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Paul Costa presented to the East Hampton Town Board about the need for cell service within the town's borders. Crown Castle plans to bring small cells to the underserved areas. JACK MOTZ
Crown Castle began installing fiber-optic cable recently in East Hampton Town areas that lack reliable cellular service in an effort to combat the vacuum of service compounded by high demand.
Small cells are a type of miniature service node that provide a limited range of coverage. When concentrated densely, the small cells can expand service in an area with little visual impact.
In March, Crown Castle, an infrastructure provider, began installing fiber for the small cells in East Hampton Town. By the end of the year, the company plans to have 129 sites operational. In total, Crown Castle intends to build 189 nodes within the town. Each small cell will have a range of around 500 to 1,000 feet.
Initially, T-Mobile, having signed a contract with Crown Castle, spurred the move for expanded coverage. Each node, though, will be able to hold two to three cell carriers, so, Paul Costa said on behalf of Crown Castle, other cell providers will likely jump on as the nodes come online.
Right now, Costa said, the move comes because the high network traffic exceeds the capacity for coverage.
Most of the sites targeted by the initiative are in Springs, Northwest Woods, East Hampton North and Amagansett, with a handful in Wainscott and Napeague. Specifically, a Crown Castle map shows 10 in Wainscott and seven on Napeague.
The greatest number — 93 — will be placed in the East Hampton North and Northwest Woods area.
The small cells can be attached to existing utility poles, but PSEG and other infrastructure companies place limitations on when that can be done. With that, as it stands, a minority of the pitched small cells will be attached to existing poles. Currently, 100 of the planned nodes will require installation of a new pole, while 71 are still subject to design changes.
Federal guidelines block a municipality from denying cell service to a community, which limits the town’s ability to give input. However, Planning Director Tina LaGarenne said the vision for the project incorporated considerations pertaining to community character and visual impact. Despite the federal limitations, town code can set parameters for an infrastructure provider undertaking such a project.
In this case, Crown Castle cannot place small cells within 100 feet of a house, and the company must account for visual considerations.
Most of the small cells — 170 — will be located on East Hampton Town rights-of-way, but others will go atop Suffolk County or New York State lands. Still others will require permission from private landowners.
With 129 nodes slated to be completed this year, the remaining 60 small cells will be done over the next two years.
After his presentation before the Town Board on Tuesday, May 20, Costa requested additional feedback from leadership, since the Town Board members are the “experts of the town.”
Deputy Supervisor Cate Rogers praised the company for extending service with “such an unobtrusive system.”
Representatives from the Planning Department took a similar view. Planner Eric Schantz, for instance, noted “this is what we wanted when we came up with the wireless master plan.”
The designs for this first large-scale small cell deployment seem “pretty innocuous,” he said.
Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez voiced a preference for the ground concealment base, which would place the small cell block toward the base of a tower, as opposed to higher up the pole.
Before the presentation, Burke-Gonzalez completed some research, finding that 27 percent of the market share nationwide belongs to T-Mobile, the company that Crown Castle plans to initially host on the East Hampton small cells.
Ultimately, though, other providers will likely take advantage of the opportunity, as each pole will be able to host at least one additional cell provider.
