**Wireless Telecommunications Systems**

**BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**December 3, 1997**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file created during the
telecast

and may contain errors in transcription and omissions of text.

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona\... \"Wireless
Telecommunications Systems\" ‑‑ An Interactive Forum for the Management
and Staff of the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and Wireless
Telecommunications Industry. And Now\... the Host of Your Program, Mike
Ford.

Ford: Good Morning, Everyone. Welcome to Our Satellite Broadcast on the
Wireless Telecommunications System. During this Broadcast We Want to
Reach Everyone Involved in the Authorization of Wireless
Telecommunication Sites. Our Goal Is to Gain a Common Understanding of
What\'s Important for the Agencies and Industry for Telecommunication
Services. We Want to Foster Good Customer Service. Together, We Want to
Improve Our Existing Procedures Which Will Ultimately Benefit the
Public. We Have a Tremendous Amount of Information to Cover Today, and
We\'ve Made an Effort to Structure this Broadcast to Provide a Maximum
Opportunity For Our Panel to Participate With You and the Viewers That
Call in and Phone In. In Order for to You Get Actively Involved, We\'ll
Be Accepting Faxes Throughout the Program. In Addition, We\'ve Scheduled
Question and Answer Periods Where You Can Call in and Participate
Directly. Before We Get Going, I Would Like to Welcome Our Guests
Joining Me Live in the Studio Here in Phoenix. First of All, I Want to
Welcome An Old Friend of Mine, Bil Weigand, Realty Specialist from
Boise.

Weigand: Good to Be Here.

Ford: It\'s Great to Be Here With You. A Little Known Fact I Have Been
Telling People Here this Week, Bil Is One of the Finest Shooting Guards
in the History Of the Bureau of Land Management. He Won\'t Admit to
That, but It\'s The Truth. I\'m Also Happy to Welcome Cindy Phillips,
Director of Property Management with Commnet Cellular From Denver,
Colorado.

Phillips: I\'m Happy to Be Here.

Ford: All Week Long Here You Have Been Talking about How Excited You
Were to Be on Live TV and the Time Has Come Here. So Welcome. Good to
Have You Here. Recently I Had an Opportunity to Be Involved in Another
Joint BLM Forest Service Effort That Was Designed to Improve the Linear
Right‑of‑way Processes, and I Had the Pleasure of Working with Jim
Galaba, Special Use Program Coordinator for the Forest Service in
Portland, Oregon Here. Welcome, Jim.

Galaba: Glad to Be Working With You Again, Mike.

Ford: It\'s Really Good to Be Here with You Again and We Spent So Much
Time Together I Am Not Sure If I Am Working for the Forest Service or
You\'re Working For BLM but the Time Together Has Been Positive and Last
but Certainly Not Least Here, I\'m Pleased to Welcome Ron Fowler, Real
Estate Manager for the Cellular Division of At&t in Portland, Oregon.
Ron, We Have Had a Good Time Together with You, Too.

Fowler: Great Time.

Ford: Thanks for Coming. By the Way, in the Interest of Generating Lots
of Calls to Our Panel Later Today, Ron Has Informed Me That At&t Has
Graciously Agreed to Provide Five Free Hours of Long‑distance Calling
for the First 10 Callers To Our Program. Quite a Deal, Ron?

Fowler: I Think it Is, Because We\'re Getting Free Permits along with it
for the Forest Service and BLM.

Ford: I\'m Sure Some of the Viewers in Washington Will Appreciate That.

Fowler: Within Two Days, Too.

Ford: Great. We\'re Also Lucky to Be Joined Today by a Very
Distinguished Group of Leaders in Washington, D.C. Joining Us Today Live
in Washington, D.C. Is Eleanor Towns, Director of Lands for the United
States Forest Service. Good Morning, Elli.

Towns: Good Morning. How Are You?

Ford: Doing Good Here. How about Yourself.

Towns: Doing as Best We Can Not Being in Phoenix.

Ford: It\'s Not as Good as They Really Say Here.

Towns: Yeah, Right.

