SLOW TOWER SITING SAID TO HURT CONSUMERS
The FCC should take into account the major implications for service quality as it completes a nationwide programmatic agreement on tower siting, Sprint urged the Commission in a filing welcomed by others in the wireless industry. The argument, filed in the FCC docket on CMRS competition, adds a wrinkle to ongoing discussions over tower siting rules.
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“Sprint submits that siting and service quality are inextricably related and that, as a result, it is critically important for the Commission to consider the two subjects together for the purposes of this proceeding,” Sprint told the FCC. “Available market sources illustrate that with the exception of price, ubiquitous, reliable coverage is the most important factor for consumers in selecting a wireless provider. Yet, to date, the Commission has given inadequate linkage between the difficulty carriers face in siting wireless facilities with service quality issues.”
Sprint said it took 18 months on average to site a tower 3 years ago: “Today, it still takes Sprint over 18 months on average to construct a new cell site (including collocations), and there are areas of the country where Sprint site applications have been pending for three years… In some cases, sites are never approved and companies must consider less desirable alternatives impacting reliable service in areas.”
John Clark, an attorney who represents wireless companies on environmental regulation of towers, said he hoped the quality of service argument would resonate at the FCC. “It’s a very good argument,” Clark said. “It’s a fairly self-evident statement that the more we obstruct the building out of the network the greater problem for quality of service.”
The biggest problem is sorting through which groups opposing towers have a legitimate environmental concern, Clark said: “We're just seeing more and more local groups that oppose towers for a variety of reasons gravitate toward the environmental rules because they're available and use them the best they can to make siting difficult if not impossible in their area.”
The Sprint message should have some resonance at the FCC, said a source who also works on siting issues. “To some people at the FCC it will seem like kind of an obvious point and it will validate the work they are doing in the tower siting area,” the source said. “To the extent the FCC raises this issue it can help educate the Congress and the public about this issue.”
The source noted that John Muleta, chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau, has in the past discussed the direct relationship between tower siting and service quality. Muleta told us Wed. he expected release of a programmatic agreement no later than early June. The FCC has put off a vote on the agreement several times this year as Commission officials continued negotiations.