Cellular Towers, Necessary Evils?

Technology has cut millions of people free from the wires and cables of the communications industry, but it also has unleashed an escalating demand for facilities. Some threaten to change the face of the landscape.

Representatives of Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile appeared before the East Hampton Town Planning Board recently to describe a proposed 100-foot radio tower here, but before the discussion was more than half an hour along it became apparent that wasn't all they wanted. Over the next three years, NYNEX plans to seek at least two more such towers, which the company says are needed to improve its cellular phone service.

Nor is NYNEX the only game in town - just one of the first. There will be competitors knocking on the door in the months ahead, and each player will bring in its own bats and balls. One Planning Board member, Job Potter, foresaw a series of "100 and 150-foot towers popping up around town."

Responding to board members' concerns, NYNEX maintained that its towers were a necessary evil. The Federal Communications Commission, said a company attorney, "obliges" cellular service suppliers to "provide seamless service."

The F.C.C. does not, of course, oblige a municipality to put the interests of wireless phone users over those of the environment, at least it didn't the last time we looked.

However hideous a network of towers is to contemplate, there may be something of a silver lining here. Some in the industry predict these communications towers will be superseded in the not-too-distant future by unobtrusive alternatives such as satellite bases. If that is the case, the current proposal and those expected to follow warrant study rather than defiance, even if outside consultants have to be hired to help local officials make judgments about the requirements of cellular technology.

There is little in the master plan to guide the town in deciding whether there is a place here for such towers. Should there be just one? Four? Eight? Where should they go, and when does the door close? Can they be given temporary permission, under the condition that they come down when and if they become obsolete? Or will they become treasured relics, like the sole remaining radio tower on Napeague or the water tower on the Bell Estate in Amagansett?

These are legitimate questions. They deserve considered answers.