Ford: You Don\'t Believe That For a Minute. We\'re Also Pleased to Be
Joined By George Shaginaw, Senior Vice‑president for the Cellular
Telecommunications Industry. Good Morning, George.

Shaginaw: Good Morning. How Are You?

Ford: We\'re Doing Great. We Have Enjoyed Working Together With Your
Affiliate Members down Here on this Broadcast.

Shaginaw: We Appreciative for All Your Assistance and Looking Forward to
a Good Program Today.

Ford: and I\'m Also Pleased to Welcome a Friend of Mine and Somebody Who
I Know Well, and That\'s Ray Brady, Manager of Lands and Realty in BLM
in the Washington Office. Good Morning, Ray.

Brady: Good Morning, Mike.

Ford: Good to See You. We Greatly Appreciate All Three Of You Joining Us
and Demonstrating Your Support in The Combined Industry/agency Effort to
Fulfill the Need to Improve Customer Service Concerning
Telecommunications. But Before We Continue with Our Two Panels in
Washington and Here in Phoenix We Want to Share A Recorded Message from
BLM Director Pat Shea. Dir. Shea: I\'d like to Thank the Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association, CTIA, and The U.s. Forest
Service for Their Participation in this Joint Satellite Broadcast. This
Broadcast Is a Splendid Example of How Government Should Work. This
Broadcast Is a BLM/forest Service Interagency Effort with Major Support
Provided by CTIA. The CTIA Is Providing the Support as a Public Service.
I Would Especially like to Thank Everyone Attending this Broadcast under
Our Responsibilities under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 And
President Clinton\'s Memorandum of August 10th, 1995. The Guiding
Message of These Provisions to the Federal Agency Is to Provide Customer
Service For the Public\'s Telecommunications Services. I Appreciate
CTIA\'s Initiative In Approaching Both BLM and the Forest Service to
Discuss its Growing Industry Needs for Wireless Telecommunication
Services. The BLM and Forest Service Continue to Make Tremendous
Progress in Working Together in Resolving Land Issues Associated With
Telecommunications. Wireless Telecommunication Companies Have Been
Awarded Licenses Enabling Them to Use Public Airwaves to Provide
Wireless Communication Services Which Benefit Firefighters,
Recreationalists and Many Other Citizens Who Use Our Public Lands.
Companies Seeking Sites on BLM Or Forest Service Lands Are Attempting to
Fulfill Their Obligations under the Licenses. As Customers, They Should
Be Expected to Be Treated Fairly, Given Reasonable Expectations on
Costs, and Know When to Expect a Decision on Their Application. They
Should Know Who to Contact And Get Information on the Progress Being
Made on These Applications. BLM and Forest Service Published Rental
Schedules for Uses on BLM And Forest Service Lands. To Implement the
Schedules, Joint Training and Support Have Been Provided in Various
Field Offices. This Has Resulted in an Increase In Rents, and in the
Case of BLM, Additional Money to Administer the Communication Site
Program. The Development of a Rental Schedule Was in Response to
Recommendations Made by Industry Groups and CTIA in Particular. Although
Fair Rent Was an Important Issue, the Overriding Industry Goal Was to
Ensure the Development and Implementation Of Uniform Policies by Both
Agencies. Our Two Agencies Are Streamlining Various Processes,
Incorporating New Technology to Reduce Costs and Improve Service, and
Developing Cooperative Working Relationships with Industry Groups. We
Understand the Importance of Maintaining Good Customer Relations, and I
Encourage You To Go the Extra Mile in Making Sure Those Relationships
Are Developed to Their Fullest Potential. This Broadcast Is a Step in
the Effort to Better Train BLM and Forest Service and Industry Personnel
in Communication Site Management on Both Public and National Forest
System Lands. I Strongly Encourage All BLM Personnel Involved with this
Industry\'s Growth to Attend the National Training Center\'s
Telecommunication Systems Course As Soon as Practical. In Closing, I
Want to Thank the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association,
CTIA, and Their Member Companies for Supporting Their Broadcasts and
Following up on the Training Provided. I Want to Also Thank All of the
BLM and Forest Service Managers That Allowed Their Staff to Participate
in this Broadcast in Spite of a Heavy Workload at Their Home Offices.
And I Want to Thank the Employees for Their Efforts in Producing this
Informative and Timely Broadcast. It Is Our Hope That the Information
Provided Will Increase an Understanding of the Procedures and
Requirements for Authorizing Wireless Use by the Two Agencies. Mike
Dombeck, as the Chief Forester, and I as Director of BLM, Thank You for
Your Participation. Thank You Very Much for Your Help.

