Zoning Out of Wireless: Local Red Tape and Cell Phones

James Gattuso / September 16, 2010

Americans are increasingly cutting the cord on their phones. By the most recent estimates, 40 percent Americans rely primarily on their wireless phone for voice calls, and most of those don’t have a wireline phone at all.

But don’t count me in that number. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to cut the cord. It’s that I can’t. I live in a cellular hole, one of those thousands of places where wireless connections are weak or non-existent. The reason isn’t geography—I live in a well-developed part of the Washington metro area, not an igloo in Alaska. Nor is the problem the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), though its efforts to regulate wireless may do damage in the future.

No, the problem is much closer to home—my local zoning authorities. Wireless carriers, as it turns out, had not forgotten my corner of the world and have been trying to build a cellular transmission site to erase the dead zone for some time, but they have been stymied by an infinitely elastic approval process. (more…)