Government
‘It’s That Dire’: Town Pursues Backup Plan To Erect Standalone Cell Site by Water Towers at Waveny
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Saying the owner of the Waveny water towers appears unwilling to renew leases with four wireless carriers whose antennas are perched atop one of them, town officials on Tuesday pursued a backup plan to erect a new standalone cell site in the same area. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 to amend the town’s contract with a Danbury-based wireless solutions company so that it can design and build a tower or other infrastructure there that not only provides cell service to a wide swath of the town but also carries New Canaan’s primary radio transmitter for all emergency services. It appears that Aquarion, which owns the towers and the land they’re built on “has no appetite to renew” its leases with AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “This is the right and proactive approach that the town must take so that we are not caught in 2018 with not serving one-third of our community with cell service and the entire community with radio emergency,” he said. “It’s that dire.”
Flagged by town officials last summer and made public in September after Mallozzi and others worked for months to facilitate communications between the two parties, the threat that wireless service gear will come off of the water towers grows more real as time passes and the end of the carriers’ leases approach.