How Will the Cell Sites be Deployed Over Time?
First will come the coverage sites: they are the subject of the applications currently being submitted to cities and counties. It suits the industry to call these "wireless towers" because they need to be high. The higher the "wireless tower," the more coverage it gets.
Think about it every time you use the words "wireless tower." You are predisposing yourself and those around you to the foregone conclusion that you must accept "wireless towers" in order to deploy personal wireless facilities. Every time the industry or the FCC speak on this subject, they say "think wireless towers."
What would happen if you and those around you said, "We don't want any wireless towers. Put them on roofs. Put them within trees. Get them lower, even if it means there are more of them."
That's exactly what happened in California in the late 1980s. Now, with PCS, over 50% of all "wireless towers" are less than 50 feet AGL (above ground level). Your community could do that too, if you accepted more cell sites in easily hidden locations.
But "wireless towers" will only be popular for a little while. In the next phase will come the capacity sites: when the coverage sites become overloaded, the spaces between them will be "infilled" with shorter sites. The service radii or "cells" become smaller and this is what the industry calls "cell splitting." Each "wireless tower" could give birth to two or three small cell sites for reduced coverage due to greater demand.
Finally, the "microcell" will enter the neighborhood environment. No one wants to talk about them because the industry doesn't know how high they will be. But they will be short, and they will be everywhere as the residential market becomes more important. So, why not start building short now, like they do in California?