Ford: I Know the Director Has Been Extremely Busy During His First Few
Months on the Job, and We Really Appreciate Him Taking The Time to
Record That Message For Our Viewers. As I Mentioned Earlier, Direct
Interaction Is the Key to Our Video Forum, and Throughout the Program
You\'ll Be Able to Communicate with Our Panel via Fax. Later in the
Program, We\'ll Be Taking Your Live Phone Calls. However, If You\'re
like My Office in Albuquerque, You\'re Now Probably Scrambling Around
Trying to Locate the Phone and Fax Number. In Case You Forgot, Both the
Numbers and the Fax Form Are Included in the Memorandum with The Viewer
Information Packet That Was Previously Provided to Your Office.
Hopefully You Got That. Also, Let Me Bring Your Attention to the
Accompanying Training Manual. Copies of That Manual Are Also Included in
the Viewer Information Packet and We Will Have More on That Later. By
the Way, We Know That Some of You Have Asked, Why Don\'t You Display the
Phone and Fax Numbers on the Screen? I Actually Asked That Question
Myself When I First Came to Phoenix, and I\'m Informed That The National
Training Center Considers That These Satellite Broadcasts Are for
Invited Audiences and Not Public Forum. I Guess Everyone\'s Worried an
Unknown Caller May Pick up the Number on Their Satellite, Ask a Hard
Question and Our Panel Can\'t Answer it Here. But That\'s the Reason and
If You\'re Struggling with It, Look Back in Your Packet Here, and We
Apologize. But Right Now We Want to Return To Our Studio in Washington,
D.c. So We Can Hear from Elli, And I Know You Have an Important Message
from the Forest Service. Elli, You\'re On.

Towns: Hi. I\'m Elli Towns and I\'m Director Of Lands for the Forest
Service. Our Land Staff Provides Leadership and Direction to the Forest
Services Special Uses Program and Communications Uses On the National
Forest Systems Lands Are Significant Component Of That Program. We Know
That the Use of Federal Land Is Vital to Communications Networks and
Particularly Those Networks That Each of Us Uses Every Day. I Really
Want to Thank You for Letting Me Share My Thoughts About the Need for
Agency and Industry Cooperation. Several Years Ago the Forest Service
and the Bureau of Land Management Pooled Their Efforts To Develop and
Implement a National Rental Schedule for Communications Uses. Both
Agencies Also Adopted Similar Policies That Streamlined the Management
Administration of Those Uses. The Changes Were Significant and It
Benefited the Forest Service, The BLM and Industry in That
Administration of These Uses Is Now More Consistent and We Believe
Efficient. All of Us Need to Continue to Promote a Better Understanding
Of Each Other\'s Processes, Needs And Limitations, and I Believe That
this Telecast Is an Important Step in That Direction. The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 and President Clinton\'s Executive
Memorandum of August 10th, 1995, Directed Federal Agencies to Work More
Cooperatively with the Industry, And I Want to Reaffirm Forest Service
Commitment to Those Mandates. To That End, We Have Published An Interim
Directive That Sets Forth Procedures for Accepting And Processing
Communication Site Applications, and While We Strive to Be Responsive to
Our Customers, We\'ll Continue to Do So in a Manner That Complies With
Existing Laws and Regulations, Including Those That Relate to Protecting
Endangered Species and Cultural Resources. In a 1996 Survey, Special Use
Customers on National Forest Systems Lands Identified Six Areas That
They Felt Needed Improvement, and as Ilis unto Director Shea, I Heard
Some of Those Six Concerns Echoed. The First of Those Was That We Wanted
Convenient Ways to Obtain And Submit an Application. Our Customers
Wanted User‑friendly Forms. They Wanted Us to Coordinate With Other
Agencies and to Have More Common Policies. They Wanted Consistent
Monitoring and Enforcement. They Wanted Us to Improve Our Ability to
Answer Their Questions, and More than Anything, They Wanted Us to Make
Ourselves Accessible. We Believe That the Joint Fee Schedule That We\'ve
Developed With the Bureau of Land Management Is a Significant Step In
Addressing These Six Areas of Concern. I Extend My Appreciation to the
Association for its Efforts in Initiating and Sponsoring this Telecast.
I Know Collectively Our Folks Spent Many Hours Using this Tool To
Address Issues I Know That Are of Concern to the Audience Participants
as Well as to the Agencies, and When this Ends, We\'re All Going to Have
a Better Understanding of the Opportunities and Constraints That Are
Facing the Industry and The Agencies. I Hope That Our Local Folks Will
Continue to Duplicate Our Efforts, Continue to Communicate. I Know That
this Telecast Is a First Step down a Long Journey Of Cooperation Between
the Industry and the Agencies, and I Want to Thank You for Providing Me
with this Chance to Share My Thoughts. Again, Thanks to the Association
For Making this Broadcast Possible and Also to You Folks At the Phoenix
National Training Center. Appreciate It.

