hotels are directly connected to the convention center, so it's a really great layout.
We've got great keynote speakers.
We'll have Lynn Cox from Verizon.
We'll have Robert Walters who runs Network and Construction for AT &T.
We'll have the CEOs and head of US Towers for the top five wireless care, top five tower companies on the stage.
And we'll have some other
folks who are looking at some of the more cutting edge issues around mobile edge computing and AI and all of those topics.
We've decided this year to have slightly fewer tracks but really high quality content.
So you're going to see five tracks, one on evolving infrastructure, one on strategic finance, one on emerging technologies, one on connected spaces and building connectivity,
and of course one on regulatory and policy issues.
So we really have, I think, really great
event planned for you and there's a ton of other events alongside all the educational tracks and keynote speeches which I'm happy to walk through as well if you're interested.
and some cool evening events.
know that vendors and suppliers and members have parties and you have networking events.
And again, this is the event not to miss.
You absolutely can't miss it at this event.
So how do you register and are there any, I guess, availability for exhibitors and sponsors left over?
Sure, all the information on sponsorship, registration, hotel information, all the events, the program, the agenda, etc.
It's all available at ConnectivityExpo.com.
We do have a few slots left for sponsorship and exhibition and we'd love to have you at the show.
So all the information you need on all that is at ConnectivityExpo.com.
You you mentioned some of the receptions and evening events.
We really do have a lot in addition to the substantive content.
whether it's all of our receptions, a golf tournament at Edwidge Valley Country Club, an emerging wireless professionals happy hour, state broadband leaders summit if you want to
get connected directly to some of the folks making decisions around bead funding for example.
We have a women in leadership symposium.
We have an in-building connectivity summit.
And we have a music movement concert which will feature recording artist Uncle Cracker and my band Harmful Interference will be opening up at 7.30 on Tuesday night at the House of
Blues.
You really have just an immense amount of opportunity to do a lot of real work and have a lot of fun.
Yes, I couldn't agree more.
So Patrick, talk a little bit about your, the three top policy items you're working on with WIA right now.
Happy to.
At the top, you sort of asked what are the benefits of WIA?
And I would really put it into four buckets.
Bucket number one is advocacy, and I'll talk about that to answer your question.
We have a top class team of advocates here in DC working before the FCC and Congress and the Department of Commerce and other agencies, the FAA, federal lands agencies, et cetera.
We also have a really strong team at the state level with people on the ground in 25 states.
I don't know if people realize that, but we spend a lot of time working at the state legislature.
level, even local at times.
Second is convening, right?
That's the other benefit of WIA ConnectX and all the other events that we have and different membership services initiatives that bring people together.
The third thing I think about WIA that's why you want to be a member is our thought leadership, our communications efforts, telling our industry story to policymakers and to
the media.
And then fourth, which we can talk about is workforce development, where we spend a fair amount of time training the next generation of workforce in our for our industry.
As far as advocacy and the
top three policy or priorities that we have, I break it down like this.
Number one is maintaining and strengthening a national permitting framework for our industry.
At the end of the day, all of our work, of course, when we're siding a new tower and we're building new infrastructure happens at the local level, but it's critical that we have a
real national framework that guides how that process works.
Our mantra there is predictability, proportionality, and transparency.
So we want to make sure that when you go to build a new site or co-locate on an
site, that the rules of the road are clear, that you know what the process is going to be, and that it's going to be an efficient and effective process.
So we're working really hard to pass legislation to strengthen the existing rules in Congress and at the same time with a little belt and suspenders working on legislation at
the state level as well to make that predictability.
So national framework on permitting number one.
Number two, spectrum.
We have spectrum right now, we're deploying it.
There's still plenty of spectrum to be deployed, which is why I'm optimistic about our industry this year and into the next couple of years.
But at the end of the day, to meet the demands that are continually put on our networks by consumers and enterprises, we need more commercial spectrum.
So we're working with the carriers and CCIA and others on identifying more spectrum for commercial use.
And then the third issue would be federal spending, making sure that as we spend billions and billions of dollars on broadband,
that the government understands and supports spending that money on wireless, whether that's fixed wireless to the home and business or mobile wireless in areas that are still
unserved today.
And so we're spending a lot of time working on all three of those issues.
What are you hearing about BID funding?
Yeah, BEAD funding for those who are following at home.
