Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cellular phones operate just like radio waves if the line of sight is interrupted, the signal dies

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 03:28:56 -0500

Cell phone reception fuzzy in Whittier area
City officials looking to obtain more towers
By Ben Baeder
Staff Writer

Monday, February 10, 2003 - WHITTIER -- Cellular phone reception is practically
nonexistent in Uptown Whittier.

"The reception is bad all along Mar Vista (Street),' said Tina Adams of the Whittier
Chamber of Commerce. "A lot of time it says you get no service and other times it's
sketchy, or you just get cut off.'

Officials say the problem stems from a lack of wireless signal- relay towers, particularly
in and around Uptown. Complicating the situation, they say, is the fact that the
topography of Whittier makes installation of a comprehensive network difficult.

Whittier Assistant City Manager Nancy Mendez said her office has contacted numerous
cellular phone companies, hoping to convince the firms to install more signal-relay towers
in Whittier, but to no avail.

"We have even considered hiring a company to talk to (the wireless companies) for us,' she
said. "Of course, we'd like to do it in-house to save money, but we've discussed that as
kind of a last resort.'

One company, Cingular Wireless, seems to be interested in the Whittier area.

Cingular soon will install a tower on Whittier Boulevard, near the Five Points
intersection. The company also recently purchased dormant towers atop the Bank of America
building at Greenleaf Avenue and Philadelphia Street in Uptown. The old towers were used
by a company that went bankrupt, said city planner Rafael Guzman.

Guzman said his wireless phone service is not very good whenever he is at or near City
Hall at Penn Street and Painter Avenue.

Jennifer Weland of Nextel said installing relay towers, which sense the message signals
from a phone, amplify the signals and rebroadcast them, is a slow process.

"There are a lot of things to consider city policies, the aesthetics. People don't like a
big tower in the middle of their neighborhood,' she said. "We try to use stealth (towers).
We put (towers) that look like pine trees, palm trees, and we put them in church steeples.
It's not easy.'

Cellular phones operate just like radio waves if the line of sight is interrupted, the
signal dies, Weland said.

In Whittier, because of the Puente Hills, the phones' signals wouldn't reach towers to the
north, cell phone company and city officials said.

Mendez is heading up the city's efforts to attract wireless companies, but she said she is
also busy overseeing planning for the new Greenway Trail, a pedestrian and bike path city
officials hope to build along unused railroad lines.

"As soon as this slows down a little, I'll be working on the cell phones,' she said.

Ben Baeder can be reached at (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3024, or by e-mail at
[email-masked] .

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,207~12026~1171181,00.html#

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