Ford: Thanks, Elli. As You Know, the BLM and the Forest Service Have
Made an Effort to Work Together over the Past Few Years, and It\'s
Really My Personal Feeling That the Lands Program Has Always Led the Way
in That Cooperative and Productive Effort.

Towns: I Thought Bil Weigand Was on Our Payroll.

Ford: Perhaps He Is and We Don\'t Know That Here. As Part of That
Partnership Effort, We Really Appreciate the Emerging Relationship with
CTIA. George Shaginaw Joins Us Again From CTIA, And, George, Your
Personal Support and Involvement In this Is Really What Makes it Happen.
So We Welcome You and Want to Give You a Chance to Offer a Few Words.

Shaginaw: Thank You, Mike. I Do Appreciate That. I Appreciate the Help
of the Bureau of Land Management and The Forest Service in this Effort.
As an Industry, We\'re Faced with One of the Largest Growing Consumer
Demands in the Country, And That\'s the Provision of Wireless Service.
We Currently Have over 50 Million Customers Using Wireless Phones
Throughout this Country, And That\'s Projected to Grow, Particularly
with the New Personal Communication Service Providers, or Pcss, as We
Refer To Them, Turning up Their Service Across the Country to Over 100
Million Customers in The First Part of the next Century. So Think about
It\... 100 Million Customers Expecting Their Phone To Work Whenever They
Want to Use It. Recognizing That We Need Antennas to Provide That
Service, and Recognize We Don\'t Have Great Land Banks of Our Own, We
Find Ourselves Needing To Work Not Only with Local Governments but with
Federal Land Agencies in Terms of Securing Tower Sites. Our Technology
Is Very Simple. It Requires an Antenna and a Line of Sight Path to the
Person\'s Telephone to Work Properly. So Absent Antennas We Just Don\'t
Have Any Service. As Wireless Service Becomes a Part of Every Day Life
for Basic Communications, for Safety, for The Convenience of Staying in
Touch, I Can Tell You When There Is Not a Signal, Not Only Do We Hear
from Our Business Customers, but the Mother in the Car Wondering If She
Can Reach Her Kids or She Is Going to Be Late or She Is Caught in a
Snowstorm and Wants to Get That Call Through. So I Really Do Appreciate
Your Support. I Appreciate the Support of Our Other Industry
Representatives, Cindy Phillips and Ron Fowler, That Will Talk to You
about Some Of the Problems They May Encounter and the Needs for Sites.
Later on in the Program. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry,
Principally Through David Diggs and Tim Rich Were Active and I
Appreciate Their Efforts. I Really Do Want to Thank Pat Shea and Ray
Brady of BLM and Elli for Their Help and Those of Their Staff, Because
Absent That, We Wouldn\'t Be Here in This Cooperative Effort. Finally,
in Closing, I Would Like to Say to All of You Land Managers out There,
this Program Is a Start, but in Terms of Being Effective for its
Implementation It\'s Going to Take Your Cooperation and Support and I
Will Thank You for In That Advance.

