Cell Phone Towers into Pine Trees

Cheap Mobile Phones are easy to come by and abundant. These mobile phones, or cell phones as we call them in the U.S., need towers to transmit their signals (no signal/bad signal means bad business in this thriving industry). Unfortunately, towers can be unsightly and some municipalities don’t want to look at them. There’s a good solution to this problem. Simply disguise the towers.

Towers in Michigan are starting to take the form of pine trees and flag poles. As the towers become less noticeable more cities are looking at ways to add them to the landscape.

West Bloomfield and Shelby Township already have stealth towers, and Eastpointe could be the latest city to get one. Eastpointe’s Zoning Board of Appeals will meet Thursday to consider the approval of a stealth cell phone tower in the 17900 block of 9 Mile Road.

Gary Young, Eastpointe’s building official, said the tower would have the appearance of a flagpole and would be put near a Dumpster behind a McDonald’s. It would be the first stealth tower in Eastpointe, which already has four cell phone towers. Young, who made a recommendation against placing the pole so close to 9 Mile, said some residents almost always complain immediately after a tower is built near their home. That’s why companies are using the tree and flagpole designs to conceal the appearance of antennas and the technology that goes with them.

Of course, the cost of placing a tower can substantially increase with these “stealth” designs, which goes up the more elaborate the design.

Companies can face an additional $20,000 for an antenna — which can cost as much as $1 million alone — if they go with a stealth flagpole. The cost could increase if a more elaborate design, such as a lighthouse, is used.

Some residents still complain (there’s always a bunch of complainers for something like this) but when signals become that much clearer and people are less likely to “drop” a call, the cell phone companies could possibly see an increase in demand for these specialized towers. In some places they’re even made to resemble “boulders and cacti”. The higher price of placing a stealth tower could mean more revenue for the mobile phone companies which could mean more “pine trees” in residential areas. This trend could be very interesting to watch. How elaborate and imaginative can these companies become?

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