Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cell calls to get boost

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 21:56:40 -0500

Cell calls to get boost

Town Council to let company put antennas on transmission tower

07:22 PM CST on Thursday, December 18, 2003

By KEVIN KRAUSE / The Dallas Morning News

Paul Stone cannot use his cellphone inside his Flower Mound home.

Mr. Stone lives in the southern part of town, near Grapevine Lake – a giant dead

spot for cellphone users that swallows up wireless calls daily.

But some relief is in sight after the Town Council voted this week to allow
Verizon
Wireless to place six antennas atop a 74-foot electrical transmission tower near

the intersection of Gerault and Spinks roads, north of the Lakeside Business
District.

"Transmission towers are ugly. The towers are there – use them," Mr. Stone, a
Verizon customer, told council members in urging them to approve the project
Monday. "I want better service. Make that ugly tower do something for me."

Peter Kavanagh, a consultant representing Verizon, said the 6-foot antennas will

be up in about two or three months.

The need for more transmission equipment is driven by the growing popularity of
cellphones, Mr. Kavanagh said.

"It's not a convenience for the wealthy anymore. It's an accepted standard item
you keep with you when you leave home," he said. "As more and more people
use them, we have to get the antennas closer together."

Flower Mound has received three or four such applications from cellphone
companies in the last six months, and officials expect to get more, said Doug
Powell, the town's assistant executive director of development and environmental

services.

Mr. Powell said that as companies add transmission antennas to handle the
demand and new technology, many, such as Verizon, are using creative ways to
avoid building obtrusive towers.

AT&T plans to replace a light pole in a Gerault Park sports field with a taller
one
with the company's antennas affixed above the lights, Mr. Powell said.

Nextel already has an antenna on top of the town's water tower, and AT&T
recently received permission to place one of its antennas there too, he said.

And in western Flower Mound, Verizon won approval to place an antenna on top of
a large flagpole inside a ranch.

"You don't know that they're there," Mr. Powell said. "As the industry matures,
they've come up with different ways to be creative."

Mr. Kavanagh said that using the electrical tower prevented Verizon from having
to build one.

"Communities hate antennas. There're absolutely ugly," he said. "You've got to,
as much as you can, stay away from people's homes and provide them with as
much service as you can. It's our understanding that people would rather see us
on an existing structure than to build a new tower."

Some Flower Mound council members voiced concern about how Verizon's request
would affect future homeowners but said the need for better service outweighed
the concerns.

"Sometimes we have to learn to coexist with the things that provide us with the
conveniences of life," council member Sydney Bentz said.

Council member Cindy Travis said that she lives north of the area and that she
and her husband cannot use their AT&T and Cingular Wireless cellphones.

"There is a serious problem in that area," she said.

Verizon plans to add antennas to another site to correct service problems in the

southwest part of town.

"What we want to do is sneak into town and put antennas up so that people have
no idea why their phones work," Mr. Kavanagh said.

E-mail [email-masked]

or call 972-436-5551, ext. 2004.
http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/city/denton/stories/121903dndenphones.18d0a.html

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