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Federal Court dismisses Crown Castle NG East LLC’s complaint and finds that the City of Rye, NY properly undertook a SEQRA review of Crown’s request to install dozens of mini cellphone tower’s throughout the City.

On Friday December 8, 2017, Judge Briccetti granted the City’s motion to dismiss Crown Castle’s complaint finding that the City did not violate the 1996 Telecommunications Act (“TCA”) when it rendered a Positive Declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

According to Rye Mayor Joseph A. Sack:

“This Order recognizes the importance of a diligent review process that includes a review of the potential environmental impacts of installation of small cells. The City considered varying points of view and to have Judge Briccetti affirm that we have acted in accordance with federal law is gratifying.”

Continue reading “Federal Court Dismisses Crown Castle Complaint Against Rye, NY”

By Amy Nordrum | Original IEEE Spectrum article here.

Photo: Hangsong YanYunchou Xing (left) and George MacCartney (right) adjust the horn antenna of their receiver to find the strongest signal during a millimeter wave measurement campaign in August. They are within line of sight of a transmitter stationed 4.3 kilometers away at the home of their NYU professor, Ted Rappaport.

A key 5G technology got an important test over the summer in an unlikely place. In August, a group of students from New York University packed up a van full of radio equipment and drove for ten hours to the rural town of Riner in southwest Virginia. Once there, they erected a transmitter on the front porch of the mountain home of their professor, Ted Rappaport, and pointed it out over patches of forest toward a blue-green horizon.

Then, the students spent two long days driving their van up and down local roads to find 36 suitable test locations in the surrounding hills. An ideal pull-off would have ample parking space on a public lot, something not always easily available on rural backroads. At each location, they set up their receiver and searched the mountain air for millimeter waves emanating from the equipment stacked on the front porch.

To their delight, the group found that the waves could travel more than 10 kilometers in this rural setting, even when a hill or knot of trees was blocking their most direct route to the receiver. The team detected millimeter waves at distances up to 10.8 kilometers (6.7 miles) at 14 spots that were within line of sight of the transmitter, and recorded them up to 10.6 kilometers (6.6 miles) away at 17 places where their receiver was shielded behind a hill or leafy grove. They achieved all this while broadcasting at 73 Gigahertz (GHz) with minimal power—less than 1 watt.

Photo: Hangsong YanGeorge MacCartney (left) and Jeton Koka (right) observe the signal strength from their receiver on a Keysight E4407B spectrum analyzer before recording a measurement.

“I was surprised we exceeded 10 kilometers with a few tens of milliwatts,” Rappaport says. “I expected we’d be able to go a few kilometers in non-line-of-sight but we were able to go beyond ten.”

The 73 GHz frequency band is much higher than the sub-6 GHz frequencies that have traditionally been used for cellular signals. In June, the Federal Communications Commission opened 11 GHz of spectrum in the millimeter wave range (which spans 30 to 300 GHz) to carriers developing 5G technologies that will provide more bandwidth for more customers.

Robert Heath, a wireless expert at the University of Texas at Austin, says the NYU group’s work adds another dimension to 5G development. “I think it’s valuable in the sense that a lot of people in 5G are not thinking about the extended ranges in rural areas, they’re thinking that range is, incorrectly, limited at high carrier frequencies,” Heath says.

In the past, Rappaport’s group has shown that a receiver positioned at street level can reliably pick up millimeter waves broadcast at 28 GHz and 73 GHz at a distance of up to 200 meters in New York City using less than 1 watt of transmitter power—even if the path to the transmitter is blocked by a towering row of buildings.

Before those results, many had thought it wasn’t possible to use millimeter waves for cellular networks in cities or in rural regions because the waves were too easily absorbed by molecules in the air and couldn’t penetrate windows or buildings. But Rappaport’s work showed that the tendency of these signals to reflect off of urban surfaces including streets and building facades was reliable enough to provide consistent network coverage at street level—outside, at least.

Rappaport says:

“The community has always been mistaken, thinking that millimeter waves don’t go as far in clear weather and free space—they travel just as far as today’s lower frequencies if antennas have the same physical size. I think it’s definitely viable for mobile.”

Others aren’t convinced. Gabriel Rebeiz, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who leads wireless research at the University of California, San Diego, points out that the NYU group ran their tests on two clear days. Rain can degrade 73-GHz signals at a rate of 20 decibels per kilometer, which is equivalent to reducing signal strength 100-fold for every kilometer traveled.

