How The Cell Phone Companies Are Solving The Cell Phone Tower Problem

For the average man (or woman) in the street the problem with cell phone towers is that everybody wants more cell phone towers, to have better coverage and to be able to run more apps, but nobody wants a cell phone tower in their backyard. You can follow the logic on this, right?

The thing is, the only reason the average man in the street (aka the public at large) doesn’t want the cell phone tower next to his house is because it looks an eyesore! What the public does not know_, is:

– studies have established that when radiation levels increase in an environment then the white blood cell count increases;  there is a direct biological response, a bad one

– other studies show that living within close proximity to a cell phone tower significantly increases your chances of contracting all types of cancers

– brain tumor statistics have been found to be three times the average in communities with cell towers

– in many countries (France and Italy) cell phone towers are being taken down because of health complaints of local residents

And yet so many people are blissfully unaware of all this. So when the cell phone company, disguises a tower as pine tree, or a lighthouse, or a bolder the general feeling is one of admiration. Aren’t the cell phone people doing a great job!

What planet are these people living on?

If you are more on planet Lloyd and are concerned about protecting yourself from the cell tower that has just sprung up in your neighborhood, there are shielding solutions.

Announcer: We all love our cell phones and that is a challenge for Cell Phone companies that have to provide good service and be good neighbors. Here is the cold hard fact; people want to use their phones, whenever and wherever they choose, but many communities feel that cell phone towers are just plain ugly so some wireless providers are becoming masters of disguise.

Driving along the highway you may have noticed a rather odd looking tree sticking up above the rest. What you are looking at is actually a cell phone tower. Many communities have decided that these disguised cell phone towers are easier on the eyes and there are certain cities that now have required all new towers being built to be disguised.

Andrew Messing is the president of Larson Camouflage, a company that built cell phone towers in a wide variety of disguises, from Palm trees to Water towers to flag poles. He says that they have done some grain silos in the Mid West because it would look funny to have a 150 ft tall pine tree. Cell antennas as also being hidden inside all kinds of architecture like clock towers and fake chimneys: the site very much dictates how a tower will be disguised. In addition, every antenna comes with electrical equipment which also must be hidden.

In a site in Colorado, it is encased in a man-made bolder. In Arlington Virginia, Verizon wireless built a house where no one is ever home and which is filled with the electronic equipment needed to operate a traditional tower that sits in the backyard. The very nice looking house has the neighborhood fooled; door to door salesman visit it and free newspapers are dropped off at this house. At this site Verizon have been able to build a cell tower that blends into the neighborhood and is welcome.

But disguises are expensive. A cell tower disguised as a tree can cost as much as 120,000 Dollars: 4 times the price of a metal tower. If all cell towers were disguised, you couldn’t afford your cell phone service. Cell phone companies camouflage the cell phone towers that they do need to. And the ones they feel they need to disguise are often in communities that put up a fight and refuse to accept a traditional tower. Towers in communities, neighborhoods and national parks where people don’t want to see a big metal pole, are often the ones disguised.

Of the approximately 200, 000 cell antenna sites in the US only about a fourth are camouflaged or hidden. For many churches the wireless problem is a blessing. A church in Washington receives more that 1000 dollars a month to allow antennas to operate in their staple. Of all the 50, 000 cell towers hidden or disguised in the US, one of the more amazing ones is on Staten Island. Here a cell phone tower is made to look like a lighthouse that’s so realistic that neighbors says it attracts tourists. The only give away is that it is miles from the ocean.

With the increasing popularity of text messaging and video streaming, wireless companies will continue to be very busy building more towers and if they do it the way they hope to do it, you won’t even notice them.