Cell Tower at Silver Hill Hospital to Go Live in Early 2015, Officials Estimate

Cell service on the eastern side of New Canaan stands to improve in early 2015, officials say. The tower installed on Silver Hill Hospital’s campus likely will go live in the first quarter of next year, “at least according to AT&T,” Utilities Commission member Tom Tesluk said at the group’s meeting Monday night, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. The timing at Silver Hill is important to the commission, in part, because the group is overseeing data collection through a “drive test” of town roads that has seen a specially outfitted vehicle record cell strength on a street-by-street basis, providing New Canaan with site-specific data that it’s never had before. That test is essentially finished and a draft map is in the works, Tesluk said, though there’s an open question about whether some areas—the south, southeast and perhaps northeast parts of town—ought to be re-tested once the tower at Silver Hill and a second planned tower, for the Norwalk Armory site, go live. Tesluk cautioned that it may take a while for the Armory tower to go up.