The present tower case has demanded that municipal governments should prepare written reasoning about declining any tower constructions offers. The wireless industry definitely wins the tower case.
The tower case lies in U.S. courts since 2010. To sum up the trial, the T-Mobile South LLC was not approved to build a foot cell which was 108-foot tall tower in Roswell, Georgia.
The local government denied the subsidiary of the Bellevue their proposal to build a cell tower without giving any written explanation. However, an explanation was granted through a copy of their meeting.
The Telecommunications Act enacted in 1996, argues that tower constructions can be denied by state regulators only if they administer the reasons for the rejection in written form. These reasons have to stand valid in any Court of Justice.
The Telecommunications Act also state that the written denial should be given in a specific time frame. The local government from Roswell did not send the written rejection in due time.
Taking these matters into account, the court declared that state governments are to specify in the written denial valid arguments for rejecting the proposal in a “timely manner”. This ruling gave the tower company plenty of time to challenge the denial. The deadline was set to be a period of 30 days.
Furthermore, the written motives for any denials do not necessarily need to be sent with the initial letter of denial. One of the main reasons why the state regulators rejected the tower proposal was that it was “aesthetically unappealing”. Because of that factor, the value of the property would decrease since the landscape is ruined by the anesthetic building.
As it may seem obvious, Dave Miller, T-Mobile’s general counsel agreed with the court’s decision calling it a “great victory”. From now on, local regulators are to allow wireless providers the change to develop, increase and boost the country’s wireless networks.
On the other hand, David Davidson, Roswell city attorney sarcastically replied that the denial will not be sent until “the minutes are ready”. Davidson knows about T-mobile’s impatience to further develop and announces a longer period of time until they refuse once more.
T-mobile has been expanding at an enormous pace, covering many areas that needed a wireless infrastructure. Even the FCC supports wireless coverage and proposed a speeding of the network deployment.
In the end, T-mobile has won the fight against the state regulators and it is only a matter of time until the company will expand further in any desired area.
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