BEAD is the federal $42.5 billion broadband connectivity program that was passed in the prior administration.
lot of questions, right?
Is the Trump administration going to make major changes?
they going to stop the program?
Are going to make it more of a satellite program?
And we've had a lot of conversations.
We met with the acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, NTIA, a couple of weeks ago.
We've written a letter to the Secretary of Commerce laying out what we think they should do.
Here's our view.
BEAT is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
We think we should make this program about infrastructure and jobs.
Right.
Let's focus on what the law is about.
And that means investing a lot of money in last mile infrastructure to get people connected at their home and when they're on the go via a mobile wireless connection.
And then we think we should spend money on workforce development training programs to make sure that we have the workforce to actually go and build those networks now but then also
into into the future as they continue to be upgraded and operated.
And so what do I think is going to happen.
I think right now the current administration is reviewing
the rules that were developed under the prior administration as is their prerogative.
I think that they are
going to make this program much more technology neutral and less of a fiber, really a program that really put their thumb on the scale in favor of fiber.
I still think the vast majority of the money is going to go to fiber.
I think a lot of it's going to go to fixed wireless and I think some is going to go to satellite.
Maybe a little more to satellite than would have been the case under the prior administration, but I don't think it's going to all of a sudden just fundamentally flip to
be a satellite program.
I still think it's going to be a program that invests first in fiber, also fixed wireless, also
satellite and they'll make changes right a lot of the priorities that the prior administration had around preferences for union wages or union labor or you know diversity
equity inclusion or other sort of things that are not directly related to infrastructure
including potentially rate regulation of the services that were being deployed.
I think all that goes away and we focus more on deployment and our hope is that this sort of pause, if you will, as they look at the program is as quickly done as possible so that
we can really just get this program moving.
But I'm still optimistic it's going to be a big boom for our industry in the end.
That's good to hear.
How do you see tariffs affecting the telecom industry?
Yes, I'm in Washington DC.
All people are talking about are tariffs right now.
Well, frankly, that's all anybody's talking about in lots of parts of the country.
Look, the short answer is...
It's difficult to say, right?
Is this a near term negotiating strategy by the president to make a bunch of deals and then the tariffs sort of come back down?
Or are we gonna have higher tariffs like he's laid out for multiple years?
And depends on who you are as to what you think the strategy is.
What I can say are a couple things.
Number one,
Demand for wireless connectivity and broadband connectivity will never go away.
If there are some services that potentially get impacted and people forego those services, it's not gonna be your wireless phone.
It's not gonna be your broadband connection at home.
So I think our industry as a whole, when I say our industry, mean wireless, is generally insulated compared to some other industries, which is a good thing.
It's also, it's interesting.
right, like the tower stocks over the last couple years have been underperforming the broader stock market.
That's not true right now.
I think there's an appreciation for wireless infrastructure, given just the demand for it, the need for it, the predictability of the business model.
And so at least on the tower stock side in the market, you're seeing the values go up, which is interesting.
One thing we know though is with tariffs, if they remain, they will increase costs of certain things.
So they will increase the cost of inputs that physical infrastructure needs to be built.
How much?
Hard to say.
We just actually put a survey out to our members to try to gauge what they think the impact will be.
When it comes to carriers, the inputs that go into devices...
will increase the cost of new devices.
If they're spending more money on devices, that's less capital they have for deployment.
And so could it have an impact?
It could.
And I think that's something we're all trying to really understand and get our head around.
And one of the reasons we reached out to our members is we want to understand from where you sit, how is it impacting you now?
How could it impact you?
So that when we go and have those conversations with policymakers in DC, we're educated and we're letting folks know what the potential impact could be.
So it's a long way of saying TBD, but it's certainly an important issue and something we're tracking very closely.
When you do those types of surveys, do you release that to the general public or is that just internal with your membership?
This is a pretty informal survey at this point, and it's more for our internal use to understand what our own members are concerned about to help us formulate our own talking
points and positions as we're talking to policymakers.
But it's not to say that we couldn't potentially do something that's more public.
that's fantastic.
I mean, there's a lot of buzz in our industry.
Gosh, there's buzz right now about satellite.
And people are asking me, OK, is satellite going to take over?
What about cell phone towers?
Will they be obsolete?
Should tower owners be worried about satellite?
I don't think so.
You're right, there is a lot of buzz.
