|
Click To Enlarge Photos
The top of this fire station training tower would make a great location for telecommunications equipment. This is an excellent example of how just a little creativity can make a big impact on Nevada's scenic character.
Locating wireless technology underground can save our skylines from clutter. Efforts like this go a long way in reducing visual pollution.
Colocation means less towers. When multiple companies agree to share towers such as the one pictured above, they demonstrate a conscientious attitude toward our state's skylines.
Tree or telecom tower? Stealth towers such as this one are an excellent way for companies to get the most out of their investment while preventing visual pollution.
The Best Approach
Stealth tower: closeup.
|
Taming Wireless Telecommunications Towers.
The Visual Impact of Wireless Facilities
The presence of wireless telecommunications facilities, especially towers, arouses strong feelings in people who notice and care about the appearance of their community. While some citizens raise issues of safety -- "What if the tower falls? Does it emit radiation?" -- for most people the overwhelming concern is about the visual impact of wireless telecommunications towers, including their height and location.
The visual impact of a wireless telecommunications facility depends upon many factors, including surrounding land use and development patterns. In dense urban areas, the ntennas can often be installed in less-noticeable locations, such as the roofs or sides of buildings that are high enough to send out their signals. Urban environments are also typically more visually diverse and complex, so antennas often do not attract attention the way they do in suburban and rural areas. Suburbs and other low-rise environments -- with fewer existing tall structures to accommodate the antennas -- face additional challenges over tower placement.
Rural landscapes in particular present distinct challenges for sitting wireless telecommunications facilities. Increasingly, towers are going up in rural areas and open spaces, rapidly changing the appearance of the countryside. Additional problems crop up in rural historic districts designated because of their historic structures and special landscapes.
Grappling with the Rapid Growth of Towers
One of the most surprising aspects of dealing with the visual impact of wireless telecommunications towers is how fast the demand, technology, and resistance are growing and changing. Most major cities and suburbs face demand not just for one or two towers, but for dozens. For citizens and local governments, it is important to find out exactly how many towers providers plan to construct -- otherwise, residents may find themselves winning one or two battles over specific tower placement, yet losing the bigger war to control the visual impact of all towers in their community.
Several factors are driving the race among wireless service providers to erect towers:
-
Capacity: The rising number of users requires greater numbers of wireless telecommunications facilities (but not necessarily towers) to handle the calls.
-
Competitiveness: Each wireless telecommunications service provider wants to capture access to as many calls as possible because they earn revenue on every call their antenna processes.
- Coverage: Providers are scrambling to build towers to open up new areas where wireless service is not yet available.
Because wireless telecommunications operates on a principle known as line-of-sight transmission (meaning that antenna sites have to "see" each other), there are valid technical considerations that bear on where to locate antenna sites. However, since the driving force behind wireless service providers is profit, companies often insist that their favored site is the only suitable location, when in fact it may simply be the site they anticipate will generate the greatest returns.
The stakes are high for the service providers. According to the Wall Street Journal, a prime antenna site can generate between $50,000 and $250,000 per month. Because of the tremendous profit potential, the industry pushes hard to obtain the optimum tower height. In reality, they often seek to build towers that are higher than necessary, not because shorter towers will not work properly, but in order to maximize rental income from wireless tenants.
What do wireless service providers look for in a site location? It is helpful for communities to understand the top preferences of wireless service providers for siting facilities. They include:
-
Major transportation routes in the area, since wireless service providers want to cover these areas first;
-
The topographical features of the land and minimizing obstructions to maximize seamless service; and
-
The local population density, which helps wireless service providers determine what type of coverage is necessary.
Typically, providers will categorize the community -- rural, suburban, urban, etc. -- and then divide the area by the number of people on it.
Choices Abound
Even though municipalities typically require permits to erect new wireless telecommunications towers, they often issue such permits to companies with little delay. Citizens then find themselves saddled with a new tower before they even know what is happening. In many instances, a wireless service provider will declare that they must build a particular kind of tower at a specific height in an exact location for people to be able to use wireless phones. When it comes to varying any of these specifications, the company often claims, "We've got no choice." In response, a county council member from Prince George's County, MD noted that the wireless telecommunications industry is "the only industry that I know of that can come in and change the landscape without a great deal of public input."
While it is indisputable that facilities are necessary for the operation of wireless phones, wireless service providers have many choices about tower location, height, numbers, and appearance. The variety of viable tower height and location options has been revealed repeatedly as citizens have successfully protested visually intrusive tower proposals and gained more acceptable results. For instance, in Leelanau County, MI, when residents learned that the state police wanted to erect five new wireless telecommunications towers in their community, they organized to fight back. They formed the Leelanau Association for Sensible Towers, enlisted their state representative, began negotiating with the state police -- and got the total number of towers reduced to two.
(Material excerpted from "Taming Wireless Telecommunications Towers" by Ray Foote and Scenic America Staff.)
Contact Us
Scenic Nevada
P.O Box 32
Reno, NV 89504
(775) 329-3117 (phn/fax)
|
Email Scenic Nevada
|
|
