To: Listserver
From: Bill Talanian
Subject: County Telecommunications Ordinance
As might be expected Santa Barbara County's Telecommunications Ordinance
is gaining national attention. The following article was forwarded to me
from K4AQ of Atlanta. Independently written it is a commentary about the
sad situation existing in Santa Barbara.
Folks, in my opinion the wireless industry is as frustrated with Staff,
the Planning Commission, and the Supervisors as you and I are. This is
not the first time that industry has stayed away from a Hearing
pertaining to the Telecommunications Ordinance. Over the years I have
seen the industry backing away little by little in its dealings with the
County of Santa Barbara. They are simply not going to spend any more
political or financial capital and wasting their time with an
uncooperative local government. All sounds just like our situation
doesn't it ! There is no level playing field here, the county
wishes to control the entire agenda without listening to any other side
and crafting an ordinance that works. If this County does not want good
telecommunications services then fine, there are plenty more towns in
America where the industry can grow and make a profit without spending
their resources on consultants, lobbyists, and lawyers. In the end the
consumer suffers. And in our case we as Amateurs are simply lumped in
with the rest of the mess.
Instead of working with the industry and the Amateur Radio community and
coming up with a model of cooperation and understanding the County has
separated itself from the public and elected to roll their own, the
result is the creation of a paperwork monster that no one can deal
with.
If an ordinance cannot stand on its own merit and equitably serve the
community then it deserves to fail. The Telecommunications Ordinance is
bankrupt and broke. Until the Supervisors recognize this fact then
nothing is going to change.
Bill Talanian
-----Original Message-----
From: Outlook 4Mobility
[
mailto:no_reply@outlook4mobility.com]
Sent: Monday, 18 July, 2005 19:14
To: List Member
Subject: Commentary 4Mobility, July 18, 2005, "Where Was The
Wireless Industry?"
By Andrew M. Seybold
<
andy@4mobility.com>
July 18, 2005
Where Was
The Wireless Industry?
Okay, I admit it, I am upset and for a good
reason. This week I attended a meeting of the Santa Barbara Planning
Commission at which the commissioners were to consider amendments to the
Santa Barbara Telecommunications Facilities Ordinance.
As many of you know, ahead of this meeting I prepared a white paper about
why we need more cell sites now and in the future (available for free on
our web site www.4Mobility.com). I sent a copy of this paper to each
commissioner and I talked to representatives of two wireless networks
that assured me they would be represented at the meeting by both
technical and legal people.
Guess what? When I showed up at the meeting, only one wireless network
operator had sent representatives, and they were technical people who
were not able to discuss the legal ramifications. The other network
operator was a no-show and no one else from the industry showed up. The
result was that the County of Santa Barbara Planning Commission voted to
accept the recommendations of its staff (no surprise there) and the
ordinance now makes it even tougher for wireless cell sites to be
installed in some zoning designations of the county, and the entire
process will take longer and be scrutinized more closely.
Some of the other changes will also cost wireless network operators more
money and time in designing wireless sites. Most of the push-back by the
commissioners was because their county council pointed out how little
jurisdiction they really have because of federal regulations. They
decided to accept the changes that give them more control over the
wireless operators who are, after all, trying to get away with whatever
they can get away with and ruin the county by putting up thousands of
wireless cell sites.
One of the revisions in wording states that wireless operators will have
to prove the need for new sites based on coverage (not coverage and
capacity requirements as I tried to have it amended). This has already
proven to be a problem since one of the commissioners recently drove to a
proposed site location and had plenty of signal from the wireless network
in question. Now he is fighting the need for a new site, even though
during busy periods it is overloaded.
The immediate consequence of this vote is that several sites within the
county that should have been approved at staff level will now require a
hearing before the entire planning commission that does not understand
any of the ramifications of what it passed. Forefront in their decision
was their dismay that under the federal siting law they could not deny a
second, third, fourth, or as one commissioner put it, a dozen or more
wireless networks from locating in the same area.
Yes, I know. In the grand scheme of things, Santa Barbara is a small
county and people at the various wireless service providers' operations
headquarters cannot jump on a plane and fly all over the country, nor can
the CITA, which has promised to become involved at a state and local
level. However, I believe that ordinances such as this one as amended
will be used as guidelines for other counties and cities in California
and potentially in other states as well.
