Andrew Seybold: New Reason to Approve More Cell
Sites
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/030113_andrew_seybold_new_reason_more_cell_sites/
By Andrew Seybold
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[Writer’s disclaimer: I am a consultant, educator and writer in the
area of wireless communications. I consult to commercial
wireless networks, device vendors, the public safety community and
others. But I have never been hired by any company, organization or
person to support new cell sites. I am a believer in wireless and
understand, because of my work, that without cell sites wireless will not
be the pervasive technology that many want it to be.]
Soon the commercial cell sites will have some new tenants: public
safety, fire, EMS, sheriffs and police. In February 2012,
President Barack Obama signed the
Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 that contained
provisions for the establishment of a new public safety network for data
and video services and $7 billion to build out this network nationwide
(not enough funding but a good start).
This new network is needed because commercial networks are not capable of
meeting public safety’s needs. The public safety community and commercial
broadband operators will work together to build out this Nationwide
Public Safety
Broadband Network (NPSBN).
This new network will provide interoperability, enabling first responders
and various agencies across the United States and locally to be able to
communicate via text, data and video. This will help our first responders
serve all of us better and more safely. Even in Santa Barbara County,
while the Sheriff’s Department
and police can communicate with each other, they cannot communicate
directly with fire services, UCSB
police, or other city and county agencies.
The NPSBN is a cellular-type network that will require many more cell
sites than we currently have allocated for public safety. In Santa
Barbara County, we have six mountaintop sites for the Sheriff’s
Department and County Fire to
provide
voice communications, but we will need 60 to 70 sites to provide data
and video for our public safety community.
That means that public safety will need to share sites with the
commercial operators to build its network. On the commercial side, the
additional cell sites will benefit the 32 percent of
wireless customers who no longer maintain a wired phone in their
homes and provide more capacity for the rest of us. The county and the
city will need to take this into consideration when evaluating new cell
sites moving forward.
Most network operators plan to add many more sites each year than the
city’s and county’s capacity to approve them because of the way in which
each site must be handled one at a time. If the county and city had a
long-term policy to approve cell site expansion, this process could be
fast-tracked to the advantage of the citizens of the area, the city or
county, and the wireless operator, resulting in less cost for each of
these entities.
The commercial operator must prove that the site it has selected is the
best to add coverage or capacity where it is needed. Counties and cities,
by law, are not permitted to use health concerns to deny these
applications, but they are permitted to consider aesthetics and other
issues to make sure that the cell sites that are approved meet the
requirements of the county or city. Because of the increased demand for
wireless
broadband services, which is growing at a rate of more than 100
percent a year, over the next five years cities and counties will have to
deal with at least a 50 percent increase in cell site permit requests.
Now is the time to standardize the procedure for site approval to
facilitate network expansion.
Now when the county, city and residents of this area oppose a new cell
site, they might also be opposing this new public safety communications
network that could end up saving their lives in the future. I know that
most people want cell sites but not near their own homes or
schools because of
aesthetics and health concerns. However, if a cell site is located on
a tower, a pole or a faux tree and is higher, rather than lower, any
possible radio frequency exposure is reduced.
So the smart thing to do is to approve cell sites that are higher rather
than lower, and to remember that these sites will, in the near future,
also be used for public safety communications services that might be
critical to you someday.
Andrew Seybold is a Santa Barbara resident and head of
Andrew Seybold Inc., which
provides consulting, educational and publishing services.
Click here for more
information. The opinions expressed are his own.
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/030113_andrew_seybold_new_reason_more_cell_sites/