Floyd County, Georgia, as well as other municipal governments in the state, are making a stand against new legislation that would take away their authority over new and existing cell towers. In particular, the new legislation is expected to prevent these local governments from regulating cell tower location placement.

Georgia’s local officials want to ensure that cell tower locations are in accordance with the area’s zoning laws that they worked hard to put into effect. The proposed bill would give local governments 150 days to approve or deny a cell tower application before automatically being approved. The legislation would also prevent the local governments’ say in recommending alternative locations for a cell tower, even if the proposed site is in a location that negatively affects area residents.

“With our new communications system that we have worked so hard on, we made sure that the towers were strategically placed in order to provide the optimal coverage,” said Rhonda Wallace, a Georgia county commissioner. “It appears that, according to the bill, cell phone companies can come in and put a tower up without going by our zoning laws.”

However, telecommunications industry representatives see a different side to this story. They believe that Georgia’s economy suffers when technology falls behind because local officials won’t approve the installation of adequate wireless capacity.

If you’re interested in obtaining cell tower locations for competitive analysis, market intelligence, network planning, or other applications, contact GeoTel Communications at 800-277-2172. Our cell tower locations infrastructure data set includes the Site ID, Name, Description, Location, Ground Elevation, Company Name, Contact Information, Date of Construction, FCC ASR Number, FAA Study Number, AGL, AMSL, Tower Type, and Status.

T-Mobile said it has made good progress in shifting customers from the older MetroPCS network to T-Mobile. And the company will start shutting down the older network later this year.

T-Mobile made the announcement on a conference call with analysts and press following its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday. The company also provided an update on its 4G LTE network build-out, which is so far ahead of schedule. The company claims it has the fastest 4G LTE network in the US.

T-Mobile completed its merger with the prepaid regional operator MetroPCS in May of last year. The company had previously planned to start shutting down the older CDMA-based network used by MetroPCS in 2015. But during the conference call on Tuesday, executives said the company will begin the transition by the end of this year.

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My personal OPINION ~ US based T-Mobil wants METRO Customers in the USA and have hood-winked an established Metro Customer BASE into switching and paying at least $10 more for the SAME service just to fudge their corporate bottom-line ~ the 'out-dated equipment justification is deceite'