Talk about timing: first cell phone and the tower debates
Last night my family became the proud owners of a cell phone. We have been cell free for a while, but it was time. We decided that with recent upcoming travel it would be a good thing for us to have one.
And now that we have one, my eyes are drawn to the recent cell tower debates in the city. If you had asked me Monday what I thought about them, I think I would have shrugged my shoulders and given an emphatic “eh?” But today, now that I have a cell phone, I think I need to pay attention to the issue.
My friend Scott posted on the tower approved for Missionary Ridge and I saw a few opinion letters in the Chattanoogan, but until this issue was approved I never knew that mobile phone calls were frequently cut off on the Ridge Cut. I guess I assumed that Chattanooga had good phone coverage overall.
I’m going to keep my eye on this story, especially since it now applies to my family as well.
On a lighter note: This past Tuesday, Chattanooga based wireless provider Cricket honored the man who has been their longest customer. Kenneth Phillips signed up with Cricket on the same day they opened their doors for business. He is happy with their service, it meets his needs. That is real customer satisfaction.
[tags]wireless provider, cell phone towers, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, cell phone tower controversy[/tags]
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:31 am
Cell phone coverage is such a tricky thing. Back north of Raleigh, NC, where I grew up, there were spots where I *always* lost calls … and it’s pretty much perfectly flat there. I’d have great coverage on either side of the ’spot’, but the call would never transfer from one tower to the next …
Out here, I’m sure it’s even more challenging to keep that sort of thing from happening. So, in a sense, I emphathize with the cell phone companies … they are just trying to do their best to provide coverage in a ‘dead’ spot, which is something that are surely getting complaints about from their customers.
On the other hand, I have a hard time believing there is only one spot they can put a tower such that it corrects the problem. Perhaps it’s more along the lines of “There is only one place we can put the tower where a property owner is willing to work with us and the city will approve it.”