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Long Island Town Enacts Tough Cell Tower Limits
crimeandpunishment writes "They're getting tougher on towers on Long Island. The town of Hempstead, NY has imposed some of the toughest cell phone tower restrictions in the country. The ordinance prohibits wireless equipment within 1,500 feet of homes, schools, day care centers, and houses of worship, unless the company can prove absolute need. A spokesman for Verizon says, 'It's not unheard of for towns to have issues, but this is extreme,' and says this makes 95 percent of the town off limits to future antenna construction." With internet access by 3G, 4G and WiMax getting ever more common, I suspect that not everyone in the town will appreciate blocking out the companies that provide it.
I don't understand the purpose of these regulations at all. What difference does it make how close a tower is to a day care center or place of worship? Within 1,500 feet of homes? How do they expect to get cellular service at home, then? Hm.
I have two guesses which aren't mutually exclusive. The first is that someone has bought into the hysteria that cell phones cause radiation damage and hence wants them far away from places where people gather or live. Second, that this is a sly attempt to create a monopoly for a provider. It'd be interesting to see if someone already satisfies these regulations. If we start seeing more extremely restrictive regulations like this, that would be an indication that someone is organizing local monopolies.
There are often times when I wish to be less connected. However, nice of you to make the decision as to where and when for everyone around you, too.
So then did the companies with existing towers lobby heavily for this so they can leverage their newly-created prime real estate?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
We at Evil Co. sympathise with the town's wish not to be bombarded with EM radiation. A it is clearly the will of the people that they not have these signals directed in their vicinity, we wish to respect their wishes, even at the cost of some profit. Unfortunately, complying with these new laws would require significantly increasing the power output of other towers to compensate, and so we are unable to continue to offer service without violating the intent and spirit, if not the letter, of this law. As we can not provide a service in this town, we are willing to waive early termination fees for any customers in the affected area, as a gesture of good will. We hope that they will enjoy their relaxed lifestyle, free from the burdens of modern technology.
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Who cares? The people affected by this are the very people who voted for it. If their desire for better cellphone reception outweighs their dislike of ugly cell towers in a couple years, then they can vote differently next time. The decision to NOT build the towers is much more easily reversible than the decision to allow them.
Also, in order to communicate with the distant tower, the actual cell phone (the thing that delivers the most radiation to your head) must boost its power.
Mom? Is that you? Because everyone else I know leaves their cell phone on all the time.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
There's a big difference.
The reason why the law makes an efficiency requirement is because it's not the bulbs themselves that are the concern, but the energy they use. Banning incandescent light bulbs specifically would allow them to be replaced with something even less efficient, if there's an alternative that's cheap and isn't technically an "incandescent light bulb". If that happened, the law would have had the opposite of the desired effect.
By writing the law that way you don't mandate or exclude any technology. If an incandescent light bulb can be made to be efficient enough, that's just fine.
Honestly, this all comes down to how dumb people are. I'll give an example from where I grew up
It was a relatively small town, but within 10-20 minutes of large cities here in New York. There is literally NO cell phone reception around the entire radius of the town. You have to drive at least 10-15 minutes to get cell reception. So Verizon (and at that time, CellularOne who was recently bought out by AT&T) wanted to put up a tower right in the middle of the town behind some barns and silos. Not visible from the road but if you tried hard enough you could see it.
The town, who I knew from experience hated not having cell service, was concerned about property values dropping and how "bad the tower would look" when driving by...so Verizon proposed using one of the "camouflage" towers that looks like a pine tree. The town reviewed it, and STILL said no because it "didn't look enough like a tree". So Verizon came back and said "ok we will build the tower inside a silo. You won't be able to see it AT ALL. The reception will be reduced slightly because of it being enclosed, but you will still have service". Instead of approving it, they put it up for a vote, and the tower STILL voted it down over concerns of "radiation".
Weeks later I remember hanging out with friends, whose fathers and mothers were on the town board, and others who had voted no, and hearing them and their kids bitch about the fact that there still wasn't cell reception, and blaming the cell companies for NOT PROVIDING A FEASIBLE SOLUTION!
I think this happens more often than not around the country, where stupid backwards people who don't really know what they are talking about, wind up shooting town technological advances in favor of "oh that looks bad" or "oh i heard it does _______ which is bad" without knowing the facts, or understanding how important technology can be, especially in rural areas that have been without it. In this case, lack of cell phone reception and broadband internet kept many businesses and other things important for growth of a town or city out of the area because of the lack of available technology.
It really amazes me at how resistant people are. I'd rather have my property value go down a little than be without cell reception or internet service in this day in age. It hurts more not to have it than it would to just grin and bear it for the good of advancement.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
No, you are going at it all wrong. What you propose is based on the premises of logic, whilst the rules are based on politics (AKA votes-whoring and popularity). Since anyone with any reasonable amount of logic is not trying to be involved in the cesspool called politics, then it is obvious that the two domains are mutually exclusive and thus your post has no bearing on the issue whatsoever.
And on a serious note: Too bad you are 100% correct. Not only is there no proof to the dangers of cellphone radiation, but also if there was any danger, then the correct course of action would be to put as many low-power towers as possible, as per your post. Sadly enough, the ones passing the rules don't deem it important enough to consult anyone who actually understand something in this issue.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.