TO: Mayor Collins and Town Council Members
FROM: Brian Dalke, Interim Town Manager
Dawn Marie Buckland, Deputy Town Manager
DATE: December 6, 2018
DEPARTMENT: Town Manager
Staff Contact Dawn Marie Buckland, 480.348.3555
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AGENDA TITLE:
Title
Update from Cell Coverage Task Force
Body
Council Goals
Quality of Life - Maintain and Improve the Paradise Valley quality of life
SUMMARY STATEMENT:
Cell coverage is a widely known problem throughout Paradise Valley, with coverage issues in some ways manifesting themselves differently in the Town than in other markets. While the Town is centrally located in a major metropolitan area, there is significantly less density than in the surrounding areas. The very mountains that provide stunning backdrops also serve as barriers to signals. The Town’s undergrounding efforts restored beautiful desert vistas, necessarily limiting traditional methods of resolving coverage issues in the process.
In January 2016, the Town Council established cell coverage as a Quality of Life initiative, and set out to identify opportunities to improve cell coverage while preserving the Town’s iconic desert and mountain views. The resulting task force met with industry representatives, evaluated and benchmarked efforts from other cities, commissioned a radio frequency (RF) study, developed and published a Request for Information (RFI), and reached out to our Special Use Permit (SUP) properties to share the Town’s efforts and gauge levels of interest. Nearly all of the SUP properties expressed an interest in working with the Town and looking for ways to connect with the industry.
Recently, the task force engaged in “listening sessions” with those that responded to the RFI. While there were some specific technological needs that differed between carriers, there were many common themes:
1. Industry appreciates our outreach - they found the “listening session” meetings unique, proactive, and refreshing
2. Industry we met with understands our needs and our desires, as set forth in RFI
3. Looking for ways to expand existing infrastructure
4. Strong interest in working directly with SUP properties -- most familiar path; excited that we had been reaching out to SUP properties to assess interest and establish points of contact
5. Problem areas most likely solved with incremental improvement to fill in gaps
6. Height and location are important, as are radio and antenna size
7. Would like Town to evaluate allowable equipment size at the top of poles
8. Clear that some areas would benefit from further exploration:
a. Road standards - installing conduit and/or fiber
b. SUP/CUP standards - maintain aesthetic control and resident input, but avoid drawn-out process (e.g. with replacement of existing infrastructure)
c. SUP property checklist re: cell service, and possible amendments to code to require conduit or other infrastructure to ensure quality of service (public safety component)
9. Crown/ATT ready to install new on-site radios - current contract terms for payment and space for equipment in ROW render expansion less feasible
10. Welcomed collaboration and will provide feedback about their work with PV
The task force would respectfully like to continue its work, reporting back to the Town Council in the next three to six months with the status of its efforts. Those efforts would include reviewing SUP and Town processes, evaluating the small cell ordinance and potentially recommending modifications, publishing the in-building coverage guide, and continuing to work with providers to find solutions to cell coverage that are complementary to other Town quality of life interests.
ATTACHMENT(S):
PowerPoint