Compared to a year or even two years ago in DC, there's a lot of talk about satellite and the capabilities of satellite broadband connectivity for last mile broadband to your home.
You you're starting to see things like direct to device satellite to cell phone connectivity.
So it does raise questions and you're seeing TV commercials about it, right?
And so the question is,
you know, is it a replacement or is it a supplement?
And the answer unequivocally is it's a supplement to terrestrial communications.
It is not a replacement and nor will it be a replacement for your traditional terrestrial infrastructure.
We've actually talked to a lot of experts on this and the reality is it's incredible, right?
Like the fact that you can have a direct communication to your cell phone.
from a satellite when you're hiking in Death Valley in California in the middle of nowhere and be able to get a text message out, possibly even a voice call at some point, is
amazing.
But that is the limitation of the technology at this point on your cell phone for a variety of reasons, from just physics to spectrum constraints to regulatory issues.
is, the FCC calls it supplemental coverage from space.
And that's what it is.
It's a really important supplemental capability that adds to your existing network.
But the idea that it's a cell phone, you know, in the sky, or sorry, a cell tower in the sky, it's a misnomer.
It's a new capability.
It's really important, but it is not in any
a replacement for terrestrial infrastructure.
At the last mile, know, like Starlink, for example, that SpaceX offers, it's a pretty good service, frankly.
Actually, I've used it.
And you can get pretty good broadband using Starlink.
And Kuiper service, they're just about to start launching their first satellites, you'll potentially in the coming year or so, you'll start to see maybe little competition even to
Starlink.
But even there, it's just limited by the number of people that can use it due to capacity, the number of satellites.
spectrum issues, etc.
So my big picture answer on satellite is it's a really great technology, it's a really good consumer benefit, but it is absolutely not a replacement for terrestrial
infrastructure.
So the in-building space seems to really be heating up.
have a, gosh, I think in the last two weeks, our job requisitions have doubled in that space.
And so first of all, explain what the in-building space is and also what are you seeing here?
Yeah, that's going to be big focus at ConnectX too, going back to our discussion earlier.
We launched an in-building forum last year to try to bring together in a convening of all of our members.
And we have a lot that are really focused on the in-building space.
And from where I sit, in-building is...
a really important aspect of the wireless infrastructure discussion.
We spend a lot of times indoors.
don't really have landline telephones anymore.
So as a citizen and as just somebody who's using wireless networks every day, you want to make sure that when you're inside of a building, you have strong connectivity.
And so our members do a lot of that from the DASH systems that are built in the larger venues.
Increasingly, a lot of companies are looking at private wireless connectivity, private LTE,
private 5G and in most instances as a supplement to existing Wi-Fi coverage.
In some cases a replacement.
There are benefits to all these different technologies but you know private wireless is typically viewed as more secure.
It has coverage benefits.
There are different use cases that maybe want to have that security and that service level commitment that a private network can provide that a Wi-Fi network can't.
And so across the entire economy as you look out
this isn't just for large venues anymore.
It's not just for manufacturing, although those are sort of the leading edge here.
But we're starting to see an uptick in interest for private wireless networks and in-building connectivity in hotels, in hospitals, on campuses.
And so what we're focused on as an organization is really understanding and promoting the benefits of in-building connectivity in all its forms, including the emerging use of
private wireless networks out to
all of those industries to make sure they understand the capabilities and why they should be looking at private wireless as a solution.
So look, I'm really bullish on in-building.
I think over the next few years, it's really going to keep heating up and keep taking off.
And we're going to do everything we can as an organization to promote the technology.
Actually, including at the conference, not only do we have a connected spaces track,
but we're having an in-building summit and one of the speakers is the head of telecom for the 2028 Olympics in LA.
And his job is basically to make all of these networks work together, whether you're for the athletes, for the broadcasters who are there, for the hotels that people are staying
in, for all the venues that are there, and just making sure that there's just a seamless, really high quality wireless experience across the board.
And that'll be really interesting to hear what he has to say about a project of that magnitude.
And that's it at ConnectX.
Excellent.
Okay.
So WIA has a foundation.
And it's interesting because I had, I just heard about that when I talked to you the other day.
Can you fill us in?
Yeah, we do.
have a non-profit 501c3 foundation.
which exists to promote opportunities for our industry.
And that's workforce development opportunities, raising awareness about careers in our industries, and more broadly, just supporting worthy organizations that are directly
relevant to the wireless infrastructure industry.
