Communications

There has been a huge problem over the past few years with municipalities dragging their feet on approving permits to allow cell phone towers to be constructed, or even to allow new transmitters to be added to existing towers or to buildings.

Municipalities have been doing this on purpose, largely at the urging of consultants, who suggest the delays at least in part as a way to extract concessions from the wireless companies. It’s been a big problem, with municipalities complaining to the wireless companies about poor service coverage and then at the same time unnecessarily delaying permits to address the problem.

IPI has written about this problem several times, and one of the solutions we suggested was that municipalities should be put on a shot clock and given only a limited amount of time that they could delay such applications.

Which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did.

Upon which action the City of Arlington, Texas, which is just about 30 miles from where I sit, challenged the regulation, claiming that the FCC didn’t have the authority to regulate how they approved applications for cellphone towers.