Cell Tower News: Airport climber falls; struggle for towers continues

Welcome to this week’s edition of cell tower industry news, brought to you by Towercrews.net.
Our top story this week comes from Corpus Christi, Texas, where an airport worker was injured while climbing a communications tower for repairs. The tower collapsed, causing the man to fall 30 feet to the ground, with tower debris falling around him. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries reported, only a few cuts and bruises and quite a scare. He was wearing a harness at the time, which helped prevent anything serious, so chalk one up for safety.
Other than that, all is quiet on the national tower industry front. However, there is plenty happening on the regional and local level when it comes to towers. Every day there are more people buying smartphones and more people using large quantities of data, yet there appears to be a disconnect between people’s desire for better, faster service and the understanding that it will require additional towers. Just search for news on cell towers on a given day–it will bring up dozens of news stories from cities (mostly of smaller sizes and populations) all across the country protesting the erection of new cell towers.
Just this week, the residents of Fairfield, Connecticut staged a protest against a church that had planned to lease some of its property for AT&T to build a new tower, claiming it would affect their property values negatively if it happened. Already the church has caved and is nixing plans. Next door in New Milford, CT another proposed AT&T tower is under attack, this time by nature preservationists. They claim the proposed site is too close to a national scenic trail and would take away from the natural beauty of the area. A little further north in Millbrook, NY, AT&T is catching hell for a proposed 105-foot monopole, with locals claiming it would conflict with the city’s interest in preserving historic properties, and would negatively impact the ecosystem of the area. Over on the west coast AT&T can’t win either, with the community of Capolindo, CA fighting a new tower with “vehement opposition.” Despite reported call dropouts and the potential for $5000 each year for the local school district, the residents claim it would decrease their property values by 20-30%.
Some are even going to great lengths to stop the building of new cell towers. The city of Aurora, IL. is so dead set against a new tower, that it is planning annex the land AT&T wants to build upon, just so they can vote it down. Currently the land is unincorporated into a town, but the city is trying to rush approval of the annex through legislation in order to beat AT&T. A building permit has already been approved, so whether this last minute fight against the tower will prove successful or not is uncertain. Like many other communities, locals cite diminished property values as the reason behind the last-minute fight. In San Jose, CA, one property owner was so against the building of a 60-foot tower by AT&T that he spent 250-300 hours reading about codes and ordinances in the city, looking for a loophole or way to stop AT&T. He found evidence of a few violations, and used those to build a case against them, with AT&T being denied a permit based on the man’s research. AT&T is still appealing the ruling. Compared to other locations rejecting towers, this one seems like it would earn less sympathy. The proposed tower would be in a strip mall, behind a liquor store.
It’s not all doom and gloom in the world of tower erection though. The city of Newfane, VT approved a 140-foot tower to improve service. This will be their second tower, and they only have a population of roughly 2,000! The airport in Tehachapi, CA is building a new AT&T tower to improve service since Verizon and Metro PCS already have tower structures on the property. After years of debates, Sea Bright, NY will finally allow the building of a new cell tower.  Though after being locked up in debates for years, the proposed tower now only has interest from one carrier: Verizon Wireless. In Lookout Mountain, TN, it was decided that residents were not allowed to reject it a new AT&T tower for aesthetic reasons alone, and must allow companies to be able to provide adequate service to their customers.
This week’s news sampling makes it appear that there are more cities fighting the creation of additional towers than are supporting them. Hopefully more cities will realize that our march forward in mobile data usage and call coverage will require additional towers to be built across the country. The question should not be whether the tower should be built, but rather what’s the best way to bring additional capacity to communities in the least conspicuous way possible, whether that’s looking to small cell and DAS solutions, building small tower clusters, or camouflaging traditional towers.
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