Can you hear me now?

It’s good that the Wichita City Council is working to strike a balance between keeping people in touch through cell phones and keeping Wichita’s skyline open and uncluttered. Council members this week turned down a cell tower at 21st Street and Maize Road that was opposed by a majority of area residents; at the same time, they invited wireless industry representatives to meet and discuss ways to provide technology upgrades without creating eyesores.
The city needs good cell phone coverage, but it also should carefully site and camouflage those towers to avoid, as much as possible, technological clutter.
With some careful planning, city officials should be able to meet both goals.
Posted by Randy Scholfield

9 Comments

  1. Joe Williams
    Posted June 23, 2006 at 7:34 am | Permalink

    Cell Phone towers aren’t all that bad. Telephone and power poles with cable wire attached and stringed across I think is more of an eyesore and a relic of our past. Those should be put underground, but I understand that would be prohibitly expensive.

  2. Julie
    Posted June 23, 2006 at 8:31 am | Permalink

    I get good reception on my cell phone thru-out the city. It’s just the outlying areas that I have trouble (goddard, derby, valley center, augusta…)

  3. RD
    Posted June 23, 2006 at 11:04 am | Permalink

    I know a small town nearby where citizens would LOVE to have a tower, but the locally owned phone company has blocked it each and every time. At least once through intimidation. Hey, they make more money by charging EVERY customer a flat fee for free long distance calls to Wichita. Cell phone service there is horrid, and it isn’t all that far from Wichita. But the town must lie in a low spot.

  4. GaryC.
    Posted June 23, 2006 at 7:23 pm | Permalink

    Why doesnt the city look into the Disguise style Cell phone towers, (Fake trees, etc.) Why not put one on top of the old Holiday Inn building downtown. How About Around Mid-Continent.

  5. KansasClassicLiberal
    Posted June 24, 2006 at 8:14 am | Permalink

    Here’s an example of how our city works overtime to tax and subsidize, but when a company voluntarily wants to make a capital investment in our town, we either deny it or make it more expensive.

  6. Jed
    Posted June 24, 2006 at 10:35 am | Permalink

    If you don’t like the way cell towers look, why not let local artists compete for designing towers that become works of art? The possibilities are endless!

  7. Telecom Seer
    Posted June 24, 2006 at 11:54 am | Permalink

    In the evolving telecommunications world, access to data such as e-mails, data-streaming, voice mail, etc., is becoming increasingly important to private individuals and businesses. From a public service standpoint, ability to locate 911 calls and to increase efficiencies of public service are also important. The city council needs to understand that we must have the infrastructure inorder to achieve the demands of both public and private sectors. This infrastructure is not publicly funded and, as such, we are in competition with other communities for those investment dollars by the wireless providers. We are either going to accomodate the wireless industry in a reasonable manner or we are going to lose out as a community. This loss will be realized in a greater cost of providing the service or just poor service altogether as the wireless industry will take its investment dollars elsewhere where a greater return on THEIR investment dollars is realized.

  8. kansassam
    Posted June 24, 2006 at 4:06 pm | Permalink

    Hide it in Joe Williams’ Peerless Tower with a parking garage in the first 5 or so floors. Build it next to the downtown arena….

  9. raptor
    Posted June 24, 2006 at 5:46 pm | Permalink

    My house is about 2 blocks from a large cell tower. Does that destroy the ambiance of the neighborhood? Does it ruin the skyline? Does it cause any grief? No..it is just there.

    Our council should concentrate on real issues instead of denying services to our citizens. Here is one for them…derail the mayor’s football plans. (if he wants to watch football that much, he should move to KC. Anyone want to take up a collection to help him move?)