A Massive Land Grab by Wireless Hits California Legislature

A Massive Land Grab by Wireless Hits California Legislature

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer
Mike Gatto Wants to Put A Cell Tower in Your Front Yard

Assembly Member Mike Gatto

The elected official, along with his wireless industry patrons, who Wants to Put A Cell Tower in Your Front Yard WITHOUT Any Local Government Discretionary or Aesthetic Review.

 

Assembly member Mike Gatto introduced legislation on June 13 on behalf of his wireless industry patrons that would be the biggest land grab by wireless companies in the history of the state. The vehicle for this huge land grab is Assembly Bill 2788.  Mr. Gatto switched Ab2788 from a completely different purpose to now be a huge gift to wireless companies over the values of his own constituents.

Mr. Gatto wants to allow his wireless company partners to place all sorts of wireless towers in the public right of way (that’s right in front of your home) WITHOUT giving you, your city or county, any say in the design or location of the cell site. 

The legislation he introduced, ghosted by wireless industry attorneys and helped by other wireless industry firms, would DENY any local government the ability to require a different and less intrusive location, or any different or better design that is more harmonious with the surrounding.

Mr. Gatto wants to fling open every right-of-way to his corporate wireless industry patrons.

Mike Gatto, who represents Burbank, Glendale and nearby areas in the state Assembly, is the head of the Assembly’s powerful Utilities and Commerce Committee, which oversees the California Public Utilities Commission, as well as wireless and telephone operators in California.  This means that Mr. Gatto has the power to move this anti-resident bill forward.

Most recently, Mr. Gatto co-sponsored a bill to BREAK UP THE CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION. That breakup would destroy most of the state oversight of wireless and other utilities. That bill passed the Assembly, but it looks like cooler heads in the State Senate will prevail, so that the CPUC break up bill looks like it will die.

Now Assembly member Gatto, pushed by his corporate sponsors, wants to destroy aesthetics of communities everywhere in California by opening the front of your home to a cell site, with no local discretionary review.

The wireless company wants to stick a cell site in front of your home?  Boom: Gatto says it’s done.

But that’s not all: Mr. Gatto’s proposed legislation will REQUIRE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS to make all of their property…not just the right of way…available for cell sites.  Except fire stations. To grease the support of the firefighters union, the bill has a special carve out for fire stations. They don’t have to be made available for cell sites. Nice political twist, Mr. Gatto.

Under Mr. Gatto’s proposed law, schools run by cities or counties would also be fair game for new cell sites, regardless of how the parents might feel about that.

If you want a 28-cubic foot box in front of your home attached to an unknown number of 6-cubic foot antennas, go see Mike Gatto.  Has he got a deal for you!

A Gift from Mike Gatto and his Wireless Industry Partners

A Mandatory Gift to Everyone in California from Assembly member Mike Gatto and his Wireless Industry Patrons. Thanks, Mr. Gatto.

 

If you want to preserve the aesthetic appeal of the front of you home, and your community’s aesthetics overall, then TELL MIKE GATTO TO KILL HIS WIRELESS GIFT BILL.  The only gift is to his corporate wireless industry patrons, leaving just a lump of coal for his constituents.

Mr. Gatto’s proposed is is bad for everyone in California EXCEPT for Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Crown Castle, Extenet, Mobilitie, T-Mobile, every other wireless firm, and of course Mr. Gatto.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE BILL as of June 14, 2016.

Here is Mr. Gatto’s contract information:  Why don’t you ask him why his corporate patrons are more important (really, more valuable) than those who elected him to office.

Capitol Office:
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0043
Tel: (916) 319-2043
Fax: (916) 319-2143

District Office:
300 East Magnolia Boulevard
Suite 504
Burbank, CA 91502
Tel: (818) 558-3043
Fax: (818) 558-3042

@MikeGatto

#TellGattoNO

#KillAB2788

Copy and paste into your social media feeds:

#TellGattoNO #KillAB2788 Gatto can’t give away our homes to his wireless co. patrons. #KillAB2788 – the Wireless Give-a-Way!

