The latest addition to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware’s seaside dunes, is a weathered wooden pole with 5G cell equipment on top. It’s the sixth AT&T installation in the last two years and is hiding in plain sight. More antennas are coming, reports the Cape Gazette, both from AT&T and from other vendors.
Equipment atop the AT&T poles is visible, but relatively discrete, according to company representatives. Verizon has been negotiating with Rehoboth Beach to install its own cell equipment on street light fixtures, which run all through the town and along the boardwalk. The request was made last autumn for twenty light pole installations, but Verizon has yet to install them. Rehoboth Beach Public Works Director, Kevin Williams, said the delay is due to the lack of cooperation between Verizon and DelMarva Power to reduce the amount of necessary equipment, like meters and mounts.
Additional Verizon applications are in the works for pole mounted antennas in several other locations in town. Williams indicated those applications were currently under review. Verizon has been active in the area, having recently secured the opportunity to add fifteen small cell towers along a stretch of highway along Route 1. The towers will be placed in Delaware Department of Transportation’s rights-of-way that reach the Maryland border.
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