Ford: Thanks, George, and I Do Want to Add That Tim Rich and Cindy and
Ron Have All Really Treated Us Swell. It\'s Been Great to Work Together
With Industry in this Way.

Shaginaw: Thank You Very Much.

Ford: Ray, Before I Ask You To Say a Few Words, I Want to Offer a
Personal Word of Thanks For the Way That You Actively Recruit and
Support Input from Field Managers like Myself, and I Know We Really
Appreciate it When the Washington Office Asks Us for Our Input Before
Making An Important Change and You\'ve Really Done a Great Job at That.
But Do You Care to Offer Your Views as a Follow‑up to the Director\'s
Earlier Comments?

Brady: Well, Thank You Very Much, Mike. I Appreciate Those Words of
Support. I Also Want to Pass on My Appreciation to You for Volunteering
to Be the Moderator For this Important Broadcast Today. I Would Also
like to Thank Elli And George for Joining Us Here In Washington Today
and Also to Cindy and Ron at the National Training Center in Phoenix. I
Would like to Provide a Few Follow‑up Comments to the Director\'s
Statements That He Made Earlier. This Joint Broadcast Today by The
Bureau of Land Management, The Forest Service and CTIA Is An Indication
of Our Formal Commitment to Implementing the Presidential Memorandum of
1995 And the Telecommunications Act Of 1996. It\'s Important That We
Remind Ourselves That the Efficient Implementation of the Provisions Of
That Act and That Memorandum Will Aid Industry in Building The
Information Superhighway for The 21st Century. Improved Communications
Are Important in Not Only BLM and Forest Service Day‑to‑day Operations,
but the Telecommunications Industry Is Also Committed to Meeting the
Needs of the Public and the Local Communities in Many of Our Western
Communities That We Deal With, Both with the BLM and the Forest Service.
BLM Has Established Customer Service Standards for Our Right‑of‑way
Program, and Those Programs Generally Exceed Governmentwide Standards.
When We\'re Talking about Customer Service Standards, We\'re Talking
about Maintaining Good Communications. We\'re Talking about Applying
Consistent Procedures in Applications That Are Filed with The BLM and
the Forest Service. And We\'re Talking about Meeting Time‑frame
Commitments in Our Working Relationships with the Telecommunications
Industry. Both BLM and the Forest Service Will Continue to Streamline
Processing Procedures for Right‑of‑way Applications and Improve Our
Management of Communication Sites. In Closing, I Would Again like To
Thank CTIA and Member Companies for Supporting this Broadcast and Also
for Their Support in the Future on Our Follow‑up Training in
Telecommunications Management. I Want to Pass on Some Special Thanks and
Appreciation to Many Of Our Hard‑working Field Staffs That Strive to
Provide the Best Customer Service Standards Every Day, Day in and Day
Out, with a Large Workload and Large Demands They Have in Their
Individual Offices. In Closing, I Would like to Challenge Everyone to
Continue To Improve Our Processes and to Meet Our Customer Expectations
To the Greatest Extent That We Can. So, Mike, Thank You Very Much For
this Opportunity.

Ford: Thank You, Ray. Before We Say Good‑bye to the Three of You, We\'d
like to Pose A Question for Each of You So We Can Gain Some Additional
Insight From the Top, So to Speak. Jim, I Think We\'re Going to Begin
with You. Do You Have a Question for Elli?

Galaba: Yeah, Elli. Hi. Nice to See You Again. The Question I Have
Centers on This Join Training Effort Between the BLM and the Forest
Service and Industry, Particularly Between BLM and the Forest Service
and What Your Views or Expectations Might Be For Continuing this Type of
a Training Program with the Two Agencies Together?

