By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Vice-President

Have you seen these antenna systems going up around your neighborhood? What is it? Who put it up? Who does it serve? These are cellular phone hotspots. But are they, really? While there are many community issues and objections with this technology, in this article we’re going to focus on the types and how they appear publicly, and the actual technology will come in a later one.

As you can see in the image there are two different kinds. The one on the right you probably have seen while riding along a highway high up on a tower or on a building. These are high-powered to cover longer distances thus all that equipment is needed. The one on the left is truly a hotspot, lower power and output, which means there need to be more of them to cover more area; and they are used this way because of cost and myriad obstructions to the radio waves.

The higher power ones were the first to be installed in neighborhoods to increase access where more direct connection and penetration in homes and buildings was needed because of hills and other obstacles in San Francisco. You'll see them mostly on PG&E utility poles where there is ample access to electricity and internet through communications lines. But, you may not know that this type of antenna has recently been installed circumventing Golden Gate Park.   But who does it serve? I spoke to an installer at the Stanyan and Page Street site who stated that it will specifically and only serve Golden Gate Park. Wait, what?! What about everyone else behind those arrays who have spotty, bad reception and complain all the time? Out of luck.

So, let’s get a little closer to these systems. The high-powered one requires more equipment and thicker cabling. As you can see in the right-side image everything is exposed to the elements and available for damage, and no less, it looks horrible. It is installations like this that lead to urban blight. We have to kind of think that moving forward that technology will be sleeker, smaller, better looking if not invisible. Now, let’s take a closer look at the low-powered one on the left side. Aah...much better, eh?

But what can the public do to change this? Have you ever tried to challenge a building permit or some construction? Pretty hard for the general public unless they can move a public official to do it. The same goes for this and it is harder because much of it is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a much higher authority. But what we can do is demand a certain type based on aesthetics be installed and that like facades on a building the public does have a say.