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Google Loon Now Flying

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

Last Friday morning, Google launched its latest flying Internet platform, a Google Loon from Winnemucca, Nevada.  The balloon (hence the name, “Google Loon”) rose quickly to an altitude of about 12 miles, and has drifted to north to the Canadian border, then northeast over Canada at an average speed of less than 20 kts/hr..  Right now, the Loon is a bit northwest of McLennan Lake in Saskatoon.  If you’re interested, you can track the Loon using FlightRadar24.com, my tool of choice for such things.  Here’s my capture of the FlightRadar24 track on the Loon as of 4:05 p.m. on Monday (June 13, 2016).

loonCapture

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Welcome Back, Stephen Garcia

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

I’m pleased to report that the night-before-last, Stephen Garcia presented on behalf of Crown Castle at Palos Verdes Estates at a joint City Council/Planning Commission meeting.  This is the first time I’ve seen him in person since his recent health issues.  He did a fine job, even though he is still recovering.

Well done, Stephen.

Welcome back to the arena.

Jonathan

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Wall Street Journal on the Mobilitie Build for Sprint

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

(June 8, 2016) Today the Wall Street Journal is running an article titled, “Sprint’s Wireless Fix: More Telephone Poles” by Ryan Knutson. The subhead is, “Plan to improved network delayed as communities struggle with the unusual antenna requests.”  The article describes Mobilitie’s troubled start building the next Sprint network, including putting in facilities without benefit of, ah, government permits.  My favorite is Baltimore story where Mobilitie dropped a site into the middle of a sidewalk handicap ramp.  The city wasn’t amused and filed Mobilitie $5,000 after they abated that particular public nuisance.

While some industry observers have dubbed Sprint’s plan to decommission many or most of its macrocell sites in favor of pole-top cell sites as “Project Network Suicide,” Sprint claims that it will cost them  60% to 70% less to deploy its new network. This rose-colored view is likely to evaporate rather quickly as these particularly ugly sites are erected and residents rebel over sites like the one pictured below.

_mobilitie_DSC00272
A Mobilitie site in Los Angeles built to serve Sprint.  Photo: Jonathan Kramer

Expect Lawsuits

I foresee Sprint (through it surrogate, Mobilitie) filing many law suits against local governments that object to the disamenity caused by pole top installations like that shown above, or worse, to new 70′ to 120′ wood poles placed next to and even inside residential neighborhoods as Mobilitie proposes in various communities.  Like the lawsuits filed by Crown Castle, I expect that the carrier-in-fact – here, Sprint – will not in the foreground so that they can be insulated from having to report those lawsuits to the financial community.

Read the WSJ article, which I had the privilege of contributing to, including providing the WSJ with the Mobilitie site photograph that accompanied the article.

Jonathan

 

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National Conference Call on Mobilitie Scheduled 6/21

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

This is a hold-the-date announcement that there will be a national government-side conference call regarding Mobilitie scheduled for June 21st at 2-3 p.m. Eastern Time.  More details to follow in just a couple of days, but you’re going to want to have your planning and public works people on this call.

(I might happen to know one of the speakers…ahem…)

(There might be photos…ahem…)

(There might be a test afterwards….naw, just kidding…)

jlk

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Anatomy of a Mobilitie Site for Sprint – Part 2

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

DSC00282.smallerHere’s another Mobilitie site in Los Angeles marked up by component. This photo also clearly shows the GPS antenna connected to the RRU. As with the prior posted photo, the design of this site leaves lots to be desired, especially given how long it is likely to remain in the right of way (unless, of course, Sprint goes BK and its frequency blocks are sold off).

Thanks to Stephen Wiklus CTO at Spectrum Financial Partners, for suggesting some useful improvements to the text.

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Anatomy of a Mobilitie Site for Sprint

Anatomy of a Mobilitie Site for Sprint

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

With the commencement of the California Utility Pole Authority … Mobilitie … Interstate Transport and Broadband build in the City of Los Angeles, this seems like a good time to give you a tour of what [insert your favorite nom de plume here] is actually building on City of Los Angeles street lights.

