Cell Tower News: Verizon sues city over antenna ban

by Jarad Matula May 13, 2016

written by Jarad Matula May 13, 2016

Verizon sues over “draconian” ordinance

When Verizon Wireless intends to expand their coverage, it doesn’t take no for an answer. The small California beach town of Capitola found this out the hard way this week when the wireless carrier filed a lawsuit against the city claiming its regulations of wireless communication facilities is a de facto antenna ban violating the United States Communications Act.
One of the city’s ordinances forbids the building of any wireless facility within city limits. This means Verizon Wireless isn’t able to improve coverage in the area for its customers.
“The ordinance is so restrictive that it effectively bars new wireless facilities in most of the city, even if they have no significant visual or other impacts,” according to Verizon’s official complaint. The real stinger for Verizon is that after submitting the permit in July 2015, the city sat on it for six months before flatly rejecting it, citing the strict ordinance.
“Local governments may not ‘interfere with the federal government’s regulation of technical and operational aspects of wireless telecommunications technology, a field that is occupied by federal law,'” Verizon said as a reminder to the city and its officials. The carrier seeks an order stating its request is reasonable and the ordinance is pre-empted by federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Verizon Wireless also requests there be a permanent ban on the city’s enforcement of the ordinance that it refers to as “draconian.”

FCC holds DAS & Small Cell workshop

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors held a distributed antenna and small cell workshop May 3, at FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C. You can watch nearly seven hours of it right here: