In all likelihood they are part of the Galbadian's engineer corps. I forget what they're doing in the Lunatic Pandora but I'd say even money they're trying to get trout there to work, too.

(ignore their prison appearance that's probably just a punishment assignment or something)

As for the tower, it was probably always able to pierce the interference. However, that would probably be a costly thing to run, and, in the meantime, everyone else is marching forward into the world of cable broadcasting.

The only real inconsitency is how Galbadian engineers managed to get a major piece of equipment like that to run in only a few hours when 17 years of exposure to sea air would likely have wreaked some major havoc on the electronics.