Oct. 21,
2004

In order to improve phone reception:

Norwich installs cell tower on Jackman Hall

By Tommy Holmes
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

A Presidential Donation Norwich President Richard Schneider donates blood during a Red Cross Blood Drive on campus Oct. 14. There were 293 donors, 25 percent more than the goal set. (Neilsen photo)

Members of the Norwich community will soon have better reception on their cell phones with virtually no cost to the school because of a new cell tower installed on the top of Jackman Hall.

The new tower will provide good reception to certain cellular phones, not only on campus but all over the Northfield area.

Phil Susmann, vice president of technology and strategic partnerships at Norwich, proposed the idea of a cell tower to NU President Richard Schneider at a cabinet meeting shortly before the academic year began.

“He brought the issue to the cabinet,” Schneider explained, “and I said, ‘Let’s explore it, sounds interesting.’

“When I have trustees here or guests here, you see them standing outside on corners of buildings, or even students at night,” Schneider said. “It’s just not very good (cell phone) coverage.”

Many cell phones have not worked well in the Northfield area, and cellular companies such as U.S. Cellular, which operates in Vermont and Maine, prefer to focus their resources in urban areas, such as Burlington, Vt.

Although this is a new feature to Norwich, Susmann has been trying to find a way to get better cell phone reception at the university for some time.

“About four years ago, a friend of mine who was the head of the Northfield Telephone Company went to work for Unicel,” Susmann said, adding that it was through this connection he began to explore the possibility of a cellular site at Norwich. The problem at the time was that the cost of putting up a cellular site was extremely high.

“The cost of a site was so expensive that you couldn’t do it in an area with 500 handsets,” Susmann said. “It wouldn’t make financial sense for you to do that. It wasn’t cost effective for these companies to do it.”

Susmann talked with companies such as Verizon, Cellular and Unicel. None of these companies would agree to put up a cell tower in the Norwich area, because a profit could not be made with the number of cell phones in Northfield. However, times have changed with advancing technology. Projects like the installation of the new cell tower in Jackman Hall are no longer as complicated and expensive as they were four years ago.

“This time, when we went to go talk to Unicel, Unicel bit,” Susmann said. “They’re able to put in place what are called micro-sites, and the micro-sites cost about 10 percent of what the original cell sites would cost.”

The cell tower will benefit Norwich in two big ways, one of which will be for students.

According to Susmann, students looking to attend a college today may be very interested in cell coverage.

“It may be enough of a detractor to make you unhappy with the experience,” Susmann said. “We saw that there were more students using cell phones on campus. We decided we wanted to provide that coverage on campus for the students, in addition to what’s in the dormitories,” Susmann said.

Better reception on campus is an obvious advantage to having the cell tower on campus. There is also another long-term benefit to wireless services like the one provided by Unicel. Five years ago, Norwich spent approximately $800,000 to put copper wiring in the dorms for telephones and Internet services. Wireless networks at the university could save a lot of money, Schneider said.

“It may actually drive down the cost of construction of new dormitories, or maintenance of dormitories, if we don’t have to worry about all the copper wire,” Schneider said.

The problem in earlier years was that wireless technology was not only too expensive, but not advanced enough to penetrate the thick walls of dorms such as Goodyear Hall. Now, wireless is becoming more reliable. With the expense lower and the benefits higher, it was not hard for the cabinet to come to a logical conclusion about how to proceed. But the question of safety to health remained.

“The issue was one of safety and so we got all the information from the vendor about the output of the amount of electro-magnetic radiation coming from the tower,” Schneider said. “The level is so low, below any threshold, that it’s not a health risk.”

This question of safety is partly why some town churches refused to rent out steeples to cellular companies for towers.

"I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt anyone, and I’m sitting right underneath this thing,” Schneider said. “I’m on the top floor of Jackman, so it would not be in my enlightened self interest if this thing was not good for us.

“We cleared it with the safety committee,” he said. “I think everyone felt pretty comfortable about it."

The new cell tower will provide clear reception for digital cell phones only. In particular, those who use Unicel or AT&T Wireless should notice a difference.

However, older analog cell phones will not be affected. Most cellular companies are now switching to digital services, which is why Susmann thinks digital service is a good step forward for Norwich.

“This is one of the first Unicel sites to come up GSM, or digital in the North East and it will be a prototype,” he said. “Norwich is on the cutting edge.”

The Norwich Guidon is a twice-monthly student newspaper distributed at Norwich University. It provides laboratory experience for students in the Communications program. Claims asserted by letter writers, editorials and other articles do not represent the positions of Norwich University. The Norwich Guidon welcomes signed letters to the editor. They should be no longer than 300 words. Unsigned letters will not be printed, but names may be withheld upon worthy request. All letters are subject to editing for length and good taste. Mailing address: The Norwich Guidon, Communications Center, Norwich University, 158 Harmon Dr, Northfield, VT 05663. www.norwich.edu/guidon.