The Debate Over Neighborhood Zoning Could Hold Up Fast 5G Wireless For Years to Come

Two bureaucrats, FCC Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn, tangling over the intricacies of wireless networks may not seem like the stuff of headlines, but this week’s debate at Mobile World Congress Americas could shape the future of how we use our smartphones for decades to come. Having battled over topics like network neutrality and cable boxes, they now groused about the FCC’s latest dull-but-important controversy: the placement of transmitters for the new 5G wireless networks arriving in two or three years.

Installing up to 300,000 cellular antennas—double what the US currently has—in so little time is leading to a clash between overwhelmed local zoning officials and impatient industry and Trump administration officials, with Clyburn and O’Rielly fighting for each side. With 5G, the isolated fights that pop up over an individual cell tower site will multiply and merge into a national phenomenon, especially in urban areas where small cells wind up encrusted all over the landscape. Whether they get installed quickly or extra carefully some constituency will get angry. In fact, the same people may get angry whichever way it goes.