I have to assume that we are not the only area where this is happening.
There is so much misinformation out there regarding cell sites and the
need for more that I am sure this is not an isolated case. The wireless
industry continues to complain (as do I) that it is being unduly
restricted when it comes to building additional cell sites, but when
given the opportunity to educate those in charge at counties and cities,
the wireless industry is a no-show.
In the long term, it is the consumers of wireless services that have been
shortchanged. They will continue to complain about poor coverage, dropped
calls and the like. They will continue to elevate their cries to state
public utility commissions, organizations such as Consumer Reports, which
has a site where complaints are logged and shared, and the FCC where the
number of complaints logged against each provider is shown in the
aggregate.
The circle will remain unbroken. Consumers will complain to PUCs, the FCC
and others about poor service, and local governments will continue to be
upset that the FCC trumps them in some areas of the decision-making
process and will pass new ordinances making it tougher than ever to gain
new site approval. How do they think network operators are going to fix
the problems?
Most of the changes to our ordinance were adopted so the county could
feel it had taken back some of its authority that had been preempted by
the FCC. It became very clear from listening to the commissioners'
comments that they really resented not having complete control over the
entire process. They cannot use health issues as a reason to preclude
sites from being built and they have to let networks build in areas where
another network operator already has a site.
The argument I raised about needing new cell sites in order to provide
additional capacity fell on deaf ears. So did my comments about wireless
phones now outnumbering wired phones in the United States and the fact
that they will continue to increase in numbers. I tried to explain that
new services employing data capabilities will require more cell sites to
meet ever-increasing capacity demands.
Not only did commercial wireless networks lose at this week's meeting, so
did amateur radio operators. Under the amendments to this ordinance, if I
want to put up a simple wire antenna between my house and a tree I will
need a permit. Depending on where I live, I might even be required to
obtain a conditional use permit.
The only winners under the terms of these modifications to the ordinance
are those who want to install a Wi-Fi (or WiMAX) system on a home or
business to provide services to themselves or others. The county seems
perfectly willing to permit single antennas used for these unlicensed
services to be erected without permits if they do not protrude more than
14 feet above an existing building or structure. Perhaps the future of
commercial wireless networks in our county lies in the use of microcells
placed on houses within a neighborhood. It appears from what I have seen
that I could dot an entire community with these small antennas and not
have to worry about permits or other requirements even if I charged money
for the service.
The wireless community lost another round this week. Not in New York or
Los Angeles, but in Santa Barbara County. Most of the industry does not
seem to care about what is happening in this county or others like it
around the United States. I guess since neither the wireless industry nor
the organizations founded to support it will become active in these
battles, we will continue to see more restrictive ordinances.
This will make it more difficult to build new sites to provide better
service, and it will be more expensive for everyone. Education is a
valuable tool we should be using at state and local levels as well as in
communities where wireless customers live and work. This week I also gave
a speech about wireless services to a small group of executives in the
city of Santa Barbara. When I asked if any of them were happy with the
wireless coverage they have now, the answer was no. It didn't matter
which network they were on, they were all unhappy with their coverage,
the number of dropped calls and what they see as a lack of responsiveness
by wireless operators to fix coverage problems. When I explained that all
of the operators want to fix these problems but were being hamstrung by
local governments, they understood the issue and, I believe, left with a
new empathy for wireless network operators. This speech was given the day
after the planning commission voted 5-0 to accept the new revisions to
the ordinance, so it really didn't matter.
The wireless industry has an uphill battle ahead the fact that the FCC
trumps local regulations bugs the locals so they try to gain an
advantage. Unfortunately, the advantage is not so they can see to it that
their citizens have the wireless service they want and need, it is to be
able to thumb their nose at the feds and say, "See, you won't let us
regulate our own county so we found a way to do it." And they will
use every tool they have to keep the feds and the big, rich wireless
network operators from being able to dictate to them.
Politics at its finest with no help from the wireless industry, and no
regard for the citizens that live and work in the county. I guess that is
the American way!
Andrew M. Seybold
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