Roswell Asks T-Mobile How Its Cell Tower Evaluation Process Differs From 2017
The city of Roswell, Georgia, posed two dozen questions to T-Mobile Thursday about the current process it uses to evaluate the need for a cell tower, and how that process differs from the one in place when the city rejected…
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T-Mobile’s cell tower application in 2017. Thursday’s notice (docket 1:10-cv-01464) conformed to the first deadline on the schedule in the June 2 order signed by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg for Northern Georgia in Atlanta aimed toward continuation of a September 2018 evidentiary hearing on the parties’ motions for summary judgment. After releasing her March 17 opinion and order saying the FCC’s September 2018 small-cells declaratory ruling can’t be applied retroactively to Roswell’s 2017 denial of T-Mobile’s cell tower application (see 2303210036), Totenberg asked the parties to confer about the most efficient way to continue the nearly four-year-old evidentiary hearing. The schedule she adopted from their proposed order was the result. Among the other questions Roswell posed to T-Mobile: (1) What has the carrier done to “identify potential alternative cell sites” for the proposed tower since September 2018?; (2) What are the current standards that T-Mobile uses to define necessary capacity, throughput speed, signal strength, and signal quality, and how do they differ from the standards used when T-Mobile originally submitted its cell tower application in 2017?; (3) What's the average number of connected users that can currently be accommodated at each bandwidth frequency in the area of the proposed tower?; and (4) Did T-Mobile procure any new frequencies, bandwidth or access to towers or alternative structures located in Roswell as the result of the 2020 Sprint merger? Following T-Mobile’s written request for information from Roswell, also due Thursday, the parties have until July 14 to respond, said Totenberg’s order.