City Wins Round in Fight Over Wireless Facilities

In a case seen as a test of the new telecommunications law, a federal judge on Friday upheld the right of a Washington city to temporarily halt construction of wireless telephone facilities.

U.S. District Judge William Dwyer in Seattle denied a request by a consortium of communications companies to end a six-month moratorium on new permits for wireless facilities declared by Medina, Wash.

The tiny Seattle-area city--where Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates is building a $30-million waterfront home--is near an important traffic choke point, making it a critical site for new wireless base stations planned by Sprint Spectrum, a partnership of Sprint Corp. and Tele-Communications Inc., Cox Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp.

Sprint Spectrum paid $105 million for a federal license to offer new wireless telephone service in a 21-county area. It will lose up to $2.7 million each month the ban remains in effect, said Tayloe Washburn, an attorney for the group.

“The effect of this is a very negative one on the public in terms of the precedent this sets,” Washburn said. “It’s very negative on any new wireless provider trying to carry out the act’s mandate to increase wireless access to the public.”

He noted that the decision, the first in the nation to interpret the 1996 Telecommunications Act, is only a preliminary ruling in a continuing lawsuit in which Sprint Spectrum is seeking damages from the city.

“I think Sprint will continue aggressively to prosecute the case,” Washburn said. “Certainly we will consider seriously the option of appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Medina city officials approved the moratorium just five days after the telecommunications law went into effect in February, expressing the fear that the city’s location near a critical bridge could turn it into an “antenna farm.”

Last month, the same day Sprint Spectrum filed its suit, the company applied for a permit to install a 100-foot antenna tower.

Sprint contends in its lawsuit that the city moratorium violates a provision of the Telecommunications Act that says local governments cannot act to prohibit a company from providing personal wireless services.

Dwyer ruled, however, that the moratorium is not a prohibition.