Reply to post: Market Forces

Dear Britain's mast-fearing Nimbys: Do you want your phone to work or not?

John Savard

Market Forces

It's quite right that there ought to be 50m high masts in rural areas. But given the lack of incentive to put cell towers in less-populated areas, isn't the obvious solution not to expect the private operators to do it at all? Instead, have British Telecom put up masts in rural areas to cover them to the extent desired by government policy, with the costs recovered by fees to private cell phone firms - which will be obliged to provide service in rural areas through paying BT for mast-sharing? (Or just make it plain, call it a tax on cell phone service.)

If the government has to cover the rural areas, one can expect they would pay close attention to the cost of doing so, and thus remove the limit on 50m masts there quickly. They might even class cell towers as critical to national defence, and thus immune to the normal NIMBY process of community consultation, while they're at it.

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