TO: Mayor Collins and Town Council Members
FROM: Kevin Burke, Town Manager
DATE: September 22, 2016
DEPARTMENT: Town Manager
Staff Contact Kevin Burke, 480-348-3690
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AGENDA TITLE:
Title
Quality of Life - Cell Service
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Council Goals or Other Policies / Statutory Requirements:
Quality of Life - Maintain and improve the Paradise Valley quality of life.
RECOMMENDATION:
Receive background information explaining the reasons for poor cell phone service and discuss possible amendments to the Town's Personal Wireless Service Facility (PWSF) (a.k.a. cell tower) ordinance.
SUMMARY STATEMENT:
As part of the Quality of Life Initiative, Town Council identified cell service coverage as being very poor and negatively impacting resident's quality of life. The Mayor and Town Manager began information gathering to identify the scope and scale of the poor service as well as the reasons for the poor coverage. This started with mapping locations of residents who reported poor service and their respective carrier (see attachment Mobile Carrier Survey Results). The Mayor and Manager then met separately with Verizon and AT&T as well as two industry consultants who live in the Town. Lastly, a PWSF tower company presented itself to the Town and offered both technical information and willingness to gather specific data regarding coverage and analyze it at no cost to the Town. That firm is Ghost Networks. They will present this information at the Study Session. For proprietary reasons, they did not want to send out information in advance; however, their presentation is expected to include coverage strengths throughout town by carrier and by frequency. As a preview, there are three distinct areas in the Town with very poor reception across the carriers.
In summary, the Town is experiencing poor service for a number of reasons. By way of background recognize that there are four carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon) who broadcast essenti...
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