Fairhope, Alabama
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| Fairhope courthouse wants its own. |
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| Type proposed by AT&T |
COURTHOUSE WANTS ONE NOW
According to an AT&T engineer, the county commission and a state house representative who has an office there are requesting an additional small cell phone antenna be installed to improve reception within the satellite courthouse at 1100 Fairhope Avenue. (The antennas are currently 4G, but can be used for the faster 5G later.)
During a review of the request at the city's December planning commission meeting, city planning staff objected to installing an entirely new pole for the equipment in the city's right of way (too many poles cluttered/unsightly), preferring using an existing pole (or other options) instead.
Staff suggested a custom pole, combining both antenna and light, in the courthouse parking lot similar to some already being used elsewhere around town may be more appropriate (see picture below).
The AT&T spokesman said the county had requested it not be located directly in front of the courthouse doors on an existing wooden pole in the right of way (as the company first-proposed); that is why a new pole on the east side driveway is being requested now, he said.
COUNCILMAN URGES CAUTION
Councilman Burrell warned the commission to be careful not to set a precedent ... or other businesses throughout town may want their own antennas outside of their offices as well.
Burrell: "We want to make state and county officials happy ... but that could mean hundreds or thousands of new poles throughout the city ... someday. "
Burrell thought citizens are going to want the new 5G service when it becomes available; co-location of the equipment in unobtrusive locations whenever possible is the best.
Burrell clarified his position later when asked by the Times: "I stated hundreds, if not thousands. It would take years to build the system out. Hopefully, we can utilize existing poles, but it is going to be a battle with the 5G suppliers if they don’t want to share space. 5G antennas need to be spaced every 150m, about 500 ft. Picture needing a pole every 500 ft in the city and what that grid looks like. There are some municipalities already taking a hard line against these. I want our citizens to have access to the latest technology, so we must be smart in how/where the poles/antennas are allowed. That was my point. Let’s not just let them be put anywhere now. That will come back to bite us later when hundreds are needed."
TABLED UNTIL NEXT MEETING
Planning commissioners decided to hold over the request until their next meeting to allow time for city staff, county staff, and AT&T to come up with an agreeable solution.
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| Combination streetlamp/mini tower near pier. |
Comments
Perhaps, other technologies (e.g. LoRa, LiFi) have the potential to meet our needs, as long as we have the patience to develop them and the discipline not to panic that we're being left behind.
Perhaps, being left behind for a little while, here and there, isn't the worst we can do. What has all this connectivity wrought, anyway?
Granted, doctrinaire Ludditism is no rational alternative to progress, but let's make sure that our progress is true progress (i.e. How many times have credit card chip readers delayed a point-of-sale purchase far longer than would a manual imprinter using carbon paper? Remember those? The machines that worked without Internet connectivity? Without electricity, even?) Thinking about those old credit card imprinters should also make evident that it's worth considering that when we scale up our technology, we often are scaling up our vulnerabilities to remote, widespread, relentless information attack.
Close the laptop (me, too), call Mom on her landline, have the neighbors over to talk on the porch, write a letter to an old friend. Are these naive, reactionary sentiments, or do they represent real connectivity and connectivity that really matters? Look around: the answer is everywhere. The societal cause is not lost, but it is imperiled.
Merry Christmas, Fairhope! I love ya.
So, we may not clear a navigable waterway if a council member lives along it, and we may not add any infrastructure within two blocks of a state rep's home?
I would be pleased if Team Innuendo provided a map of all elected officials's real estate holdings, with concentric circles of sufficient diameter to remove all doubt of special dealing. My hope is that these overlapping circles--these areas we are advised to leave to ruin--will be so large that our government budgets will shrivel and our taxes will plummet.
I will use my extra cash to purchase and distribute free tinfoil hats and spelling dictionaries.
One of the most recent, baseless conspiracy theories surrounding the virus is that 5G networks -- the next generation of wireless technology that's steadily being rolled out around the world -- are fueling the global coronavirus pandemic. They are not.
Unfounded claims about a supposed link between 5G and Covid-19 began circulating on the fringes of the internet, where New Agers and QAnon followers perpetuated the hoax that global elites were using 5G to spread the virus. Unsophisticated algorithms amplified those voices and ushered unsubstantiated theories into the mainstream.
Officials in the United Kingdom have expressed concerns that recent attacks on cell phone towers were motivated by false conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, actor Woody Harrelson and singer M.I.A. are among celebrities and influencers spreading such claims to their millions of followers.
There's no evidence to support the theory that 5G networks cause Covid-19 or contribute to its spread. But still, it refuses to die.