Floyd County, Georgia, as well as other municipal governments in the state, are making a stand against new legislation that would take away their authority over new and existing cell towers. In particular, the new legislation is expected to prevent these local governments from regulating cell tower location placement.
Georgia’s local officials want to ensure that cell tower locations are per the area’s zoning laws that they worked hard to put into effect. The proposed bill would give local governments 150 days to approve or deny a cell tower application before automatically being approved. The legislation would also prevent the local governments’ say in recommending alternative locations for a cell tower, even if the proposed site is in a location that negatively affects area residents.
“With our new communications system that we have worked so hard on, we made sure that the towers were strategically placed in order to provide the optimal coverage,” said Rhonda Wallace, a Georgia county commissioner. “It appears that, according to the bill, cell phone companies can come in and put a tower up without going by our zoning laws.”
However, telecommunications industry representatives see a different side to this story. They believe that Georgia’s economy suffers when technology falls behind because local officials won’t approve the installation of adequate wireless capacity.
If you’re interested in obtaining cell tower locations for competitive analysis, market intelligence, network planning, or other applications, contact GeoTel Communications at 800-277-2172 or through our site. Our cell tower locations infrastructure data set includes the Site ID, Name, Description, Location, Ground Elevation, Company Name, Contact Information, Date of Construction, FCC ASR Number, FAA Study Number, AGL, AMSL, Tower Type, and Status.