And so we sort of reinvigorated our efforts in the last year or so.
We elected some new board members to the foundation and we are active
looking for worthy causes that our dollars can be used for to promote the best interest of our industry.
We had an event here in DC in, I guess it was last month in March, where we had Senator Capito from West Virginia and Representative Lizzie Fletcher from Texas participate along
with a panel of incredible women leaders in our industry.
It was an event called the Wireless Women's Leadership Forum where we raised a significant amount of money for the foundation.
and we were pleased to make a donation of $150,000 to the wireless, to the WWLF Telecom Trailblazers Initiative.
Really excited about this initiative, really impressed with the ingenuity and innovation of the WWLF board for taking this initiative on.
And really it's directly in line with the foundation's mission.
They are working with an organization that does outreach to high schools, specifically looking to raise awareness about careers in our industry.
as part of a broader effort on getting more girls to be interested and lean into STEM careers.
And so they've done events in DC, in Chicago, in San Francisco.
They're planning another one in LA.
And what they do is they bring together these students with industry leaders and they explain how wireless actually works and explain all the different jobs and careers in our
industry that are out there available to these young women.
if they're interested in pursuing it.
And it's part of a broader effort at WIA in general and that the foundation is supporting to just try to raise awareness about the career opportunities in our industries at an even
younger age.
So people are going into our sector because they know about it, because they want a career in our industry, not by accident.
And one plug, the website there if you're interested more about the foundation, how you can donate, or to let us know about a worthy cause that we should be looking at is
foundation.wia.org.
So I want to talk briefly about WWLF.
So it's the Women's Wireless Leadership Forum.
And that is part of WIA.
I've been on the board for many years.
Amazing organization.
So any woman, no matter if you're new in the industry, you want to get into the industry, you're a veteran in the industry, then you need to be a member of WWLF.
And huge support by WIA.
We do just great things in the industry, not just events, but education, mentorship.
mean, the list goes on and on.
So Patrick, thank you for supporting WWLF and everything that we're doing there.
Yeah, I'm incredibly proud of the work that WWLF does and we're so excited to continue to support that organization.
It's really important effort.
It is, it sure is.
How is WIA making an impact with workforce development?
you
Yeah, it's one of our pillars.
You know, we have a whole staff of folks here in the office whose job is nothing but workforce development, and it's really threefold.
One is through registered apprenticeship.
So our telecommunications industry registered apprenticeship program or TIRAP, we have 109 companies participating at this point.
We've had about 6000 apprentices go through our program and we are the national sponsor for the Department of Labor for telecommunications registered apprenticeship.
And it's it's really
effective.
You know I had a chance to go out and visit Congruix, one of the companies who is very active in registered apprenticeship in Salt Lake last year and just talking to them about
the challenges they have in recruiting workers and even more so retaining them, right?
And so when you go through an apprenticeship program it's a really nice combination of hands-on training with somebody who already has a job, they've been hired by a firm,
hands-on training with a mentor combined with classroom training and you come out of it with
certificate and we've got 15 different occupations at this point that are part of Tyrap.
Everything from Tower Tech 1, Tower Tech 2, Tower Forman, RF Engineer, Fiber Splicer, Aerial Underground Utility Installer, Last Mile, In-Building, you name it.
And so we are really proud of that work on registered apprenticeship.
It works nicely with our own training and education content through our telecommunications and education center.
A lot of that work, it's working directly with our member companies to help train their staff.
But it's also increasingly we're doing a lot of partnerships with higher ed, two-year schools, four-year schools, technical colleges, helping some of them set up their own
pre-apprenticeship programs, but also literally providing our content and then helping them offer that content as part of certificate programs to people who maybe didn't even
know about our industry.
And then they learn about it and they come out with a certificate.
And so now you're getting an educated student who also has very specific knowledge about the wireless industry and the wireless infrastructure industry.
And we're doing a lot of work as well, just working with leaders at the state level to try to be an intermediary between industry, academia, and government.
Just really trying to raise awareness first and foremost about what our industry is and what it enables on the careers.
It's not just jobs.
It's careers.
I don't know how many CEOs of companies I've met who started as tower climbers.
It's incredible.
And so for us, it's just telling the story and then actually providing that hands-on training.
And it's a really important element of what we do.
Did you go to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona?
I did, I was there again this year.
It's an incredible conference.
Makes ConnectX looks tiny.