Towns: Well, as with the Efforts to Develop the Identical Fee Schedule
and Policies and Enforcement That Are Consistent, It Makes a Good Deal
of Sense to Economically Use Our Resources To Provide Some Consistent
Training. We Do All Need to Be Speaking With One Voice on These Matters.
The Public Expects That. The Public Rarely Sees the Differences in the
Agencies. To Them, it Is All \"The Government.\" So We Do Need to Be
Trained Jointly, and I like this Approach, and I Hope We Continue It.

Ford: Thanks, Elli. Cindy, I Think You Have a Question for George.
We\'ll Let You Fire Away.

Phillips: I Do. Hi, George. You Mentioned That You Have Managed a
Cellular Company with Antenna Sites on Federal Lands. Could You Tell Us
a Little More About That Experience?

Shaginaw: Sure. One of the Properties That I Was Responsible for
Managing Was in Alaska Where There Was a Great Deal of Forest Service
and BLM Presence. Obviously to Develop Services in Those Outlying Areas
We Need to Do Work with Those Agencies in Terms of Siting Antennas. We
Actually Had Great Relationships There Because Alaska and its Great Size
Didn\'t Keep You in Touch with a Road System Handily, or Many Times You
Would Be More than a Couple Of Days Away from Getting to a Regional
Center. So We Found in Working with Them That People Were Willing to
Cooperate with You, but Still The Process Seemed to Take a Little Long
Because of Designated Communication Sites And If You Were Looking for an
Area Outside of Those Sites, You Know, There Was Processes That People
Couldn\'t Define and Knew How to Work Within. We Changed That Working
Cooperatively with Them over the Years. I\'m Particularly Pleased to See
Training of this Type Because I Think it Will Make Us More Aware Of Each
Other\'s Needs Going Forward.

Ford: Thanks, George. Bil, I Guess It\'s Your Turn to Throw up Something
for Ray, Again, Don\'t Make it Too Much of A Hardball or We\'re Probably
out Of Here, You and I.

Weigand: I Won\'t, Ray. Ray, in Director Shea\'s Comments, He Thanked
CTIA for Their Participation in the Satellite Broadcast. Do You See Any
Other Opportunities to Work with the CTIA along with the Forest Service?

Brady: Yes, Bil, I Thank You Also for Participating in this Broadcast
and Assisting on the Panel There in Phoenix. I See a Very Rewarding
Continuing Partnership, Not Only With CTIA, but All of Our
Telecommunication Industry Representatives and Companies That We Deal
with on a Day‑to‑day Manner out in the Field. The BLM and the Forest
Service And CTIA, as Well as Some of the Member Companies, Are Committed
To Continue this Effort That We Have Ongoing Today. We Will Be Offering
the Telecommunications Management Course in the Early Part of 1998. That
Telecommunications Management Course Will Provide In‑depth Information
and Knowledge, More Technical Information than Is Being Presented Today,
for Our Field Managers and Field Staffs on the Engineering, Electronic
and Financial Aspects of the Telecommunications Industry. I Think
There\'s Also a Benefit To That Telecommunications Course Because It\'s
Also Going To Provide Our Industry People a Better In‑depth
Understanding of BLM Right‑of‑way Procedures as Well as Forest Service
Right‑of‑way Procedures So That They Can Better Applications and Assist
Us in a Partnership Effort in Processing Applications in the Future.

Ford: Thanks, Ray. I Know That the Three of You You Are on a Pretty
Tight Schedule. We Want to Conclude by Thanking You. Having Worked in
the Washington Office, I Know the Key to Any New Initiative Is a
Productive Working Relationship Between the Field, Headquarters and
Industry. It Certainly Appears like We\'re Off to a Very Good Start. I
Want to Once Again Remind Our Viewers That Your Participation Is Vital,
and I Know That Some BLM Employees out There, like Carolyn Spoon in Elko
and Even Debby Lucero in Albuquerque, Are Dying to Call in and Challenge
The Experts. So I Want to Encourage Everyone To Send Us Your Faxes, or
Better Yet, Give Us a Call Later in the Program. Before We Get Our
Phoenix Panel Involved, I Want to Take a Minute to Cover Our Broadcast
Objectives. If We Really Do a Good Job and That Still Remains to Be
Seen, But by the End of this Broadcast, the Participants Should Be Able
To: Identify New Regulatory Requirements and Agency Policies. Two,
Distinguish Amongst Different Wireless Communication Services. And,
Three, Identify Ways to Improve the Processing of Applications. We Want
to Begin Our First Segment by Addressing Objective Number One, Which,
Again, Is to Identify New Regulatory Requirements and Agency Policies.
But, First, I Would like to Ask Bil How the Agency\'s Current Policies
Address the Authorization and Administration Of Wireless Facility. Bil?

