Better Cell Phone Coverage in Lewisboro/Katonah

Petition to the Members

of the

Town Board of Lewisboro,

the Planning Board of Lewisboro,

and the Zoning Board of Appeals

Town Of Lewisboro
11 Main Street, P.O. Box 500
South Salem, New York 10590

The Lack of Cellular Phone Coverage/Reception in the Town of Lewisboro is appalling. We are now in the 21st Century and Cellular Phones have become an important part of everyone%u2019s lives. According to the CTIA, a nonprofit  representing all sectors of wireless communication, as of 2008 there are more than 262 million cell phone users in the United States. That is just under 90% of the total population of the country, which stands at around 304 million. People use their cellular phones for much more than just voice communications. They are used nowadays for texting, data services (accessing the internet and email), media messaging, and much more.

The Katonah-Lewisboro area has a population of over 22,000 people who are inadequately covered by their wireless providers. We diligently all pay our wireless bills each month, but do not receive the service we are paying for due to various local reasons including lack of action by the Town Board and a minority of naysayers. There are many benefits for Cellular Coverage especially for public safety reasons. The local Police, Fire Departments, and EMT services have wanted better coverage for this reason for quite some time, it would make it easier for people to call and reach them in an emergency situation where they were away from home and a landline, which are not, located everywhere. Therefore, if an accident or other emergency were to occur, especially late at night, no one would be able to reach help, which is a terrifying thought and is unacceptable.

Lewisboro has many roads and streets without coverage. Most notably of these is Route 35. Route 35 is, as you know a major route for commuters from both New York and Connecticut. Many people use this route everyday to get to and from work. Though it has lots of traffic constantly on it, it still does not have any adequate coverage. This is also frustrating.

Many people, especially business people, also use their wireless providers to access the internet by connecting a small wireless USB sized modem to the computer, which gets signal from these towers, and due to our lack of service are unable to conduct their business and it hampers their ability to communicate. A new trend has also been that people have been replacing their landlines with their cellular phones which makes it easier to reach people on and decreased their monthly expenses, which is important in these tough economic times. The lack of coverage hampers this and makes people pay hundreds of dollars that are not necessary, if better coverage were available people could use that money for other and better uses.

The town would benefit from this for all of these reasons and it would also provide the town with another source of revenue, which is excellent since the tax burden on town residents is then eased.

We support the Homeland towers project and petition for another one to be placed in an area in Cross River/Katonah area for better coverage. Future projects should also include other major carriers like Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile. We request the Zoning Board of Appeals to work with the Planning Board and Antenna Advisory Board to resolve this matter.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned