Appeals court rules against Sprint Nextel on location of towers in San Diego

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a previous ruling to give San Diego County a victory over Sprint Nextel Corp. in a long-running dispute between the parties over a 2003 ordinance governing visibility and location of wireless facilities.
“The ordinance does not effectively prohibit Sprint from providing wireless services. Therefore, the [1996 telecom] act does not preempt the country’s wireless telecommunications ordnance,” stated the court in a 19-page opinion.
A U.S. district court barred the enforcement of San Diego County’s 2003 antenna siting ordinance last year, a ruling upheld by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit earlier this year. But the decision was reversed after a rehearing by the full court.
The mobile-phone and tower industry associations were not immediately available for comment.
The turnabout by the 9th Circuit comes as the Federal Communications Commission considers a request by mobile-phone trade association CTIA to resolve questions about time frames in which zoning authorities must act on siting requests and other obstacles faced by wireless carriers in securing approval by local officials for base station and tower placements. The FCC recently extended the deadline for comments on CTIA’s petition until Sept. 29.