By Alex Livoti
May 31, 2025

The telecom industry is evolving faster than ever, and artificial intelligence (AI) is leading that shift. But while the spotlight often shines on the tech itself, I want to talk about the people who built the towers this intelligence now runs on—men and women who faced 100-foot climbs, sub-zero temps, 100+ degree heat, and 16-hour days just to keep the world connected.

I was one of them.

Back then, we relied on instinct, hustle, and experience. You learned fast, or you didn’t last. Whether we were stacking steel in the dark or troubleshooting microwave backhaul on a frozen mountaintop, we made it happen—with limited tools, slow data, and a lot of physical grit.

Now, AI is stepping in—not to replace that grit, but to honor it. To enhance what we’ve built. To help the next generation of tower climbers, techs, and PMs carry this industry forward smarter and safer than we did.

From Gut Instinct to Predictive Intelligence

In the early 2000s, you climbed a tower and guessed what might be wrong. Now, AI systems can predict equipment failures before a truck even rolls. That kind of foresight saves time, money, and lives.

I think back to how many blind climbs we did—hauling gear up only to find the issue was on another sector or another rack entirely. AI helps eliminate those wasted hours and dangerous guesswork.

Tools That Respect the Trade

Field techs today have drones doing line-of-sight verifications, computer vision checking mounts, and AI-driven scheduling systems that keep timelines efficient and realistic.

That doesn’t mean we’ve lost the craft—it means we’ve added precision to the hustle. We’re not losing our role in the field; we’re finally getting tools that understand how valuable our time and safety really are.

Climbing into the Future—Together

For climbers like me who grew up with wrenches in our hands and radios on our hips, AI felt like an outsider at first. But the more I’ve seen it in action—especially in dense urban builds or high-volume upgrades—the more I recognize that it’s helping us protect the very networks we fought to build.

And that’s where this shift matters most: AI isn’t here to erase the past. It’s here to respect it and help us build on it.

The take away- The future of telecom doesn’t belong to machines—it belongs to the people who know how to use them. It belongs to the climbers who now fly drones. To the PMs who now read live diagnostics instead of printed schematics. To the crews who carry both torque wrenches and tablets.