In words, it goes like this:  From an existing or new Sprint site or Mobilitie somewhere a radio signal is transmitted outwards.  Nearby Mobilitie sites pick up the signal with a device called a UE relay (User Equipment Relay).  From there the signal is sent to a remote radio unit (“RRU”), which converts the incoming signal from the UE Relay to Sprint frequencies.  From the RRU, two coaxial cables connect the RRU to the antenna on Sprint’s frequency, and on to Sprint’s customers.  There is also an electrical power distribution box to power the UE Relay and RRU.  In the case of the City of Los Angeles, electrical power is tapped off of the street lighting power circuit.  Where that’s not an option, Mobilitie may have to install a power company electrical meter somewhere on the light standard, or nearby in a meter pedestal.

Here’s what a newly installed Mobilitie (sorry, Interstate Transport and Broadband) site looks like in Los Angeles, with call-outs to identify what I’ve described above.  If you’d like to see more photos of new Mobilitie sites in Los Angeles, visit CellTowerPhotos.com.

Now on to our show…

mobilitie_componentsPretty, eh?  Naw, I don’t think so, either.

Jonathan

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National Toxicology Program RF EME Study-Partial Results

National Toxicology Program RF EME Study-Partial Results

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

NTS.mastHead

Today the National Toxicology Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a preliminary report on a multi-year study of radio frequency emissions on test rats.  The report, available here.

The pre-print abstract says,

The US National Toxicology Program (NTP) has carried out extensive rodent toxicology and carcinogenesis studies of radiofrequency radiation (RFR) at frequencies and modulations used in the US telecommunications industry. This report presents partial findings from these studies. The occurrences of two tumor types in male Harlan Sprague Dawley rats exposed to RFR, malignant gliomas in the brain and schwannomas of the heart, were considered of particular interest, and are the subject of this report. The findings in this report were reviewed by expert peer reviewers selected by the NTP and National Institutes of Health (NIH). These reviews and responses to comments are included as appendices to this report, and revisions to the current document have incorporated and addressed these comments. Supplemental information in the form of 4 additional manuscripts has or will soon be submitted for publication. These manuscripts describe in detail the designs and performance of the RFR exposure system, the dosimetry of RFR exposures in rats and mice, the results to a series of pilot studies establishing the ability of the animals to thermoregulate during RFR exposures, and studies of DNA damage. Capstick M, Kuster N, Kühn S, Berdinas-Torres V, Wilson P, Ladbury J, Koepke G, McCormick D, Gauger J, Melnick R. A radio frequency radiation reverberation chamber exposure system for rodents Yijian G, Capstick M, McCormick D, Gauger J, Horn T, Wilson P, Melnick RL and Kuster N. Life time dosimetric assessment for mice and rats exposed to cell phone radiation Wyde ME, Horn TL, Capstick M, Ladbury J, Koepke G, Wilson P, Stout MD, Kuster N, Melnick R, Bucher JR, and McCormick D. Pilot studies of the National Toxicology Program’s cell phone radiofrequency radiation reverberation chamber exposure system Smith-Roe SL, Wyde ME, Stout MD, Winters J, Hobbs CA, Shepard KG, Green A, Kissling GE, Tice RR, Bucher JR, Witt KL. Evaluation of the genotoxicity of cell phone radiofrequency radiation in male and female rats and mice following subchronic exposure.

While you are considering the linked preliminary report, take into consideration the facts that the report released today is not a final report, and is not peer reviewed.  There are also additional papers yet to be published so this first report is not complete.  Also interesting is the “Additional Response” by John Bucher, Ph.D. on the last page of this preliminary report.

Jonathan

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Stephen Garcia is Getting Better

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

I’m very happy to report that Stephen Garcia of Crown Castle in doing much, much better after surgery.  This week I heard from one of his coworkers that his recovery is continuing and gaining speed.  I could not be more delighted by this good news.

After my earlier posting, I had the joy of speaking with Stephen who is recuperating at home.  As I told Stephen by phone, he has to get better: I’m not done torturing him, yet!

He laughed.  I smiled.

jlk

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