Do I want a cellphone tower on my property?

[Banders]

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

 

[Bob Engelhardt]

Typically more than one carrier occupies a tower. I'd want my contract
to include additional rent from each additional carrier.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sat, 8 Jun 2019 09:37:48 -0700) it happened Banders
<snap@mailchute.com> wrote in <qdgo8r$d9p$1@gioia.aioe.org>:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

Do not do it, higk level RF radiation for a long time is dangerous.

 

[Winfield Hill]

Banders wrote...

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area,
offered me $800/month for a spot to put it. ...

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life!
This is a really bad idea, right?

Let's see, $10k/year, $300k for 30 years? Whew!
No wonder our phone bills are so high. But you
might as well get on the right side of the equation.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 12:37:56 PM UTC-4, Banders wrote:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

Not necessarily. I expect this is a standard rate, but I would check around to see. They may low ball you initially and be willing to pay more.

You have to decide if you are willing to live with the tower view. It's not like the Eiffel tower where one of the main opponents of it had breakfast every day in the restaurant in the base because it had the only good view of the city left! lol

Why do you say "no more than 500 feet away"? Are the leasing a spot on your property or leasing a large area? Is there woods between you and the tower?

Consider how this will impact your resale value of your home and make sure there is something in the contact about restoring the land to its former state when they leave.

What is "questionable technology" to you? What are you concerned about?

--

Rick C.

- Get 5,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Klaus Kragelund]

Go for it

The signal strength below the antenna is a lot lower than if you just live in the neighborhood due to the emission lobes

In Denmark this was investigated thoroughly.

Also, the emissions from the mobile phone is higher than the mast, and lowest if you are close to the mast, since it turns down related to the signal strength:

https://politiken.dk/indland/art4893160/T%C3%A6ttere-p%C3%A5-mobilmasten-mindre-str%C3%A5ling

Warning: danish

Cheers

Klaus

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 1:22:52 PM UTC-4, Bob Engelhardt wrote:

Typically more than one carrier occupies a tower. I'd want my contract
to include additional rent from each additional carrier.

Typically the carrier doesn't deal with this although the OP said he heard from AT&T. Because most towers are used my many services the tower is owned by a company just for that and rent to all carriers on an equal footing. The property owner is not part of that negotiation.

Property owners usually have little room for negotiation since the company will go to his neighbor if he causes too much trouble. They may already be talking to them.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 1:06:04 PM UTC-4, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 8 Jun 2019 09:37:48 -0700) it happened Banders
snap@mailchute.com> wrote in <qdgo8r$d9p$1@gioia.aioe.org>:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

Do not do it, higk level RF radiation for a long time is dangerous.

That is true, high level RF radiation is dangerous. In this case that is a moot point. He won't be exposed to high levels of radiation.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John Doe]

Banders <snap@mailchute.com> wrote:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me
$800/month for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their
tower could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500
feet away from the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a
really bad idea, right?

Does the payment not increase with inflation or anything? I like the
idea of negotiating. Would be great if you could tell how good your site
is, how much they need it. If you were concerned about radiation, you
wouldn't have to stay (wild guess, don't need to know). Maybe a
stipulation that your personal area can receive only X amount of
radiation (another wild guess). Offer to sell the property outright?
They have all the clout, but who knows, they might need the location.
That's the question, how much they need it.

 

[amdx]

On 6/8/2019 12:05 PM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 8 Jun 2019 09:37:48 -0700) it happened Banders
snap@mailchute.com> wrote in <qdgo8r$d9p$1@gioia.aioe.org>:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

Do not do it, high level RF radiation for a long time is dangerous.

It's only 30 years!
Mikek

PS, get a yearly inflation adjustment. CPI + 1%.

 

[Winfield Hill]

Jan Panteltje wrote...

Do not do it, high level RF radiation for a
long time is dangerous.

If he's worried about that, he can take a small
portion of the $300k, and clad portions of his
house with tinfoil under siding, or use metal
siding, etc. Doing the bedroom wall and one or
two other rooms could cut total exposure to 1/4.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sat, 8 Jun 2019 11:22:57 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
<951ea28d-ab30-4f9d-b25c-847a65d788f8@googlegroups.com>:

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 1:06:04 PM UTC-4, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 8 Jun 2019 09:37:48 -0700) it happened Banders
snap@mailchute.com> wrote in <qdgo8r$d9p$1@gioia.aioe.org>:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

Do not do it, higk level RF radiation for a long time is dangerous.

That is true, high level RF radiation is dangerous. In this case that is a moot point. He won't be exposed to high levels of
radiation.

Well 152 meter, wide beam, microwave, high power
Have fun.
I would not do it, no way.

