Verizon seeks to install 5-G transmitters

(3/16) Verizon has asked permission form the town council to lease space on the Town’s water tower to install 5-G transmitters to enhance coverage in the Woodsboro area – which currently, according to the Verizon representative, has dead zones. The new service will not only help alleviate frustrated Verizon users asking ‘can you hear me now?’, but increase download speeds by up to 10 times over current speeds.

Verizon offered to pay the town $2,000/month for a five year lease, with five, five year extensions, for a total maximum lease of 30 years. In addition, Verizon offered a 2% yearly increase on the monthly rate.

While the council was open to the offer, they noted that both ATT and T-Mobile, which currently lease space on the water tower for their customers, increase their monthly rate by 3% per year. "If Verizon was willing to up the annual payment to match the other two carriers," Barnes said, "I think it’s safe to say you will get a positive response to your request."

Verizon said that given the central location of the tower, installing their transmitters on it was far preferable coverage wise, not to mention economically, then leasing land on an adjacent farm and building their own cell tower.

Just last month, citing its recent merger with Sprint, T-Mobile requested the Town reduce the fees it charges the company for leasing space on the Town’s water tower for cell phone repeater antennas from $2,648/month to $1,951/month.

Barnes suggested the Town call T-Mobile’s bluff and reject the request. "What are they going to do? Go out and build their own cell tower? They are getting a great deal right now, and the $700/month loss we would take by accepting their requested reduction would be felt by the town."

In response to a question raised at the March meeting by a member of the public on the possible health effects from cell phones, Commissioner Jessie Case asked the Verizon representative about the possible health effects from not only 5-G, but cell phones in general. The Verizon representative methodically walked the Council through the history of the cell phone, the actual amount of energy in the form of radio waves, and the nature of the folklore surrounding some of the claims found on the Internet about 5-G health effects.

"The bottom line is if you were standing right next to the transmitters on the tower when they were working, you would get an exposure equal to a dental x-ray. At ten feet, you would get as much as you get from standing in front of your microwave." The representative then went on to note that as the transmitters are 80 feet or more in the air, the radiation at ground level would be undetectable, masked by natural background radiation.

The only possible show stopper to was eliminated when, in response to Verizon’s concerns about the towers ability to handle three carries, the Town informed them that until the T-Mobile and Sprint merger, the Town had supported the transmitters of three separate carriers.