Weigand: Thank You, Mike. Most of Our Viewers from BLM and The Forest
Service Who Have Been Involved with the Authorization Of Communication
Facilities Should Be Quite Familiar with The Current Regulations and
Policies. After Many Years of Working with Various Industry Groups, New
Forest Service Policy and BLM Regulations Pertaining to Communication
Sites Became Effective, I Think, Two Years Ago this Month. Joint
Training Was Developed and Offered to Field Offices in the Spring of
1996. A Key Component of the New Policy Is the Use of a Schedule To
Determine Rent. The Schedule Is Comprised of 10 Categories of
Communication Uses With Corresponding Rental Values For Nine Population
Strata. The First Four Uses Highlighted In Green Are Considered
Broadcast Uses. These Are Tv, Am/fm Radio, Cable Tv, and Broadcast
Translators. The Remaining Uses Are Nonbroadcast and Are the Focal Point
of Today\'s Discussion. These Are Commercial Mobile Radio Services,
Cellular, Private Mobile Radio Service, Microwave and Other Uses Such as
Amateur Radio.

Ford: Bil, I Know That Some Of Our Field Offices Have Already Asked
Questions Regarding How the Federal Communication Commission Categorizes
Wireless Uses as Compared with the Wireless Categories Depicted on the
Slide. Can You Explain the Differences To Us?

Weigand: I Will Try. In Fact, I Just Had That Question Last Week. When
the Viewers Have a Chance To Look at the Training Manual, They Will
Notice in Chapter 2 That Wireless Services Include Commercial Mobile
Radio Services, Private Mobile Radio Services and Fixed Wireless
Services Such as the Local Exchange Networks. The Fcc Has Enacted Rules
Defining Commercial Mobile Radio Services as Those Mobile Services That
Are, One, Offered For a Profit, Two, Provide Subscribers with the
Ability to Access or Receive Calls from the Public Switched Telephone
Network. That\'s Also Referred to as the Interconnected Service. And,
Three, Are Available to a Substantial Portion of the Public. Not
Included in the Cmrs Category Are Mobile Systems Used Exclusively for
Internal Communicationed. These Internal, Not‑for‑profit Uses Make up
the Pmrs Category. Now, the Main Personal Wireless Services We Will Be
Discussing Today, That Is, Cellular, Personal Communication Services And
the Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio, Are Included in The Commercial
Mobile Radio Service Category as Defined by The Fcc. Your Training
Manual Discusses Each of These Uses, and Ron and Cindy Will Also Cover
These Personal Wireless Uses in More Detail in Their Presentation. So
Why the Additional Wireless Categories on the Rental Schedule When the
Fcc Has Just Three Categories? Well, the Short Answer Is Simply That Not
All Wireless Uses Have The Same Value in the Marketplace. If You Take a
Look at Just the First Two Columns on the Schedule, the Rents Are
Identical in the Top Three Population Strata, but in the Remaining
Population Groups from Albuquerque on Down, the Scheduled Rent for the
Cellular Telephone Category Is Significantly Higher as Compared To
Similar Population Groups in The Cmrs Category. So for the Purposes of
Rental Determination, the Wireless Uses That Ron and Cindy Will Be
Discussing, Again, Cellular Telephone, Personal Communication Services
and Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio, They Fit in the Second Column, or
the Cellular Telephone Category. Just a Quick Note on Remaining Wireless
Uses, That\'s the Pmrs, The Microwave and Other Categories, as You
Recall, Rent Charged to a Facility Own Certificate Based on the Highest
Valued Use in the Facility plus 25% of Tenant Uses. But Remember,
Customer Uses Are Excluded. Customer Uses Are Those Internal,
Not‑for‑profit Communication Uses Which Are Located in Someone Else\'s
Facility. So When You Have a Pmrs Use, a Microwave Use, an Internal
Microwave Use or a Use in the Other Category Located in Someone Else\'s
Facility, Then They Become a Customer and No Rent Is Charged. Now, the
Uses in the Cmrs and The Cellular Category Are Never Considered Customer
Uses. They Should Never Be Excluded From Rent. Whenever Ron or Cindy
Walk in Your Office, You\'re Going to Charge Them. I Know That this Was
a Quick Overview, So If Anyone Wants Further Clarification on What The
Current Rental Category Might Be for a Particular Wireless Use, Call In,
Fax in Your Questions and We Can Go Over it in a Little More Detail.

