Concealed Cell Phone Tower Discussed in Egg Harbor

A Door County AT&T signal may someday be easier to find, but if the company’s proposal for Egg Harbor is approved, the towers may not.

On Aug. 27, AT&T representatives presented a new concept to the Village of Egg Harbor Plan Commission: concealed cell towers. Or, in other words, cell phone towers disguised as things like trees, flagpoles or chimneys.

“Stealth towers are a type of tower we use in some situations to aesthetically change the appearance of a tower,” said AT&T representative Jim Greer. “I think there are positives and negatives to stealth towers, it just depends on the needs of the customers in the area.”

Greer said concealed towers aren’t often used because they restrict the amount of equipment the company can put on the site.

“Every project is different, and this fits with what our build plan is in Egg Harbor and what we’re trying to do there,” Greer said. “We designed these projects based on our work with the village or community we’re building in.”

In Egg Harbor, the representatives pitched an idea to build something like a clock tower, lighthouse or tree to disguise a cell phone tower. The tower was suggested to be 130 feet tall, roughly twice as tall as the village flagpole.

Whether it’s in the shape of a clock tower or cell tower, some are concerned such a tall structure would get in the way of the village’s scenic water view.

“Everyone’s in complete agreement that expanded cell phone service is needed and fitting and proper for the Village of Egg Harbor, but the location and size of the tower were what some folks took issue with,” said Egg Harbor Village President Joe Smith.

AT&T is looking at village-owned sites, such as next to the Post Office, and offered to pay a rental fee of $800 per month.

“There’s tons of things you could do with that [money], whether we use it for increasing the village beautification projects,” Smith said. “If folks are thinking that the village is less beautiful because of this tower, well we could use it to put in more flowers or stones on the sidewalk. That’s just one of many projects that revenue could go toward.”

Some residents are concerned about building such a high tower downtown whether it’s camouflaged or not.

“It’s a 130-foot tower right in the middle of the village, and people on top of the hill that paid for those nice expensive views are going to be looking at a big tower,” said Egg Harbor resident Clarence Scherer.

Scherer said cell phone service in the area is available from other providers, and would like to see companies work together to fill coverage gaps.

Nate Bell, network administrator at NEWWIS and Peninsula Pulse technology consultant, said AT&T rents space for its equipment on a Cellcom tower near downtown Egg Harbor on County Road E, but that tower doesn’t have a lot of network capacity.

“I don’t know that a camouflaged site is going to make a lot of sense [in downtown Egg Harbor],” Bell said. “If AT&T wanted to get together with Cellcom and build a bigger tower – it’s hard to get all these groups to work together – but I know the county could really use something in that area.”

Whether AT&T’s coverage will improve is a question on the minds of AT&T’s Door County customers. The company recently acquired cell sites in the county, but they were sites the company already had been using before the purchase. Greer said he can’t give plans for future expansion because of national security concerns.

AT&T representatives also mentioned building a concealed tower in the Village of Ephraim, but haven’t approached the village.