There's like 100,000 people.
And it's overwhelming.
What's that?
did you hear?
What were some takeaways?
guess what was everyone talking about?
I mean, not surprisingly, AI.
I mean, every single booth was talking about AI.
And for good reason.
mean, it's an incredible technology.
There's no doubt it has had and will have an impact on, frankly, every sector, including ours.
And so there was a lot of buzz around AI and what the impact will be for carrier operations.
And then also the applications and different use cases that will be made possible because of AI and therefore what the demand is on our network.
And to be honest, I think there's a lot of
of opinions about what that is and what it will be and we'll see.
We'll see soon, frankly.
We're already seeing it.
But there's also a bunch of stuff that's going to happen that we don't know about yet.
This is always the case with wireless.
So AI, definitely a lot of talk about private wireless, back to our prior discussion and in-building connectivity and the growth and opportunities around private wireless.
Continued discussion on OpenRAN as there often is and OpenAI, AI-RAN for example.
A lot of buzzwords as is
always the case.
What I always come away with from that conference is not so much any one thing.
It's just a massive amount of global research and development and innovation and investment that goes on across the world, all of which comes back to the US at some point,
including a lot of American leadership, around an industry that is just constantly evolving.
On Wednesday I'm actually going up to Bell Labs in New Jersey for the 100th anniversary of Bell Labs.
And I've been there before and what's amazing about that place is they really talk about all the innovations that's come out of it.
And if you just think about...
where that started a hundred years ago and where we are now talking about satellites providing connectivity directly to a cell phone in the middle of Death Valley you gotta be
kidding me you know and people sometimes use the word future proof some technologies are more future proof than other and I think it's just the silliest word in the world because
if you had gone into Bell Labs a hundred years ago or fifty years ago or ten years ago and said that what they were working on then was future proof you'd look like a fool today
And that's what I always take from Mobile World Congress is just that constant level of innovation and curiosity that's driving forward.
And there's no industry more innovative and forward looking than ours, and it's an exciting place to be.
It sure is, and ever evolving is right.
I'm just curious, Patrick, and we have another minute or so left, what drives you?
Tell me why it makes you jump out of bed every morning.
What do you absolutely love about what you're doing in the industry?
You know what it is, in addition to just being able to lead a great team on a personal level, for me that's personally satisfying, right?
Working with the 31 employees here at WIA and we just had our monthly staff meeting today and we're constantly talking about the importance of our industry and what we can do to
make our members' lives easier.
And so just that, the satisfaction of working with an incredible team on behalf of incredible member companies, that's enough to drive me.
On top of all that, it's the record
recognition of, know, when we're having discussions around our event or this policy or that policy or the impact of tariffs, those are all important things we have to worry
about.
But at the end of the day, our industry is, I think, the most important industry in the entire world.
nothing happens in America without wireless connectivity and without broadband more broadly, right?
Literally everything we do from education to healthcare to economic development to business, it's all about connectivity.
And so I get to represent an industry that makes that possible.
How cool is that?
Right?
It doesn't really get any better.
In fact, I recently had an opportunity to
listening to some live 911 calls at a 911 center here in Northern Virginia and 90 % of them are from a wireless phone.
You know, I was just at a local zoning board hearing because I like to see how the sausage is made and see what we talk about in action at the local level.
And one of the people that were really pushing for the siting of a new tower was a woman who's the mother of a 15 year old son.
She's a first responder.
Her husband is a first responder.
And their point was we need this tower because without it, 911 calls don't get made.
911 calls get dropped.
There's no coverage in this valley.
and we make it so that that's not true.
So when we're talking about being able to stream movies and do all kinds of crazy stuff with AI, that's all really well and good.
But at the end of the day, we also just provide that comfort and that safety.
And so those are plenty of reasons for me to be really excited about my job and representing this industry.
said Patrick.
Let's talk about ConnectX one more time.
Also how to reach WIA, the website.
Yeah, just talk about contact information at this point.
wia.org, can provide all the info, you can learn all about the advocacy we're doing and all the different initiatives that we have, as well as our events, including ConnectX,
which is connectivityexpo.com, May 12th through the 14th in Chicago.
It's gonna be the best connectivity event of the year, and we look forward to seeing everybody there.
It sure is, and I will be there.
Patrick, thank you for coming on the show again.
I always love to talk to you I get inspired, so it's great.
Take care.