I just attended a three-day arts policy conference in the Berkshires. Not only was Internet access scarce but my cell phone often didn’t work either. Fortunately I am sufficiently balanced not to have felt frighteningly alone.
The telecommunications reforms of 1996 were supposed to prevent local governments from banning cell phone towers. Yet in just one U.S. District Court (Boston), cell phone carriers must go to court once every eighteen days, on average, to overturn tower rejections by local officials. Here is the full story.
The good news: The rate of required lawsuits was twice as high in 2000. Carriers are now more willing to disguise towers in flagpoles, rooftop elevator shifts, or as fake pine trees. A tree is no longer always a tree, check out this picture and story.
And the public choice angle? One source notes the following:
“The exact people who want cell phones are the ones who complain the most about the towers,” says Doug Gunwaldson, director of common network access management at AT&T Wireless.
In other words, as is so often the case in politics, we are the source of our own problems.
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