The Pendleton County Commission (PCC) in West Virginia adopted a resolution on Tuesday that calls for fewer restrictions on wireless communication systems inside the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ). The FCC established the NRQZ in 1958, to protect the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia and the radio receiving facilities for the U.S. Navy in Sugar Grove, West Virginia.
The NRQZ allows emergency communications and ham radio, but cell service and WiFi are limited or banned, reports WBOY-TV. The PCC says the restrictions diminish the use of communications systems used by law enforcement and emergency crews. It believes the regulations are outdated and have “not kept pace with the modern wireless communications tools used by first responders and our citizens.”
The PCC asserts the NRQZ places a financial burden on local emergency crews, calling it “an ever-growing unfunded federal mandate” on its emergency services and 911 operations. The PCC notes it had to build “a larger number of tower sites than would be needed” if the restrictions of the NRQZ didn’t exist, according to WBOY-TV.
Commenting on the resolution, the Green Bank Observatory said the observatory has compromised with Pendleton County and other local municipalities in the past to try to overcome the NRQZ’s restrictions. The observatory stated: “Any assertion that [it’s] unyielding and ‘unwilling to compromise’ is false.”
The observatory said it has worked with AT&T “at our own expense” to provide cell coverage at Long Ridge, just east of Franklin, while staying within NRQZ regulations, and that the adjustments needed to achieve this are “minimal.” It also said some power levels for cell towers proposed by the PCC exceed safe harbor regulations put in place by the FCC and have nothing to do with the NRQZ.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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