Question and answers with Ken Schmidt and Mark van der Hoek
Q. I'm in a rural location next to an interstate highway with poor to non-existent cellular coverage. What if I put up my own cell tower? Would that get a wireless carrier interested in my property?
The cell phone tower itself is not the problem, it's your location. You'd need to be within 1/2 mile of the interstate to even be considered. But it is not just one tower or cell site the carrier would need to build, they'd need several to connect to their next, closest location. Traffic counts on most interstates just don't merit this construction expense. Ken.
Q. Okay, what if I build a tower to handle point to point microwave traffic? There's a housing development coming soon and the local telco might be interested in using my tower. Right?
A. This is not Field of Dreams! They might be interested but a professional tower can cost $100,000 to build. You'd be doing some reckless investing. T-1 carrier over microwave might not provide the capacity to handle traffic from those new homes. If the telco trenches in a few strands of fiber from their nearest switch your tower will be bypassed. Caution! Mark.