 

[amdx]

On 6/8/2019 2:01 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 6/8/19 12:37 PM, Banders wrote:
AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

the best part about Americans from a corporation's perspective is that
you can buy most of 'em for such pitiful amounts of money lol

Pitiful? That's like having $250,000 in your nest egg earning you money.
That could be 20% or 25% of a retired persons total income for doing
basically nothing, I don't see that as pitiful.
That said, I would look at what would prevent them from paying more,
and if possible negotiate for more.
Mikek

 

[mpm]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 2:52:01 PM UTC-4, Jan Panteltje wrote:

I'd think the reason prices are high is that nobody wants that stuff near their house.
Also the old towers were noisy, for example because of the cryo coolers (like I have)
used to cool the superconducting filters.

Modern carrier networks do not use cryo-cooled equipment.
One reason the costs are high is good old "supply and demand".
Periodically, the FCC will auction off chunks of spectrum, and there will be a mad dash to construct those towers. (More true in the early days, of course). Often, new spectrum & technologies are simply placed on existing legacy structures. That said, 2.5 GHz doesn't propagate like 850 MHz, so more tower nodes are needed.

Laypersons seem to think the average cell site makes tons of money from "day-one".

While it's true that some tower cash flow spectacularly, the majority take a long time to earn a return on investment. (That's why the carriers want 30 year leases.) That also explains why 3G (or until recently 2G) hang around so long after they are by far and away technologically obsolete -- there's still money to be made! There are always handsets that can't handle the latest technologies, so the older ones just chug along making money -- until the economics (and spectrum scarcity / demand) say otherwise. Eventually, the carriers will be forced (economic of competitive pressure) to turn off the older technologies (sometimes, with the FCC having a say), in favor of higher performing radio bearers (like 4G LTE).

The "average" cell site is at least a $400k-500k proposition (minimum) to build it. (land/lease, shelter, equipment, tower). A lot more if it has to be a beefier tower.

 

[mpm]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 2:49:58 PM UTC-4, mpm wrote:

Damn.
I also forgot to mention...
When you download the Google Earth plug-in from FCCinfo.com, you want the layer called "ASR", which stands for the FCC's Antenna Site Registration - a database of towers required to be registered pursuant to FAA rules.

 

[bitrex]

On 6/8/19 12:37 PM, Banders wrote:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

Tell the rep they can pay you $1k a month to fuck their sister. They
will respect you more at that point.

 

[mpm]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 2:49:58 PM UTC-4, mpm wrote:
I should have added more to complete my thoughts on #9.

A tower constructed in a hurricane coastline area costs a lot more money to build and operate. (Maybe 3x-5x, or more of the cost compared to a regular tower.) That high cost encourages co-location by several carriers.

 

[bitrex]

On 6/8/19 2:27 PM, Rick C wrote:

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 1:22:52 PM UTC-4, Bob Engelhardt wrote:
Typically more than one carrier occupies a tower. I'd want my contract
to include additional rent from each additional carrier.

Typically the carrier doesn't deal with this although the OP said he heard from AT&T. Because most towers are used my many services the tower is owned by a company just for that and rent to all carriers on an equal footing. The property owner is not part of that negotiation.

Property owners usually have little room for negotiation since the company will go to his neighbor if he causes too much trouble. They may already be talking to them.

yup lol.

If they're going to the trouble of installing a completely new tower
it'll probably be making them $800 a _minute_ in profit and they're like
"here's $800 a month it's a good deal lol"

 

[bitrex]

On 6/8/19 12:37 PM, Banders wrote:

AT&T wants to install a new tower in this area, offered me $800/month
for a spot to put it.

It may be "safe" at the beginning, upgraded to questionable new
technology through the years, they want a 30-year lease and their tower
could evolve into anything. It might be no more than ~500 feet away from
the house.

An $800/mo income generator for the rest of my life! This is a really
bad idea, right?

the best part about Americans from a corporation's perspective is that
you can buy most of 'em for such pitiful amounts of money lol

 

[mpm]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 2:27:32 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

> Property owners usually have little room for negotiation since the company will go to his neighbor if he causes too much trouble. They may already be talking to them.

This used to be true, but not so much any more depending on the location.
Since 3G, and especially 4G, you have to place the eNode-B at the traffic demand. You simply can't cover it from non-optimal positions without affecting capacity and throughput.

And that's true even for suburban neighborhoods, not just inner-city core (which was always a problem, even for C-RAN).

Just how large a "search ring" is depends on capacity.
Bottom line: If the carriers needs a particular lat/lon, they don't have as many options as you might think.

These days, unless you're rural, and the carrier is only trying to bridge the low-capacity traffic demand (or just to avoid dropped calls) on a road between two adjacent towns, that cell tower needs to be where it needs to be.. (Lat/Lon specific, with a lot less room to wiggle.)