Everyone Wants to be in the Same Place: the Right-of-Way

What difference does it make whether you get your wireless signal from a telephone company, a cable company, a public WiFi service or a wireless carrier?  They all want to serve you from the right-of-way which means: competing with each other on a level playing field.

The right-of-way is the place to be and, unless your community plans the right-of-way and zones it, your local government will have nothing to say about who goes in it.  The first cell site your community denies in the right-of-way, your city or county may be in court with the carrier saying: “you let the WiFi provider in there without permits, so where under ‘equal protection of the law’ and ‘due process’ can you tell us ‘no’.”

PlanWireless hates to admit it, but they are right.  A city can’t open its right-of-way (without permits) to one kind of carrier and regulate it (by way of requiring permits) to another.  So take your choice because it is yours to make: do you want to open the right-of-way up to anyone for a meager “rent” or “right-of-way agreement” or do you want to plan for wireless and zone the right-of-way?

Communities lust after WiFi but force Special or Conditional Use Permits on carriers for Cellular and PCS.  This is a major disconnect and the wireless carriers know it.  The carriers have the dollar advantage.  They will sue cities or counties that try to curtail them in the right-of-way on the one hand but open that same right-of-way up to an ISP or WiFi provider on the other.

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Kreines & Kreines, Inc.
58 Paseo Mirasol, Tiburon, CA 94920
Phone: (415) 435-9214
Fax: (415) 435-1522
e-mail: mail@planwireless.com