teleguy
Enthusiast
Mar 15, 2005, 11:40 AM
Post #1 of 1
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Next time your phone goes dead because there's not a tower in range, you may think of this article I found buried amongst other news.
Is this something you could live with? Or do cell carriers looking for greener pastures, like TMobile and others, need to kill these unusual proposals for expanding their turf?
Cell-phone companies want towers in cemeteries
New sites needed to match demand
March 14, 2005
BY ZLATI MEYER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Talk about dead air.
Because an increasing number of Americans are going wireless, telecommunications companies are rapidly gobbling up sites to erect towers. And as tall buildings, flagpoles, existing towers and even church steeples are claimed, some national cellular-phone companies have begun to scope out dead spaces.
It is cemetery land that cell-phone companies tout as the next frontier, as the need for increased coverage becomes grave.
"It seems cemeteries have been an unexplored area in the past, probably because of some concerns if these were appropriate locations for wireless towers," said Johannes Bauer, executive director of the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law at Michigan State University. "It's a sacred place for some people, but we're running out of other options."
The latest entrant to this grave new world is T-Mobile, which has secured all the necessary approvals to mark its presence at Beth-El Memorial Park in Livonia.
Cemeteries have room to accommodate the base of the cell-phone structure. They may be on hills, which allow for broader swatches of coverage, or near highways, areas often plagued by weak signals.
Graveyards are generally close enough to inhabited areas to improve coverage, yet far enough to placate people who think exposure to such towers can cause health problems. And cell-phone tower neighbors who are 6 feet under are guaranteed not to make a sound.
"Usually, cemeteries are located around residential areas, and the residential areas are the most important area for wireless companies to be building in right now, because people want to use their mobile phones at home," said Laura Altschul, T-Mobile's director for national siting policy.
"The challenge is the residential areas are the most difficult areas to get site approval for. What we try to do is look for property in residential areas where we'd cause the least amount of intrusion."
Approximately 168 million Americans use cellular phones, according to 2004 research conducted by Washington-based CTIA, the international association of telecom companies. A decade earlier, only 19 million U.S. residents used the devices.
"Cell-phone companies are desperately looking for places to put towers, as more people use cell phones and they need more towers," said Chris Sterling, a professor of media and public policy at George Washington University and author of "History of Telecommunications Technology."
"Fights between local communities and cell-phone carriers will continue, because the issues haven't changed. The issue is I don't want it in my backyard. I don't want it spoiling my view."
That not-in-my-backyard, or NIMBY, attitude dovetails nicely with this newly plotted strategy.
For cemeteries, welcoming cellular companies to go dozens of feet up instead of 6 feet down means a windfall for the flat-lined businesses.
Altschul, who said T-Mobile has at least four other cellular towers in cemeteries in the Midwest, declined to discuss the financial details of the deal.
"Many of those institutions are hard-pressed for money themselves," explained Bauer. "Allowing someone to establish a tower, they get additional revenues."
Thomas Jablonski, Beth El's executive director, agreed that the money was an attractive part of the deal.
T-Mobile approached his cemetery because "it was in the right location for the community," he said. "Everyone's pretty cool with it."
Jablonski, who also runs the Bloomfield Township-based temple associated with the memorial park, also was tight-lipped about how much money Beth-El could receive from T-Mobile.
In addition, NIMBY resonates with older, well-populated suburbs like Livonia, which is 97 percent developed, leaving limited space for new structures.
Another inner-ring example is Troy's White Chapel Memorial Cemetery, Cingular's sole cemetery presence in Michigan.
Company spokesman Christopher Comes declined to discuss exactly how the site was chosen, instead explaining: "There are a lot of factors why a certain location is chosen. When we lay out search-ring criteria for a given area, you look for the tallest building nearby or a landlord that's willing to work with a cell-phone company and lease property in that location. ... We want to make sure we have seamless coverage for all our customers across the country."
For some with relatives buried in the cemeteries, these places of serenity should remain precisely that.
"I don't think it's the greatest idea," said Cheryl Rosett, a 49-year-old nurse from Walled Lake who visits Beth-El about once a year. "I have quite a few people there -- my mother, my best friend, my grandparents. I don't want anything to happen. It just doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for a cell-phone tower. Leave it alone."
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