With great fanfare, last month the Federation of Canadian Municipalities announced an agreement with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association in releasing a joint protocol on antenna siting [pdf].
The Joint Antenna System Siting Protocol is the result of a partnership between municipalities and the wireless industry, through FCM and CWTA, to find common sense solutions to the challenge of building Canada’s digital infrastructure while respecting local land use preferences and community concerns.
As I wrote at the time, a week later, Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced “New measures to increase competition in the wireless sector” which included
tightening the rules to increase cellphone tower sharing, thereby helping to limit the construction of new cell towers
Those measures were released the same day on the Industry Canada website, with a set of conditions of license that included:
Decision B-1 The conditions of licence for mandatory tower sharing will be modified as follows:
The mandatory tower and site sharing conditions of licence will apply to all Licensees in all bands who are telecommunications common carriers as defined in the Telecommunications Act.
The Licensee must facilitate sharing of antenna towers and sites, including rooftops, supporting structures and access to ancillary equipment and services (“Sites”) and not cause or contribute to the exclusion of other telecommunications common carriers from gaining access to Sites. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing,
- where the Licensee is party to an agreement that includes a provision excluding other operators from the use of a Site, then, in order to facilitate the sharing of Sites, the Licensee must consent to waiving that portion of the agreement to facilitate a Request to Share;
- as applicable, the Licensee must consent to or, in a commercially reasonable manner, seek the consent of third parties to the assignment, sublease or other rights of access to Sites pursuant to any agreement or arrangement to which the Licensee is a party; and
- the Licensee must not enter into or renew agreements that exclude other operators from using a Site.
The problem is that the last bullet can come into conflict with local community land use authorities. Having been a participant on my own city’s telecommunications protocol task force, I have heard concerns of local community members that do not want the concentration of antennae associated with co-located structures. Like many communities, the local protocol will be seeking single carrier structures when located close to residential neighbourhoods.
Industry Canada’s 2007 Procedure Circular (CPC-2-0-03) recognizes this:
Proponents are not normally expected to build new antenna-supporting structures where it is feasible to locate their antenna on an existing structure, unless a new structure is preferred by land-use authorities.
It is unfortunate that the new license condition appears to be in conflict with reasonable concerns of local communities to reduce visual impact of intensive antenna arrays in their neighbourhoods. Perhaps Industry Canada should modify its recent decision to be consistent with its CPC-2-0-03, with language such as:
the Licensee must not enter into or renew agreements that exclude other operators from using a Site, unless a new single carrier structure is preferred by land-use authorities.
With everyone in the industry trying to minimize conflicts with Canadians who want 5-bars of signal, but apparently with no towers in sight, hopefully the new license conditions can be modified to permit local land use authorities to represent the willingness of neighbourhoods to welcome new towers as long as the visual impact is kept to a minimum.
These provisions have been in place for years and do little to alter the aesthetics of a site. There are many options available to conceal antennas on a multi carrier site. Where the rubber hits the road is in the technical specifications of the structures themselves. Are they designed to handle more than just the tower proponents current and future loading? This is the industry’s way of avoiding sharing..through design limits. As sites get closer to end users (think iPad needs to work in your basement) the size, profile and output of these network element shrink considerably. In my opinion municipalities should be doing everything possible to encourage sharing so as to avoid multiple public forums for each single carrier need to provide coverage.