While some neighbors may not “like” a single “macro” wireless tower hidden in the roof of a church in a residential neighborhood.... (see next page)

Antennas hidden inside church steeple (made of a type of fiberglass that allows radio waves to go through but can be painted and textured to mimic wood/steel/concrete).

……Wireless carriers are currently pushing at the Federal level and State level for laws that would allow them to be treated as any other “utility” and put up new cell towers, rent-free, along City streets or sidewalks.

On average you would need 4 to 12 of these “Small Cells” just to equal the coverage & capacity of a single macro site (e.g. rooftop of a church)…..

A previously proposed “Not-So-Small-Small-Cell” with multiple cabinets along a nicely landscaped street in South Orange County

A fairly well-designed, low-power and quiet (no noisy cooling fans) concept Small Cell design (assuming State/Federal laws don’t override the ability of the City/County to request a better design…)

A bulky not-So-Small-Cell on a wooden utility pole in Oakland

Some systems have noisy cooling fans

So instead of wireless carrier paying 3k to 5K, a month, to put a single macro cell site on a church, the carrier may pay nothing, or a few hundred

a year for Small Cells in front of your home/bedroom window

1 of these……or 4 to 12 of these

It appears one wireless carrier (“Mobilitie” on behalf of Sprint) is aggressively pushing a two-prong strategy that may result in more poles/equipment/antennas right in front of your home or driveway

1. In some cities/counties Mobilitie has been proposing 120 foot tall steel poles along streets and sidewalks (some in residential neighborhoods).

2. In addition, Mobilitie has been proposing brand new 20-40 foot tall wooden poles for Small Cells, even on streets where all the utilities, like electric wires are underground; and without proposing “attaching” antennas and equipment to existing streetlights nearby

Why so tall?

It appears to save on “fiber backhaul” costs.

Here is how: Most wireless carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T Mobility, Verizon) and their network partners (folks who put antennas on streetlight or existing utility poles like Extenet Systems or Crown Castle) will setup a network where your phone “talks” to the cell antennas on either a building, a large tower, or a ”Small Cell” on a 20-40 foot tall light pole or utility pole.

The signal would go from your cell phone to the antennas on the “shorter” pole, and then travel from the computers mounted on the 20-40 foot light/utility pole through fiber-optic cables (“fiber backhaul”) alongside existing power lines (under City streets or on existing wooden poles in the neighborhood); and back to the data center and onto the rest of the network.

Using these 120+ foot poles appear to allow Mobilitie/Sprint to save a lot of money by not running fiber backhaul cables from Small Cells nearby back to the data center.

It appears Small Cell antennas on multiple light poles (upper left) in a neighborhood would “talk” to the Sprint network by sending your phone signal from the coffee-can shaped microwave device (above the banner) over to the 120 foot tall pole. Then the signal would travel a few miles to a network center.

Current Federal LobbyingMobilitie is currently asking in a recent proceeding for the FCC to override local control regarding access to the public right-of-way. This could hypothetically mean:

Forcing cities/counties to allow carriers to put up brand new wood/steel poles along City sidewalks without any limits on the number of new poles in a residential or historic neighborhood.

Prohibiting cities from establishing noise or exhaust rules for the noise from cooling fans or backup diesel generators

Forcing cities/counties to rent out space on City-owned light poles at rates far below what many cities/counties charge or feel is appropriate to recoup costs and best represent taxpayers (e.g. $35 a month instead of $150 to $350 a month)

Force cities/counties to allow designs with no regard of best available technologies or common sense rules (e.g. turning off unnecessary equipment indicator lights on equipment cabinets installed on a pole that is a few feet from a bedroom window).

Forcing cities/counties to allow carriers to put bulky cabinets (computers or backup batteries or generators) on the ground with little to no regard for how it may block busy sidewalks or views of historic / iconic buildings or small business storefronts

Current Federal Lobbying Mobilitie is currently asking in a recent proceeding for the FCC to override local control regarding access to the public right-of-way. This could hypothetically mean:

Forcing cities/counties to undo nearly 20 years of smart wireless siting that sought to balance robust and competitive networks while working collaboratively with carriers to pursue the least intrusive means of providing those services

Least intrusive could mean hiding antennas in fake vent pipes on office buildings instead of building brand new steel towers.

In rural areas pushing wireless carriers to share space on a single tower, instead of each new carrier coming and building a brand new tower down the road (“collocation”). Or, disguising a tower as a water tank or windmill on private property instead.

Least intrusive could also mean a balanced approach for an urban area with rooftop cell sites for core coverage and WELL-DESIGNED (small equipment and antennas with no noisy cooling fans) Small Cells attached to existing (not new) light poles for robust data coverage at sidewalk user level.

Current Federal Lobbying Mobilitie request of the FCC to override local control regarding access to the public right-of-way could also mean:

Forcing cities/counties to allow a wireless carrier to rip up a decorative or well-maintained concrete sidewalks (for new trenching) and replace any broken sidewalks areas with (often bump) patches of asphalt.

Allowing carriers to pursue poles of any height, even if it means the placement requires new aircraft warning lights. With no recourse for a City/County to suggest something like moving the pole a few hundred yards away from an aircraft landing zone to negate the need for the lights).

The Senate may consider a revised version of the MobileNow Act which would gut local review of wireless siting as well.

For example, the first version (withdrawn last year) would have said a City/County can’t require any review for a diesel backup generator as long as it is for a wireless site. So even if the generator was proposed on the roof next to a bedroom window, the City/County could not apply any noise or exhaust rules or even request the generator be moved to the other side of the roof.

California (State) PushAT&T Mobility appears gearing up to continue pushing for a shutdown of the existing copper telephone (wired landline) AT&T network.

They’ve begun proposing (in some rural areas) replacing the network with new cell towers accompanied by new antennas on each home (to talk to the nearby cell tower in lieu of copper wires). The bill that died last year (AB 2395 – Evan Low) will likely be revived in 2017.

The California Public Utilities Commission recommended denial over concerns regarding reliability, consumer protection, compatibility of hearing aids and home alarms and so on.

The bill was withdrawn in the face of opposition by many counties, especially rural ones, as well as many labor unions (wireline crews are unionized – while the wireless industry has a comparatively anti-union makeup and a issue of poor safety issues related to poles falling over causing fires in Malibu, and tower climber deaths).

Blog Link: http://www.tellusventure.com/blog/att-plan-to-scrap-copper-networks-will-widen-digital-divide-say-rural-reps/

California (State) Push

Verizon appears gearing up to revise a bill that failed (withdrawn) last year (AB 2788 by Mike Gatto) to override local control and allow “Small Cells” along public streets/sidewalks with little to no control over siting/design/noise by a City/County.