Dobbs: “If you’re the cell phone company where are your permits?” Gold Hat: “Permits? We ain’t got no permits. We don’t need no permits! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ permits!”
-with apologies to B. Traven and then John Huston
It seems that Ridgewood, New Jersey is non-to-happy with AT&T Wireless at the moment.
Can you guess why?
Well, according to a published report on NewJersey.com, it seems like AT&T Wireless decided that it would forgo actually pulling permits for a COW (Cell on Wheels) which it parked and then set up at a local gas station in town.
A portion of the NewJersey.com new report is telling. . .
According to AT&T’s public relations representative Ellen Webner, the tower, called a cell site on wheels or COW, is “in a temporary location while we work with the local community, zoning, on a permanent location.”
She did not comment when asked to explain why the village was not previously notified by AT&T about the tower.
“We are now working with the town through zoning and going through all proper procedures,” Webner said.
I enjoyed Ms. Webner’s use of the word “now” in that last sentence.
– Read the entire story at THIS LINK. Opens in a new window.
A Nextel “COW” (l) and a Sprint “COLT” at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Click on the photo to enlarge.
CTIA – THE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION® petitioned the FCC on December 21, 2012 to relax its rules regarding temporary wireless site installations, typically using “COLTS” and “COWS” (“cells on light trucks”, and “cells on wheels”). The FCC has responded by opening a proceeding to seek public comment (RM-11688).
The FCC’s current process requires certain types of public notice, which the CTIA says can prevent the wireless industry from bringing in additional call handling capacity for special events.
CTIA seeks a waiver from the public notice requirements for “temporary towers that (i) will be in use for 60 days or less, (ii) require the filing of a Form 7460-1 with the FAA, (iii) do not require marking or lighting pursuant to FAA regulations, and (iv) will be less than 200 feet [sic]” which CTIA calls in its petition “Two Month Towers.”
When are Two Month Towers needed? In its petition, the CTIA gave some examples:
There are also numerous instances where carriers need to deploy temporary towers in non-emergency situations with less than 30 days of advance notice. These events often occur with only a few days of advance notice, with carriers learning about the need for additional capacity at the last moment. These events nevertheless place significant short-term demands on the local wireless networks and require temporary facilities to address these capacity issues. For example:
In 2011, President Obama vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard. Carriers did not receive sufficient advance notice of the vacation and had to quickly deploy temporary facilities to accommodate the increased capacity necessitated by the influx of press personnel and additional tourists;
States and localities often hold ticker-tape parades to celebrate their teams’ sports championships. Carriers do not have advance notice regarding teams that will win championships and the parades usually are held shortly after the championship game;
During presidential campaigns, candidates made stops in various towns and carriers receive less than 30 days notice due, in part, to security concerns. Once carriers learn of planned campaign stops, they mobilize to deploy temporary facilities. The lack of 30 days notice would preclude the deployment of these temporary facilities;
CTIA’s petition provided other examples of requests for temporary sites that had to be deployed could not meet the 30-day notice rule. The petition did not say how those sites were deployed without complying with the FCC’s present 30-day notice requirement, but I digress.
If you’d like to read the CTIA’s petition, CLICK HERE. To read the FCC’s request for comments on CTIA’s petition, CLICK HERE. Comments are due on February 25, 2013, with reply comments due on March 12, 2013. To search for filed comments, CLICK HERE.
That’s COWs as in Cells on Wheels. I was digging through my collection of cell site photos and ran across a few I hadn’t posted from the October 2007 fires in Orange County. I’ve added a few photos of AT&T’s cow, and Nextel’s 20KW portable generator. The photos are in the celltowersites.com/gallery/ in the COWs section.
Click on the gallery link at the top of the page, or on the large picture above to visit the gallery.
Dobbs: “If you’re the cell phone company where are your permits?”
