LA-RICS works toward September public-safety LTE deadline, opponents still claim RF-emissions danger

Mallon has stated on several occasions that the RF emissions from the LA-RICS cell sites—leveraging the same LTE technology that commercial carriers use in their networks—do not come close to approaching the FCC limits for wireless communications. In addition, the fact that the two LA-RICS cell sites were blocked does not mean those areas are void of wireless transmissions, he said.

“One of the sites we lost was at a sheriff’s station,” Mallon said. “Within 500 feet of the sheriff’s station, we found 30-plus Wi-Fi networks that a person could sign into.

“And, of course, one of the claims from this stoplacelltowers.com website was that there was a school right up the street from that sheriff’s station. We went to that school, and we found more than 20 different Wi-Fi networks while we were parked in the parking lot in front of the school, including the school’s own Wi-Fi [system].”

All of the construction work to date has been on permanent fixed cell sites, of which there are 63 in the current design, Mallon said. In addition, the project calls for 15 cells on wheels (COWs) to be placed in stationary locations to augment coverage from the fixed cell site, he said.

Work on the COW sites is just beginning, Mallon said.

“We just approved the notice to proceed with acquiring the trailers last week,” he said. “Instead of acquiring cells on wheels with the equipment already installed on them, we’re acquiring the trailers with the mast, and we’re using the equipment that was previously purchased to actually complete the trailer.

“So, the eNodeBs that we have and the antennas that we have [for the COWs] are all being pulled from the inventory that we had previously acquired.”

Most of the LA-RICS public-safety LTE project is being funded with federal grant money from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), which expires on Sept. 30, which is 11 weeks away. No extension of the statutory Sept. 30 deadline is expected, because it could only happen via an act of Congress.

While the focus of LA-RICS officials is on the LTE project, the organization also is tasked with deploying a P25 system for the region. The original plan called for many P25 antennas to be located on the same tower as an LTE antenna, Mallon said. With more than two-thirds of the permanent towers in the original LTE proposal no longer in the plan, the P25 system will have to pursue other strategies to maintain the same coverage levels as designed.

“There is going to be some impact there, and we’re still evaluating the options,” Mallon said.