Chilmark officials have highlighted unreliable cell service as a public safety crisis for police, fire, and EMS responders when trying to reach people who need help.
At the Chilmark Select Board meeting on Wednesday, the town’s growing concerns surrounding what residents and town officials are calling degrading cell phone service took center stage.
“EMS and police were having trouble getting what they needed, directions and other,” said Jeffrey Maida, a select board member. “To me it’s beyond citizens not being able to get what they want. It becomes a safety issue when our fire, police, and EMTs can’t count on it.”
Chilmark has struggled with unreliable cell service that resulted in large dead zones on major roads, frequent dropped calls, and consistently worsening connections, especially in the busy summer months. Chilmark Police Chief Sean Slavin cited in July a case where a medical emergency along Menemsha Hills was nearly missed because the caller’s signal cut out.
“We’ve been receiving a lot of complaints on cell coverage in this town, including from me,” said Chair of the Chilmark Select Board, Marie K. Larsen, at the meeting. “We wanted to gather everyone together to see what we can possibly do to rectify this whole thing.”
Representatives from American Tower and Verizon attended the meeting to discuss the problem and look at possible solutions.
Currently, American Tower owns a distributed antenna system (DAS) on the Island and leases space on its antennas to cell-phone carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. American Tower said their towers are too short, and hilly terrain blocks signals. Another issue highlighted by American Tower at the meeting was that the current DAS infrastructure is outdated and originally constructed only to handle phone calls, but now is used to transmit large amounts of data.
Verizon representatives agreed that American Tower’s system is outdated and can’t handle phone service speeds they hope to achieve. Verizon representatives suggested that the town allow them to build their own separate network of small cell towers in Chilmark. According to the Verizon officials, doing so would allow for stronger service for their customers, and more importantly, make 911 calls more reliable since emergency calls can go through any available network.
Chilmark selectboard members were guarded in approving Verizon to construct its own infrastructure in town because it would not improve other carriers’ signals. They were also critical of American Towers’ lack of action toward modernizing their infrastructure to accommodate stronger cell-phone service.
“It sounds like Verizon is trying to improve their network and the American tower is sitting back and waiting for companies to pay for their improvements,” said Maida in the meeting. “To me it doesn’t sound like American Tower has been aggressive enough in improving their service.”
The Chilmark select board voted unanimously to schedule a meeting on Jan. 6 to review an application by Verizon regarding the potential implementation of a small cell tower. The select board motioned for Verizon and American Tower to work together to come up with a plan that improves the service and puts public safety first, and to bring their recommendations back to the select board in January.
Genuinely pathetic that the town board lacks a sense of responsibility for the safety of anyone who has any emergency in the confines of their town. OMG a legit cell tower will be a nightmare ! Just as harrowing as alcohol licensing, save us all Jesus! Combining the law enforcement agencies with Aquinnah means nothing if you can not help the people that need them.
In another life I had a small wireless company and we looked at a DAS, but ultimately went with more standard towers. As noted, low lying antennas like American Tower has don’t have very much range (designed for roughly half a mile or less) and they are blocked by the hills nearby, e.g. the site at Squibnocket Rd/State Rd (plus the antenna on that site was not vertical for the last couple of summers, so who knows who was getting any signal from it). But we didn’t want to be able to see the cell sites, so we pushed for a low DAS and not taller towers in other places. Peeked Hill could probably cover almost all of Chilmark with one tower. But we didn’t want an ugly tower that people could see.
When they come back, make sure they provide RF coverage maps of any of their proposals. I would also suggest asking them for a coverage map given a tower on Peeked Hill. Then you can do a good comparison and make an informed decision.
Is there a tower at the top of Peaked Hill Rd that’s on pretty high ground between Middle and North roads that could get expand cells?
Is there a tower at the top of Peaked Hill Rd that could get expanded cells?
T mobile service on the island is VERY BAD! in Chilmark service is almost non exsistant. calls are always dropped. it is a great service, but on MV not sogood.
Switch to Verizon. We find that to be barely adequate, which is high praise in Chilmark
The challenges of the poor.