Orange County NC Website
Approved 8/11/2014 <br /> <br />OC Board of Adjustment – 4/22/2014 Page 6 of 69 <br />Karen Kemerait: This is coverage from just AT&T but my understanding is there is a lack of coverage in that part of 1 <br />the county as well. I don’t know the details of Verizon’s coverage, Verizon does have coverage in the county but my 2 <br />understanding is that coverage is lacking in this part of the county for all carriers. Mr. Harvey may have more 3 <br />information. 4 <br /> 5 <br />Michael Harvey: At the end of January every year, Orange County holds an annual telecommunication meeting with 6 <br />all carriers that want to develop telecommunication facilities in Orange County. This meeting was attended by Ms. 7 <br />Kemerait as AT&T’s representative as well as representatives from Verizon. Staff reviewed various propagation 8 <br />maps and I will testify to this point in time, this area was identified as having no coverage and/or limited coverage. 9 <br />Even Verizon indicated that it did not have coverage in this area so I will confirm that this will address a coverage 10 <br />issue. 11 <br /> 12 <br />Larry Wright: You said this has a 10 mile to the north so how do we cover that to the north? 13 <br /> 14 <br />Karen Kemerait: The carriers need to come in and construct some more towers and I think this is the beginning 15 <br />stages. I can tell you that this is the only application on my desk to file at this point but I don’t know that AT&T and 16 <br />American Tower are continuing with their plans to improve coverage in the rural areas of Orange County. 17 <br /> 18 <br />Larry Wright: How far is that from the Virginia line? 19 <br /> 20 <br />Karen Kemerait: The closest tower is in Virginia and I actually can review the notes ….. 21 <br /> 22 <br />Jeff Schmitt: In Person County after this tower is constructed; there is no coverage from there until you get to 23 <br />Danville? Caswell County? 24 <br /> 25 <br />Karen Kemerait: I have been told there is no AT&T coverage for 10 miles to the north. At Mr. Monroe’s request, we 26 <br />provided additional information to show that coverage was available outside of the propagation studies that we had 27 <br />prepared so we provided a scale that showed … this is where the tower site will be and with the tower site, this is the 28 <br />existing coverage so you can see there is a loop but it is very limited. We did not provide additional sites because 10 29 <br />miles per …. 30 <br /> 31 <br />Larry Wright: I am not detracting from the importance of putting this tower here. I am looking to the future so we 32 <br />have people north of there. What I understand when they put up towers, they direct the signal so if Virginia puts up a 33 <br />tower and directs the signal toward Virginia, aren’t we going to need another tower in addition to this one to help 34 <br />these people out? 35 <br /> 36 <br />Karen Kemerait: I think the short answer is that to really continue to improve coverage in the northern or rural area 37 <br />of the county, there is going to need to be a significant investment and more towers will be needed. The way the 38 <br />towers work is they hand off to sites and this tower is going to be the hand off site between these two existing towers 39 <br />and the addresses for those towers are 419 Hawkins Road in Cedar Grove and that is near the intersection of 40 <br />Highway 49 and Highway 86 and the other site is 2351 John Lou Road in Burlington and it is also along Highway 49 41 <br />and Highway 119. 42 <br /> 43 <br />Larry Wright: I said Virginia and Jeff said Caswell County but still don’t they direct signals within the county … when 44 <br />they put a tower up? I’m in northern Orange County as well, it seemed they were directing signals towards the 45 <br />county line back to Orange and north to Caswell, am I right or wrong on that? 46 <br /> 47