Hey, if you want to read about cell tower regulation, (admit it, you do!), then go to http://celltowersites.com/2014/01/09/tower-building/ and download the PDF, http://www.lacba.org/Files/LAL/Vol36No10/3109.pdf then go to page 32. There is a similar article on page 29 but it has so much legal stuff in it my eyes glazed over! This deals mostly with California regulation but I think it shows everyone how hard it can be to get things approved in heavily regulated area of the country.

Thanks to Jonathon Kramer (@KTLFPC) for tweeting this! If you get a chance check out http://celltowersites.com/ to see what he is all about.

If you do any kind of site acquisition then you should take the time to see if this helps. I won’t cut and paste because it was written by legal staff and I think they would find a way to lock me up for plagiarism, so I will summarize what I think it said. Remember that this is written for lawyers and I, sir, am no lawyer!

It starts out explaining the basics of towers, very general. Then it goes into the approval process for zoning. This may help anyone who thinks we can just slap an antenna up anywhere, obviously you have never sat through a zoning meeting answering question on whether RF will cause cancer in someone’s brain coming from a tower 1 mile away from the community. (These are the same people that will cuss you out when a call drops!) Education is the only course of action. Anyway, back on subject, there is a high level explanation of what you will need to get things approved quickly. By quickly I mean that it depends on each jurisdiction, you may have to go to a hearing, you have to do all of the zoning paperwork, you must build a relationship with the community, and so on.

So if you have the time and are interested, I suggest you read this. When a carrier or public safety spends a lot of money on a build out, this is where much of it goes. Yes, even statewide and federal governments have to go through this most of the time. Some government public safety groups have exceptions, but not all. This adds delays and costs. I don’t blame the local community, after all they care what and how things are built in their community, but we need to find a happy medium of people want wireless in their community. If they don’t then fine, but don’t complain when mobile devices don’t work or when there is an emergency and public safety has serious issues in that area.

Thanks again to Jonathon Kramer (@KTLFPC) for tweeting this!

Remember to be safe and don’t be stupid, they go hand in hand! This applies to life as well as wireless work.

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