Crown Castle

[Bill Fastenau]

Up by me on Long Island in NY a company called Next G does the same thing,
they have a common carrier status as far as attachment to utility poles is
concerned, kind of like the cable company attaching to telco or utility
poles.  Next G has attached cellular nodes to poles in difficult to cover
areas where terrain or nimbys (who prevent macro cell site installation)
challenge coverage.  In my village the mayor/board have effectively
prevented any cellular construction since they took office, but have been
unable to prevent installation of pole mounted fiber nodes.  In my area
metroPCS (in the AWS band, 2100 MHz downlink) is the major user of Next G's
DAS (distributed antenna system).

Crown Castle manages a bunch of macro cell sites up here and has some
smaller DAS systems as well, mostly in shopping malls and other indoor
venues.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chip Fetrow [mailto:tacos at fetrow.org] 
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 2:03 AM
To: tacos at amrad.org
Subject: RE: Crown Castle

Frank:

How did you find out Crown Castle is involved?  It seems unlikely  
because the phone and power companies generally manage their poles  
themselves.  The exception from time to time Verizon Wireless will  
allow American Tower to manage their actual towers.

I also wonder where you live, other than it being Northern Virginia.   
In most areas, the wireless companies can locate on buildings or erect  
a monopole, and in some rare cases, actual towers.

In NoVA, Great Falls, specifically along Georgetown Pike, the NIMBYS  
are particularally strong, and exceptionally well funded.  They have  
prevented the use of monopoles, with a very few exceptions like the  
replacement of the tower at the Fairfax County Fire Station in Great  
Falls in order to accomidate wireless carriers.

If you look carefully as you drive down Georgetown Pike you will see  
brown utility poles with brown boxes side mounted to them near the  
base, along with a brown meter base, and brown transmission lines  
leading to smallish brown antennas mounted around the pole at the  
top.  I believe these to be AT&T Mobility sites, but that seems to be  
so out of character for them -- after all, they don't care about  
coverage much.

I would like to stop and inspect one of the installations for  
information as to who owns them, but that would be dangerous as there  
are few places to pull over or even walk beside Georgetown Pike, which  
VDOT would like to make safer, but those well funded NIMBYS don't want  
the road fixed.


I wonder if some knowledgeable NIMBY didn't put the sign up you your  
local pole in order to scare people who live nearby.  Nearly no  
wireless company wants to notify the public of what they are up to  
because they don't want to give those who would oppose them any  
information.  Of course if the local zoning administrator forces them  
to put up a sign, they will, but those signs are generally required to  
have contact information on them that either lists the government  
person to contact or both government contact and the company contact.

--chip

On Apr 27, 2011, at 11:05 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:33:31 -0700
> From: "fgentges at mindspring.com" <fgentges at mindspring.com>
> To: Tacos <tacos at amrad.org>
> Subject: Crown Castle
>
> A telephone pole just outside our neighborhood now has a sign posted  
> on it.
>
> The sign says it is a "Future Antenna Pole" and any questions to
> "contact your joint pole administrator".  No phone number or web  
> site is
> listed.
>
> I found www.crowncastle.com is part of whatever is going on with this
> pole.  The web site talks about wireless infrastructure, 23000 towers
> and how the company is a good place to invest.  It talks about
> distributed antenna systems.  Fancy artwork and very little detail on
> what they are up to.
>
> What should I expect to see or get in wireless?  Should I be happy,  
> sad
> or indifferent?
>
> Frank K0BRA
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