7.9. & 7.10. SR 02-18-1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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8 Planning December 1996 Wireless World Telecommunications technology--and local government response-- is at a crossroads. By William Covington Companies hoping to succeed in the highly competitive communications arena must have good relations with lo- cal governments. It's the lo- cal governments, after all, that supply ',e franchises and permits needed to eliver cellular and paging services and otk er communications products. So far, those relations have been pretty good. Local governments want the ben- efits that new forms of communication can bring, and wireless service providers understand that cities and towns must exercise some control over what comes into the community. The challenge is to keep things on an even keel at a time of rapid growth in the telecommunications industry. A sign of that growth is the auctions held on August 26 by the Federal Com- munications Commission. On that date, the FCC began the second in a series of auctions that will allow more companies to offer wireless communication services. How it works The term wireless communications re- fers to a family of communication de- vices that can send and receive messages instantly--by voice in the case of cellular telephones or alphanumerically in the case of pagers. Soon, too, computer users will be able to send and receive data via 'ireless modems. One of the newer forms of wireless voice communication is the personal com- munications service. PCS is similar to a cellular phone but operates at different radio frequencies and requires~ twice as many communications facilities. In pag- ing, the lat- est innovation is narrowband messaging. This service allows customers to acknowl- edge a page by pressing a button on their pagers. Soon they will be able to receive short text messages as well. Wireless communications typically re- quire three components: a device (tele- phone, pager, or portable computer); a celt site/radio link; and a switching of- fice. Every major metropolitan area has one or more switching offices, where calls from cell sites are processed. The calls are then sent out through the tele- phone system. When a wireless customer calls another wireless telephone, the switching office locates the cell site clos- est to the party being called and connects that caller via that cell site. Over 90 percent of all wireless communications still start or end on a traditional tele- phone system (called "wireline" in the business). When a call is made, the device seeks out a radio link, also known as a cell site. Radio links capture the signal, process it {verifying that the caller is a legitimate customer), and send it om Most cell sites include one or more antennas, a struc- ture to support them, and a building to house radio and computer equipment. Cell sites can be located on the roofs of buildings, on billboards, atop wooden utility poles, and on metal poles. Lattice towers are considered a last resort. On the ground ' Several considerations determine where cell sites are placed. The first is that the site must be close enough to the caller to receive the signal generated by a half- watt portable phone. The second consid- eration is that cell sites must be located far enough apart to eliminate cross-talk. The third is interference. Tall buildings and large bodies of water, for instance, can distort a signal, precluding high-quality service. Finally, according to the industr2-, good service requires that there be at least one cell site in every neighborhood, normally within every six to eight square miles depending upon terrain and number of customers. Wireless communications companies can share cell sites. They cannot, how- ever, share the radio equipment that sends and receives calls and information. Should two carriers share a site. normally 10 feet of space must separate the antennas be- longing to each company. As the number of customers increases, so must the num- ber of cell sites. HoweVer, the additional sites typically are smaller and easier to