What a tragedy

This is a sad story. An elderly couple's calls don't get thru in an extreme emergency.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/elderly-co...e-cell-service/story?id=16330486#.T7gpKdkRSVI

With all due sympathy for the family and the victims, I have to ask how many times a cellphone company asked to erect a tower in that vicinity and was refused because the locals didn't want it for health, environmental or aesthetic reasons?

fronobulax said:

With all due sympathy for the family and the victims, I have to ask how many times a cellphone company asked to erect a tower in that vicinity and was refused because the locals didn't want it for health, environmental or aesthetic reasons?

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Or they just didn't care enough. Apparently similar to this post.......55 views and one person has an informed opinion. :shock:

Well, the news story has an interview that states there are three approved sites for towners and none of the carriers have seemed to be interested...so perhaps it gets blamed on big business profits not the NIMBY's...this time.

I guess the question comes, is a cell phone company a "common carrier" like other utilites? It would seem they are out of that loop, allowed to place towers/make coverage where they want. In what seems like a ridiculous scenario, Radio Shack used to cell Sprint cell phones in this area when there wasn't any service! There is coverage now, but I go into roaming in my own home, when I am not even moving :?

Bill Ashton said:

Well, the news story has an interview that states there are three approved sites for towners and none of the carriers have seemed to be interested...so perhaps it gets blamed on big business profits not the NIMBY's...this time.

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That was not in the print article, or at least I missed it three times. I might have made a different comment if it had been. However I know of several cases in suburban and rural Virginia where the local government had approved a tower site and the tower was ultimately not built because of opposition, so approval alone doesn't eliminate NIMBY or point to corporate greed. The family member who said that AT&T would not be sued is being pretty realistic and reasonable, IMO.

Frono, I am sorry, did not intend a jab...the quote was in the TV video. I am well aware of what you related as it happens here all the time...

Cell phones don't work everywhere, particularly in hilly rural terrain.

An ordinary guard rail above that 15-foot ditch might also have prevented that sad outcome.