AT&T Plans Massive Small Cell Push → SMALL cells are UGLY....

I've started to see these around Columbus OH -- There is one up near St Anne's Hospital in Westerville and I found one mounted to a wooden pole on the west side near a freeway interchange-- I wonder if these are using cable company's backbone for back haul? The ones here are mounted very very close to TWC Trunks.

The small cells by me use AT&T fiber backhauls that were originally deployed for U-Verse. I see the fiber run to the U-Verse VRAD cabinets.

Who cares! Consider yourself lucky, many people can't get decent cell service in their house

What provider is using the small cell?

AT&T, hence the article's headline has AT&T named in it as well as in the story.

Depends on the provider and who they have agreements with. Around Houston At&t uses their own fiber and T-Mobile uses Comcast. Not sure about the others, but I think Verizon might use Level 3 and other leased fiber, don't know about Sprint.

Amen to that!

Worse looking than the telephone pole and all those wires? I think not.

You're kidding right??

Towers are ugly, then Microcells are ugly, then people bitch that their phone doesn't have service everywhere.

There are a lot of people that think that the telephone poles are ugly, just to start with.

Where in the hell are they supposed to put the cells, if everyone want's perfect coverage, speed, and capacity, but nobody wants to see any of them??

They can't just build 150' tall flagpoles and fake-looking metal trees on every other street corner, and you can't bury the cell antennas under the ground either.

Got a better idea???

THEY SHOULD do what other carriers do....put antennas on water towers, or other appropriate places. NOT on telephone poles like this. There is a perfectly suitable water tower a few hundred feet away where they could have deployed antennas.

It's probably TOO TALL, or the municipal authority doesn't want antennas on it's nice looking water tower..

Microcells take advantage of low heights, short range "targeted" coverage, and frequency re-use.

Oh, and using a lot more of them as well, maybe 20 or 25 micro-cells, instead of a few 170' tall "boomer" towers.

Sorry that they're not too photogenic for people that stare at telephone poles all day, but at least the photos can be taken with your cell phone, and you have really good signal around there to upload them to the Internet.

Maybe the POCO could just put some big can transformers up there instead, would that look any better??

Don't waste your time on the NIMBY/BANANA types, they'll never listen.

You'll note that he didn't bitch about the equally ugly wires and transformers bringing electricity into his house, or the HFC/twisted-pair cables (assuming he's on cable or DSL) bringing the internet in for him to post his BANANA ramblings.

Here is a clue for you: THEY DO. Plus on top of hotels, highrise buildings (if there are any), and several other places. Know what you're talking about before opening your mouth.

Because the power lines and other wires and pole pigs are just somehow works of art....

Services aint pretty things, This is what I do not understand about our society today. People want more more and more but they do want to see any hint of what brings their more.

They want more selection and lower prices, but they do not want the store in their town to house it. They want less traffic but they do not want a freeway near their town. They want faster data services but do not want to see the boxes or towers. They want more electric everythings but do not want more power plants.

People want us to conserve energy/resources and reduce CO2 but they setup HOAs that ban cloths lines and require green lawns supported by wasteful irrigation.

The new line of pico sites from Alcatel-Lucent look like small metal boxes with three antennas come out. Looks like your home wifi router on a telephone or light pole. They can also be hidden within the facade of a building by using antennas that match the shape of designs in use on it. By all means if it means I get better indoor coverage I'd let them slap one on the side of my house and pay me rent.

I'm with you, too... I think electrical outlets and lightbulbs are ugly, too. Geez... now that I think about it, the toilet isn't very aesthetic... I think I'll start using the tree behind the house.

These are cell phone "towers" in New Orleans, near Bourbon Street, that are used for stop signs and street signs -- they are only slightly taller and and quite a bit thicker than a normal signpost.

Streetlight poles, the ones I've seen in Gahanna, OH for their City-Wide WiFi Mesh Network, don't look anywhere as bad as these do.

Don't know about their LTE network but Verizon switched to microwave backhaul in some areas for their 3G when that was the newest thing.

Just when they get decent LTE coverage 5G will come out and everybody will be pissed again.