Photo: Ted RappaportThe view from the front porch of Ted Rappaport’s home in Riner, Virginia.

“Rain at 73 GHz has significant attenuation properties,” he says. “At these distances, the second it starts raining—I mean, misting, if it just mists—you lose your signal.”

Rebeiz says signals would hold up better at 28 GHz, only degrading 6 to 10-fold over a range of 10 kilometers. Millimeter waves will ultimately be more useful in cities, he says, but he doubts they will ever make sense for rural cellular networks: “It’s not going to happen. Period.”

George R. MacCartney Jr., a fourth-year Ph.D student in wireless engineering at NYU, thinks millimeter waves could perhaps be used to serve rural cellular networks in five or 10 years, once the technology has matured. One challenge is that future antennas must aim a signal with some precision to make sure it arrives at the user. That’s because millimeter waves reflect off of objects, and can take multiple paths from transmitter to receiver. But as for millimeter waves making their rural cellular debut in the next few years—“I’d say I’m a little skeptical just because you’d have to have a lot of small antenna elements and you’d have to do a lot of beamforming and beam steering,” he says.

By collecting rural measurements for millimeter waves, the NYU experiment was designed to evaluate a propagation model that the standards group called the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has put forth for simulating millimeter waves in rural areas. That model, known as 3GPP TR 38.900 Release 14, tries to figure out the strength of a millimeter wave signal once it’s emitted from a rural base station according to factors such as height of the cell tower, height of the average user, height of any buildings in the area, street width, and the frequency used to broadcast it.

By Amy Nordrum | Original IEEE Spectrum article here.

Photo: Hangsong YanYunchou Xing (left) and George MacCartney (right) adjust the horn antenna of their receiver to find the strongest signal during a millimeter wave measurement campaign in August. They are within line of sight of a transmitter stationed 4.3 kilometers away at the home of their NYU professor, Ted Rappaport.

A key 5G technology got an important test over the summer in an unlikely place. In August, a group of students from New York University packed up a van full of radio equipment and drove for ten hours to the rural town of Riner in southwest Virginia. Once there, they erected a transmitter on the front porch of the mountain home of their professor, Ted Rappaport, and pointed it out over patches of forest toward a blue-green horizon.

Then, the students spent two long days driving their van up and down local roads to find 36 suitable test locations in the surrounding hills. An ideal pull-off would have ample parking space on a public lot, something not always easily available on rural backroads. At each location, they set up their receiver and searched the mountain air for millimeter waves emanating from the equipment stacked on the front porch.

To their delight, the group found that the waves could travel more than 10 kilometers in this rural setting, even when a hill or knot of trees was blocking their most direct route to the receiver. The team detected millimeter waves at distances up to 10.8 kilometers (6.7 miles) at 14 spots that were within line of sight of the transmitter, and recorded them up to 10.6 kilometers (6.6 miles) away at 17 places where their receiver was shielded behind a hill or leafy grove. They achieved all this while broadcasting at 73 Gigahertz (GHz) with minimal power—less than 1 watt.

Photo: Hangsong YanGeorge MacCartney (left) and Jeton Koka (right) observe the signal strength from their receiver on a Keysight E4407B spectrum analyzer before recording a measurement.

“I was surprised we exceeded 10 kilometers with a few tens of milliwatts,” Rappaport says. “I expected we’d be able to go a few kilometers in non-line-of-sight but we were able to go beyond ten.”

The 73 GHz frequency band is much higher than the sub-6 GHz frequencies that have traditionally been used for cellular signals. In June, the Federal Communications Commission opened 11 GHz of spectrum in the millimeter wave range (which spans 30 to 300 GHz) to carriers developing 5G technologies that will provide more bandwidth for more customers.

Robert Heath, a wireless expert at the University of Texas at Austin, says the NYU group’s work adds another dimension to 5G development. “I think it’s valuable in the sense that a lot of people in 5G are not thinking about the extended ranges in rural areas, they’re thinking that range is, incorrectly, limited at high carrier frequencies,” Heath says.

In the past, Rappaport’s group has shown that a receiver positioned at street level can reliably pick up millimeter waves broadcast at 28 GHz and 73 GHz at a distance of up to 200 meters in New York City using less than 1 watt of transmitter power—even if the path to the transmitter is blocked by a towering row of buildings.

