Nebraska City Says “No” To Temporary Cell Tower

The Planning Commission in Sidney, Nebraska voted against allowing a temporary cell tower in a residential neighborhood. Viaero Wireless requested a CUP (Conditional Use Permit) to build a temporary cell tower in back of a vacant lot just north of the local bowling alley. “Viaero Wireless as have the other cell phone carriers have experienced a dramatic increase in traffic as we’ve introduced high speed data services to the point where we’re having to add auxiliary towers in virtually all of our markets, including Sidney,” said Henry Jacobsen, a representative from Viaero. Jacobsen has already searched for around a year in an attempt to find an area to build a permanent cell tower to serve the southern residential area of town. Viaero receives many complaints of dropped calls and slow data service from customers in that area, he said. The company’s request was for a temporary tower on wheels that would stretch to 60 feet, until such time it could find a permanent location for a tower. The owner of the lot where Viaero wished to erect the temporary tower did not wish to sell the land, but plans to possibly build on it himself in the future. “The nature of 4G or fourth generation services are that it is essential that we move the capacity of the network closer to the people. Those using Netflix or downloading music might use the equivalent of 60 or 70 voice channels so the network requires more towers for all of that additional data. That’s the problem we’re facing is capacity, not coverage,” Jacobsen said.