HomeMy WebLinkAboutSP201700027 Other 2018-02-12 (2)ISHENTEL®
Always connected to you
Received
FEB 12 2018
February 7, 2o18
County of Albemarle
County of Albemarle Board of SuperviSoes Offim
Office of Board of Supervisors
401 McIntire Road
Charlottesville, VA 22902-4596
Re: Sec. 1704 Application for Conversion/Diversion at 4464 Richmond Road, Albemarle County, Virginia;
Crown Castle Telecommunications Tower #83.6361, Shentel Site ID 68328/CV117 Keswick
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
Shenandoah Personal Communications, LLC ("Shentel"), successor in interest to Virginia PCS Alliance,
L.C. ("NTELOS") relies on a 15o` telecommunications tower ("Keswick Tower") at 4464 Richmond Road (Parcel
Number 94-41A). The reason for this letter is to provide support to the Johnson Trust's Section 1704 application
for conversion/diversion of open -space, so that the importance of conserving the existing tower at its present
location is clear.
Background
Keswick Tower was built in 1998 and now houses five (5) wireless carriers. The wireless carriers lease space on
the tower from its owner, Crown Castle, who in turn leases the space where the tower resides from the owner
of the farm, which is the Johnson Trust. In 2007, the property owner granted a perpetual conservation
easement to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation ("VOF") for the farm.
According to a term of that easement, the tower must be removed during 2o18, after the original term of the
lease expires. If the parties to the lease are unable to reach an understanding with the VOF so that the facility
may remain in place, they must have a replacement facility in place to which Shentel and the other four (4)
installed wireless carriers can migrate to prevent any interruption in service.
Keswick Tower -- A Key Position
Shentel has been providing wireless service to its subscribers in this area of Albemarle County, periodically
upgrading its installations to meet the increasing subscriber demand for nearly two decades. With customers
talking less, but texting, emailing and using data much more, the importance of this facility cannot be
overstated. This site provides critical coverage to those living, working and traveling though this part of the
County and emergency first responders rely on the seamless coverage achieved by this site to provide rescue
services. About 41,000 vehicles travel through the tower's coverage area every day, not to mention the local
stationary subscribers. If Keswick Tower is not allowed to stay, a replacement facility or replacement facilities
must be built. Not only must new locations be found, but these locations must be close to the existing site to
work in conjunction with the surrounding sites (discussed in more detail below).
Building a replacement tower (or towers) too far from the existing site would hamper the effective hand off of
signal from this site to neighboring sites. This concept is best illustrated by the attached propagation maps.
These maps show the distribution of low- and mid -band signal from the Keswick Tower for Shentel. Clearly, if
this site is forced off air, the resulting gap in coverage would be substantial. Wireless signal would no longer be
handed off between Site Nos. 8o1475, 5800112 and 861959. Customers traveling in the area would experience
dropped and blocked calls due to the resulting lack in coverage. Some customers might have trouble getting
the emergency services they need in a crisis.
Specific Replacement Site Considerations
When the search ring for a possible replacement tower was originally designed, three significant considerations
became apparent. First, the site's main coverage area is an interstate and the rural area surrounding it. It is
very important that the replacement site keep contiguous coverage along the interstate and work well with the
neighboring sites as noted above. The second consideration is the capacity of the site. A replacement would
need to serve the same number of users that are currently served in their homes and as they travel through the
site's footprint. The third consideration is the elevation. There is a significant area of lower terrain to the west
of the existing site, but the replacement site needs to remain on a higher elevation, in order to avoid having to
increase the size of the structure.
Contiguous Coverage
The relocation site and its surrounding neighbors must have overlapping coverage to prevent lost service and
dropped calls when subscribers are moving east and west on Interstate 64. The overlapping coverage areas
allow the system to measure a mobile phone's signal as it moves through the area. The network constantly
calculates which cell site is best suited to process the call while the mobile device is within that overlap area.
When the signal strength measured by the cell site being approached reaches a set threshold, an instruction is
given to the system telling the new site to take over the call. This is how the system "hands -off' a cellular call
from one telecommunications site to another, and it requires the sites ortowers to be placed within a particular
distance and at a particular elevation with respect to one another.
Capacity
The capacity concern has to do with the site's ability to process a certain number of calls and provide the
bandwidth requested by each user within the site's coverage area. As wireless devices have become more
prevalent and are used for more data -driven tasks, such as streaming music and video, greater demand for
bandwidth and capacity is placed on the networks. Because the licensed bandwidth is limited, only so many
mobile sessions can occur at a given time through a particular tower. When that number is reached, the next
potential call is rejected due to a lack of capacity. In this instance, the subscriber would get a "System is busy"
error, or a call which would otherwise be handed -off to a new tower would be dropped. This means that sites
with overlapping service areas are necessary in order to share demand and reduce call rejection during periods
of high demand. Keswick Tower is a robust site which is properly placed in the developed network, in fact, the
network has grown up around it. This would make it very difficult to adequately replace if it were removed.
Terrain
The terrain also has implications for the coverage of the replacement site. Currently there are five (5) carrier
operators on Keswick Tower. The elevation to the west of the falls approximately 30' below the existing
elevation. A replacement tower work best if it were on the same or higher elevation. This would allow the
replacement site to `see'the surrounding area as well as the existing site without having to build a replacement
tower 30 to 40 feet taller to match Keswick's current coverage.
Conclusion
If Keswick Tower is removed, a replacement site (or sites) that will minimize the impact or changes to the
surrounding sites will be needed so that when the carriers move to it (or them) the impact on the public is
minimized and subscribers do not have a significant change or disruption in services. If the existing structure
cannot be replaced, then problems in either capacity or contiguous coverage will necessarily result.
Capacity and coverage deficiencies will result in dropped calls, blocked access to the network, or poor quality
and reliability. It could also mean no coverage at all for some current subscribers. This not only affects every
day personal and business communications within the area, but also endangers lives as access to emergency
services is negatively impacted. Given these considerations, it is understandable that the potential loss of a
cell tower is viewed as a critical event for our network and our customers.
on the other hand, the existing facility has served the surrounding community, traffic into and out of Albemarle
County on the interstate highway as well as on Virginia highway 25o, and the area's emergency services needs
for almost twenty years. With responsible maintenance and timely upgrades, there is no reason it cannot
continue to serve reliably into the foreseeable future, perhaps as long as land -based wireless networks remain
technologically relevant.
For the foregoing reasons, we respectfully offer our enthusiastic support to the Johnson Foundation's
application for Section 1.704 conversion or diversion of open -space land, in the hope that the existing facility
will be conserved, and not removed.
Si ly,
Signature
Daniel J. Meenan
Name
Vice President, Wireless Network Development
Title