Before those results, many had thought it wasn’t possible to use millimeter waves for cellular networks in cities or in rural regions because the waves were too easily absorbed by molecules in the air and couldn’t penetrate windows or buildings. But Rappaport’s work showed that the tendency of these signals to reflect off of urban surfaces including streets and building facades was reliable enough to provide consistent network coverage at street level—outside, at least.

Rappaport says:

“The community has always been mistaken, thinking that millimeter waves don’t go as far in clear weather and free space—they travel just as far as today’s lower frequencies if antennas have the same physical size. I think it’s definitely viable for mobile.”

Others aren’t convinced. Gabriel Rebeiz, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who leads wireless research at the University of California, San Diego, points out that the NYU group ran their tests on two clear days. Rain can degrade 73-GHz signals at a rate of 20 decibels per kilometer, which is equivalent to reducing signal strength 100-fold for every kilometer traveled.

Photo: Ted RappaportThe view from the front porch of Ted Rappaport’s home in Riner, Virginia.

“Rain at 73 GHz has significant attenuation properties,” he says. “At these distances, the second it starts raining—I mean, misting, if it just mists—you lose your signal.”

Rebeiz says signals would hold up better at 28 GHz, only degrading 6 to 10-fold over a range of 10 kilometers. Millimeter waves will ultimately be more useful in cities, he says, but he doubts they will ever make sense for rural cellular networks: “It’s not going to happen. Period.”

George R. MacCartney Jr., a fourth-year Ph.D student in wireless engineering at NYU, thinks millimeter waves could perhaps be used to serve rural cellular networks in five or 10 years, once the technology has matured. One challenge is that future antennas must aim a signal with some precision to make sure it arrives at the user. That’s because millimeter waves reflect off of objects, and can take multiple paths from transmitter to receiver. But as for millimeter waves making their rural cellular debut in the next few years—“I’d say I’m a little skeptical just because you’d have to have a lot of small antenna elements and you’d have to do a lot of beamforming and beam steering,” he says.

By collecting rural measurements for millimeter waves, the NYU experiment was designed to evaluate a propagation model that the standards group called the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has put forth for simulating millimeter waves in rural areas. That model, known as 3GPP TR 38.900 Release 14, tries to figure out the strength of a millimeter wave signal once it’s emitted from a rural base station according to factors such as height of the cell tower, height of the average user, height of any buildings in the area, street width, and the frequency used to broadcast it.

By Ianthe Jeanne Dugan and Ryan Knutson; Oct. 2, 2014 7:37 p.m. ET; Original article here.

Many Sites Violate Rules Aimed at Protecting Workers
From Excessive Radio-Frequency Radiation

Radio-frequency engineer Marvin Wessel has taken readings at
more than 3,000 cellphone antenna sites across the country.

The antennas fueling the nation’s cellphone boom are challenging federal safety rules that were put in place when signals largely radiated from remote towers off-limits to the public.

Now, antennas are in more than 300,000 locations—rooftops, parks, stadiums — nearly double the number of 10 years ago, according to the industry trade group CTIA.

Federal rules require carriers to use barricades, signs and training to protect people from excessive radio-frequency radiation, the waves of electric and magnetic power that carry signals. The power isn’t considered harmful by the time it reaches the street, but it can be a risk for workers and residents standing directly in front of an antenna.

One in 10 sites violates the rules, according to six engineers who examined more than 5,000 sites during safety audits for carriers and local municipalities, underscoring a safety lapse in the network that makes cellphones hum, at a time when the health effects of antennas are being debated world-wide.

The FCC has issued just two citations to cell carriers since adopting the rules in 1996. The FCC says it lacks resources to monitor each antenna.

“It’s like having a speed limit and no police,” said Marvin Wessel, an engineer who has audited more than 3,000 sites and found one in 10 out of compliance.

On a sweltering June day in Phoenix, Mr. Wessel strolled through a residential area near Echo Canyon Park and spotted lawn chairs near a T-Mobile US Inc. cellular antenna painted brown to match a fence. His monitor showed emissions well above safety limits.

After being alerted by The Wall Street Journal, T-Mobile added warning signs and roped off a patch in front of the antenna with a chain. “The safety of the public, our customers and our employees is a responsibility that all of us here at T-Mobile take very seriously,” said a T-Mobile spokeswoman.

At very high levels, radio-frequency radiation can cook human tissue, the FCC said, potentially causing cataracts, sterility and other health issues.

