5G Poles On Dunes At Dewey Beach To Be Removed

Dewey Beach Town Commissioners have approved an ordinance that tightly governs construction of future 5G cell poles.

Also, a class action lawsuit filed last summer against Verizon has been settled. Five poles that were placed on the dunes earlier this year will be removed and relocated.

“We’re in a much better spot today than we were obviously a year ago,” Dewey Beach Town Commissioner Paul Bauer told WGMD News. “What we’ve done is tighten up our restrictions of what can be installed, what it looks like, where it can go etc.”

The lawsuit was filed by Alex Pires, Diane Cooley and John Snow of Dewey Beach.

The poles on the beach generated plenty of opposition in Dewey Beach, and were the reason for a rally held on the day after Independence Day. Dewey Beach also hired a consultant to guide the town through the process.

“There are some co-location options that Delmarva Power is providing. If it’s a new pole that goes in, it needs to follow our permitting process,” Bauer added.

According to the town, the settlement talks produced the following results:

Primary Technical Objectives:

• Offload capacity from high traffic sites nearby. This reduces cell blocking and dropped connections and thereby improves reliability and overall experience for customers and first responders.
• Add network resources needed to serve heavy seasonal traffic in town, especially along the shore area.
• Make 5G technology available to Dewey Beach residents, businesses, and visitors.

Technical Constraints:

• Sites must be close to the users and away from trees, buildings or other structures so as to prevent signal interference.
• Siting the small cells at issue along coastal highway is not a viable alternative. Verizon already has sites along coastal highway; adding more will not achieve the technical objectives above, as the RF signal won’t reach users along the shore and surrounding areas where most needed to take traffic from overloaded sites serving nearby areas and achieve the other objectives noted above.

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