Steel In The Air, Inc

Steel In The Air, Inc Steel in the Air assists landowners municipalities, and venue owners with cell tower lease negotiations, valuation, infrastructure management & brokerage.

Ken Schmidt started Steel in the Air a decade ago. It was the first landowner-centric cell tower lease consultancy firm in the United States. Ken is well-respected in the industry for his ethical, no-nonsense approach to cellular lease negotiations and cellular asset valuation. Since 2004, SITA has been a trusted resource for private and public landowners, municipalities, investors, attorneys and educators.

10/08/2026

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A landowner contacted Crown Castle over 6 months ago - seeking to get them to come out and do maintenance at their tower...
10/07/2026

A landowner contacted Crown Castle over 6 months ago - seeking to get them to come out and do maintenance at their tower site - alleging that their is substantial overgrown brush that constitutes a fire hazard. He represents that Crown Castle has told him that they are unable to get anyone out there because they laid off all their site managers. Is this true? Does CCI no longer have site managers that can visit sites? Even if they don't, what prevents them from sending a hired crew out to do the work?

Whatever the case, we advised him to send a formal notice of breach so that he can start the clock ticking on the repairs.

(Not real tower or brush - AI generated)

Looks like the FCC has proposed rulemaking to revise what infrastructure or actions require NEPA (National Environmental...
10/05/2026

Looks like the FCC has proposed rulemaking to revise what infrastructure or actions require NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review. Essentially, they are removing one of the time consuming and expensive components to getting approval for new towers.

Two immediate takeaways:

1) this will seemingly discourage tower owners from filing Antenna Structure Registrations for towers under 200’ and that aren’t near airports

2) satellite ground facilities and space operation facilities would avoid NEPA review

FCC draft order would limit NEPA review for many wireless and satellite projects, with ASR, RF, ESA, and Section 106 duties remaining.

Thank you for posting a nuanced and human written analysis of LEO.  There is so much AI slop that adds nothing to the co...
09/30/2026

Thank you for posting a nuanced and human written analysis of LEO. There is so much AI slop that adds nothing to the conversation.

👉

From Niche to Mass Market Starlink's success to date is built on a simple premise: serve customers terrestrial networks cannot reach. Rural homes, remote businesses, maritime and aviation customers who had no alternative and were willing to pay a premium for connectivity.

09/28/2026

Over the last 20 years, we have tracked virtually every lease that we could find that has lease rate information attached to it. As a result, we have over 10,000 leases in the United States tracked. These leases include ground leases, rooftop leases, water tower or utility structure leases, and tower collocation leases.

This is how the information we've compiled can be useful to you: https://bit.ly/4x8w0Fv

True IoT — The Underappreciated Demand Driver 💡Connected IoT devices are expected to approach 40 billion globally by 203...
09/24/2026

True IoT — The Underappreciated Demand Driver 💡

Connected IoT devices are expected to approach 40 billion globally by 2030, up from roughly 21 billion in 2025. Most of that growth is in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth — indoor, static, low-mobility applications that don’t require macro wireless infrastructure. But a meaningful and growing subset requires terrestrial cellular connectivity: autonomous vehicles, mobile robotics, connected agricultural equipment, nomadic industrial sensors, emergency response systems, and any application where latency is critical and the device moves.

Satellite cannot serve these applications at scale. The latency constraints on autonomous vehicles are measured in milliseconds. Satellite, even LEO, cannot (yet) reliably deliver that, especially at the scale necessary. For latency-critical, mobile use cases, terrestrial macro wireless is not one option among several — it is the only option.

The connectivity stack that will emerge is layered: Wi-Fi and fiber for indoor static applications; terrestrial cellular for mobile and latency-critical uses; satellite for mid-latency, non-urgent applications in remote areas; and private 5G for large venues and enterprises. Macro towers are the backbone of the cellular layer. That layer is not going away.

09/22/2026

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The highest lease rates that we obtain for our clients occur during renegotiations for leases that are due to expire in ...
09/21/2026

The highest lease rates that we obtain for our clients occur during renegotiations for leases that are due to expire in the near future (five years). Reviewing the value of an expiring lease is a fairly complex task involving a number of factors that influence how much tower companies and wireless carriers will pay to continue the lease after the expiration date.

That's exactly the type of task we love working on: https://bit.ly/4hIJrHo

09/17/2026

Most landowners know their current monthly rent — but few have ever mapped out what their lease will pay them from today through the end of the full term. Escalation clauses compound over time in ways that aren't obvious from the lease document alone.

This free calculator projects your payments month by month, year by year, and by term period so you have a complete picture of your lease income before making any decision 👉 https://bit.ly/3HzPiiD

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Baldwinsville, NY
13027

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