To buffer people from these “thermal” effects, the FCC set two limits for how much RF people can absorb—one for the general public, and an “occupational” limit five times higher for people trained to work near antennas. The higher level is still 10 times below the thermal level.

Carriers have to restrict access near antennas that are above the limits. Workers and others who venture into hot zones — generally up to 20 feet in front of an antenna—must be trained and have RF monitors.

Most cellular antennas aren’t strong enough to cause thermal problems, engineers say, and carriers are installing some smaller antennas with lower power levels. But some are being made stronger to meet demand for high-speed Internet access, high-definition video and other services. A German study in 2013 found higher emissions from 4G antennas.

“The more bandwidth, the hotter they will be,” said Mr. Wessel, who expects some to exceed the thermal level within a year.

Richard Tell, a Nevada engineer, also expects some emissions to rise. At more than 1,000 sites nationally, he found roughly one in 10 out of compliance, similar to Mr. Wessel’s conclusion. Some are hidden or disguised for aesthetic reasons.

“I’ve been on rooftops looking for antennas and couldn’t find them because they were hidden in fake concrete blocks that were really foam,” he said.

Daniel Ranahan, a Lowell, Mass., roofer, said antennas are slowing jobs. “There’s no mechanism for the worker to know what buildings are safe,” he said.

Peter Chaney, the director of safety and health for the Mechanical Contractors Association of America, which represents companies with more than 270,000 workers, in August asked the FCC to create a database of cellular antennas.

One company, RF Check, in San Diego, has designed a protocol but requires collaboration from carriers and funding from phone customers.

Mr. Chaney is developing a training video and brochure on RF safety to distribute to the association’s members next year.

“We want workers to know that the antennas are there and that there may be a potential hazard,” he said. “I’m concerned about the chronic effect of this. If guys have 30-year careers and they’re exposed to these things on a regular basis—is there any long-term effect?”

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health began studying that question after the World Health Organization in 2011 categorized RF radiation as a possible carcinogen, said Gregory Lotz, the top RF expert for NIOSH. And the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health is exploring lower-level RF exposure.

An FCC guideline written after the rules were adopted notes studies showing “relatively low levels” of RF radiation can cause “certain changes in the immune system, neurological effects, behavioral effects,” and other health issues, including cancer. “Results to date have been inconclusive,” however, the agency said in a guide to radio-frequency radiation, and need to be studied further.

Among those concerned is Gilbert Amelio, a scientist who was chief executive of Apple Inc. and National Semiconductor and a board member of AT&T Inc. He believes industry leaders will “take whatever steps may be necessary to prevent harm to workers or others who may have good reason to be close to these sites.”

Jimmy Crespo complained to federal labor regulators in 2011 that he became disabled with cognitive issues after working more than 300 times on heating and cooling systems for antennas for Johnson Controls Inc., a Sprint Corp. contractor.

“I had no training, no monitoring devices and no warning from my employer,” Mr. Crespo said.

Regulators asked Johnson to ensure the rules were being followed. Johnson said it no longer had the contract, and Sprint said the systems were a safe distance from antennas.

“Employees were not working in an area where radio frequencies would pose a hazard,” a Johnson spokesman said.

Sprint said annual checks show all sites are compliant.

AT&T said it places “the utmost importance on the safety of workers and the public from RF emissions and we have a rigorous safety program in place to minimize exposure to RF emissions.”

The FCC in April signed a consent decree with Verizon Communications Inc. to settle RF violations in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, involving an unlocked rooftop and a missing sign. Verizon agreed to pay $50,000 and to train employees and contractors, and check other sites.

The carrier has told regulators that property owners complicate compliance.

“In New York City, condominium tenants became upset and concerned with RF notification signs we placed on a terrace access point,” Tamara Preiss, Verizon’s vice president of federal regulatory affairs, wrote to the FCC in February. Ms. Preiss said the signs were removed after the tenants hired a lawyer.

Insurers are becoming concerned. “The risk is often transferred to ‘unsuspecting’ property owners,” Roger Egan, executive chairman of Risk Strategies Co., told the FCC.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and A.M. Best Co., the insurance-rating agency, have flagged RF as an emerging risk. Swiss Re wrote in a 2013 report that if RF radiation is linked to health problems it “could ultimately lead to large losses.”

Write to Ianthe Jeanne Dugan at ianthe.dugan@wsj.com and Ryan Knutson at ryan.knutson@wsj.com