Local Lawmakers, Cell Firms Embrace Antenna Guidelines

Hoping to avert a showdown between local governments and the booming cellular industry over the placement of wireless antenna towers, federal regulators have introduced guidelines aimed at quelling tower disputes.

Under a pact embraced last week by three leading wireless trade groups and the Local and State Government Advisory Committee, cellular companies agreed to drop petitions urging the Federal Communications Commission to bar local governments from imposing temporary bans on new antenna tower construction.

In return, municipalities agreed to limit tower moratoriums to 180 days--sufficient time, the agreement maintained, to work out zoning issues with wireless providers.

Although wireless providers--who now serve more than 61 million cellular phone users--have hidden their antennas in everything from fake palm trees to church steeples to appease critics, many communities still consider communications towers eyesores.

They can rise as high as 200 feet or more above street level, critics say. And in some sparsely populated areas or along roadsides, there are no buildings or natural growth to camouflage the structures.

As a result, some locals have in effect turned thumbs down on the technology by imposing at least 300 bans on new tower construction, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assn., a Washington-based trade group. (There are about 36,000 units of local government nationwide, estimates the Local and State Government Advisory Committee.)

“Moratoriums are probably the stickiest issue in this area,” FCC Chairman William Kennard said at a news conference announcing the guidelines. “This agreement presents an important breakthrough.”