30 year free tower access to Cell company normal for rural area?

[Stargazer]

Our small community got a 911 tower through a grant hoping it would bring cell service to the area. Only one company will go on the tower if they get free access for 30 years. Is this normal? We have around 2000 people in the area but spread out over a 7-10 mile area.

 

[navychop]

I suppose in a rural area, maybe. But certainly not in more urban areas, or along major highways.

Are you on a major highway?

If it’s Sprint, maybe they are willing because they are desperate, when no others would service the small number.

If it’s a regional provider, they are on a shoestring too, I’ll bet.

T-Mobile might have some interest in filling in a current hole, but limited.

I guess it boils down to- do you folks want cell service or not? Who pays for the electricity? How comfortable is that barrel you’re over?


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[navychop]

Surely somebody knows more about this than me!


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[Cham]

Maybe Stargazer is in an isolated valley or area, likely normal arrangement for that situation.

A 911 tower sounds like it will allow 911 calls only though? Or maybe you are referencing cell service as an add-on to the tower that was built specifically for emergency and public services (police, ambulance, fire,county, etc). Wonder if the tower is connected via fiber, microwave, or twisted pair? There are some out here still using twisted pair so bandwidth really sucks.

Local telecom in my area built a super short 20' tower for cell access in a community right on the Canada/US border. Residents were complaining of huge roaming charges when accessing towers on the other side of the border. The tower looks really weird with the full candelabra antenna support like a 200' tower would have, but with a super short stubby tower section holding it up.

 

[Tampa8]

Our small community got a 911 tower through a grant hoping it would bring cell service to the area. Only one company will go on the tower if they get free access for 30 years. Is this normal? We have around 2000 people in the area but spread out over a 7-10 mile area.

This sounds like the At&t contract with the Government. They are the sole suppliers of new 911 cell service for Fire and EMT that will be implemented nationwide. At&t may also add civilian service from those towers.

AT&T gets $6.5 billion to build US-wide public safety network

Note that At&t will be given access to areas that denied towers before or for other reasons.

 

[navychop]

But they’d already have access and would not need further permission.


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[Stargazer]

This is a 911 communications tower for people to communicate though their radios. To my understanding they would receive the signal wirelessly from another tower in town. This tower is around 300 feet.

Sprint is the one that offered that deal. We are in a rural area, no stop lights, but big enough for a grade school, Family Dollar they just put in, post office, churches, three mobile home parks, senior citizens center.

We are about 2-3 miles from the interstate as the crow flies so it would help their reception there unless the towers by interstate already have Sorint on them. One of them does because there is a little bit of signal in the yard but it’s hit and miss. We have a lot of hills and trees around here so it’s harder for the signals to reach those in rural areas.

 

[navychop]

Might be good. If the merger goes thru, you’ll have T-Mobile down the road. T-Mobile is building out their band 71 600 MHz spectrum very fast. They might like that tower for the Interstate coverage it would bring.

A few phones support band 71 now. I expect the next batch of iPhones to support band 71, and almost all brands and models introduced by Q4 of this year.

Band 71 travels further and penetrates buildings etc better than higher frequencies. This is the spectrum that was used for TV. Some stations still use it, but all are transitioning to lower frequencies and channel numbers.

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[Stargazer]

This was part of my discussion was in regards to the merger with T-Mobile and how that would be good in the future. But if they put equipment on the tower now then they may not upgrade to the 600 MHz frequency for a while.

Another concern was it would set a precedent to where other providers would also expect free access to the tower as well.

 

[nelson61]

2000 people spread over. 85 square miles sounds like not many customers within cell range. I can see where they would just scrape by even without paying for use of the tower.



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