Cellular's New Camouflage

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Go-betweens like Tuggle are trying to make suburbs less hostile territory for tower builders. PlanWireless.com's Ted Kreines has taken a different approach. Dozens of communities have adopted his tiered-application system, which streamlines permit approval for small, inconspicuous antennas and screeches it to a halt for big, ugly ones. "If you go low, we'll help you," he tells tower builders. "If you go high, God help you."

Kreines is also trying to help towns get their share of wireless wealth. He advises officials on how much to charge for space on water tanks and how to find the stealthiest towers — the ones built without a permit. When Florida's Alachua County completed its first antenna inventory in 1999, it uncovered $1.5 million in new tax revenues.

But the biggest money-maker for cities could come with a system upgrade to third-generation (3G) wireless technology (if and when that happens). To fill in cellular-service gaps and accommodate massive data transmissions, antennas will need to be closer to the ground and to one another. Utility poles are already home to thousands of bread-box-size microcells in California. And as every streetlight becomes a possible antenna site, Kreines wants wireless providers to pay local jurisdictions for using the right of way.

As public-utility execs start to wake up to their potential role in the wireless revolution, ailing tower companies are starting to head indoors. SpectraSite, a Cary, N.C., firm that filed for bankruptcy this month, is installing distributed-antenna systems inside malls, airports and other big buildings largely sealed off from outside airwaves. Using credit-card-size antennas and existing fiber-optic-cable networks to provide perfect indoor coverage, these wireless systems mimic landlines by offering universal access to the infrastructure and charging individual carriers for customer use. There are more than 1,000 tiny antennas up and running in Las Vegas hotels, where mini-camouflage is already in full swing. LGC Wireless of San Jose, Calif., has artfully blended in these cell sites with ceiling frescoes at the Venetian Casino Resort. Those who are worried about the health risks associated with these ubiquitous low-powered antennas might be reassured to know that LGC's newest client is the very institution that approved their safety, the fcc.

Even as the next generation of wireless equipment calls for ever shrinking antennas, tall towers will probably avoid extinction by offering fixed-wireless service in rural areas where other high-speed Internet access isn't available. Meanwhile, AT&T Wireless and Cingular are building a joint network along 3,000 miles of highway in the Midwest and West. That includes a lot of wide open spaces where there's no place to hide.