Last week, the Wallingford Town Council debated and passed a resolution objecting to the placement of a cell phone reception tower at a residential location near Choate. However, unknown to most students, Choate itself had been considered as a feasible site for the tower.
According to David Terrell, Manager of Capital Plant Renewal of Choate Facilities, the school was approached by Optasite Towers LLC of Westborough, Massachusetts as a possible site for the tower. Optasite, a site acquisition team, had been contracted by T-Mobile to find a suitable location to expand T-Mobile coverage in Wallingford. Choate’s location at a relatively high altitude makes it ideal for a tower. Members of ITS and Facilities, represented by Tom Hulley and David Terrell, respectively, met with the site acquisition team to examine various locations on campus.
Choate initially agreed to “entertain the request of the site acquisition team because [the school] wanted to improve communications on campus,” said Mr. Terrell. Though T-Mobile normally pays a fee to the owners of the properties upon which it erects towers, the additional revenue was “too small to be considered [a factor],” said Terrell.
The first sites that were considered were the flagpoles by the Humanities Building and the Student Activities Center. Terrell explained that the tower that T-Mobile wanted to set up would be embedded in an already-standing infrastructure. However, the flagpoles, both standing around 100 feet, were too low for the 121 foot tower that was to be built. Additionally, the buildings around the Humanities Building flagpole could have blocked signal to the tower.
The second site that Optasite considered was the gold cupola atop the library. Although it had the necessary elevation, Mr. Terrell explained that there were many issues that arose with that site.
Choate already uses the library cupola to station its two-way radio system that Campus Security & Facilities uses to monitor the school. Although the engineers from the tower company determined the site favorable, they could not guarantee that the cell phone signals would not interfere with Choate’s radio system.
Additionally, as the tower needed space for power amplifiers & back-up battery’s, there would be additional weight and that the cupola would have to be “beefed up” to meet the physical requirements.
A third, and perhaps the biggest problem of all, was that should the tower be constructed, Choate must grant twenty-four hour access to the tower for T-Mobil maintenance work. Given that the Library is also a used as a girl’s dormitory, the school had to consider security issues.
Even with a tower constructed on campus, the site acquisition team could not promise that cell phone reception in buildings like the PMAC, where currently many cell phones simply do not work, would improve.
Optasite has thus far settled with the option of construction of the tower at 53 Mapleview Avenue. However, Wallingford residents have initiated a petition against having the presence of a tower in a residential area. With such a petition, along with the Town Council’s seven-point resolution forwarded to the Connecticut Siting Council, who ultimately decided on the project, progress on T-Mobile’s tower will most likely be stalled for now.