Ford: Bil, You Know, I Understand That Implementation Of the Rental
Schedule Was Really the Centerpiece to the New Policy and Regulations We
All Learned That. But What Other Changes Have Been Made to Facilitate
the Authorization of Communication Facilities on the National Forest
System and BLM Lands?

Weigand: Yeah, Mike, Both Agencies Are Working Real Hard To Eliminate
Many Administrative Differences Which Now Exist and A Lot of Progress Is
Being Made. We Now Require Authorizations Only for Facility Owners and
Managers. Other Uses Can Co‑locate in an Approved Facility Without
Additional Authorization. This Should Really Discourage The
Proliferation of Towers and Reduce the Number of Individual
Authorizations That Agencies Must Administer. The Facility Owner or
Facility Manager Is Still Responsible for The Uses and Management in His
Or Her Facility, Include Resolution of Any Frequency Interference
Problems and All The Uses must Still Comply with Any Management Plans
Which Exist For the Site. And the Authorization for Both Agencies Is Now
a Long‑term Lease Which Can Be Assigned or Transferred to Other Parties.
Now, as We Have Just Mentioned, Applications for New Sites must Still Be
Approved by the Authorized Officer. You Will Likely Receive More New
Applications for Wireless Uses Than Broadcast Uses Because of Their
Particular Siting Requirements and Current Expansion of Their
Infrastructure. It Is These Requirements That Many of You Have Had
Questions About and Which We Can Begin Addressing in Today\'s Session.
Now, Ron Fowler Previously Discussed the Needs of the Cellular Industry
at Various BLM Lands Conferences and Meetings. I Think the Most Recent
Being This Last July in Billings, Montana, and His Message Has Always
Been Informative and Well Received. Ron, What\'s Been the Reaction to
Your past Presentations When You\'ve Talked with BLM?

Fowler: Well, I Guess More Than Anything Else, We\'ve Seen a Lot of
Questions Come Up, and The Questions Are Evolutionary. They Change with
Each Meeting. It Obviously Shows That the Message on the Basics of this
Cellular Industry Is Getting out There, but We Still Need to Do Some
Work on How to Go Ahead and Answer All the Questions That Are Going to
Arise in the Future. Certainly the Questions We\'re Hearing Now Are
Where Are We Headed Now? What\'s up for the next Five Years?

Ford: Thank You, Ron.

Weigand: I Really Want to Encourage Everyone to Take Advantage of this
Opportunity to Ask Either Ron or Cindy Any Questions You Might Have on
the Wireless Industry, its Particular Technology or Any of Their Siting
Requirements.

Ford: Bil, You Know, We Hear A Lot about Customer Service. I Think I
Even Heard the Director Mention it in His Early Remarks. Does BLM Have
Any Customer Service Standards That We Try to Adhere To? I Hate this
Here, but Go Ahead.

Weigand: Yeah, Mike, in Albuquerque I Hope You\'re Following These
Standards.

Ford: Absolutely.

Weigand: According to the Guidance in the BLM Right‑of‑way Manual, a
Typical Right‑of‑way That Is Categorically Excluded From the Nepa
Process or Requires an Environmental Assessment, Should Be Processed
Within 30 Days. BLM Is to Inform the Applicant In Writing If the
Application Process Is Expected to Take More Than 60 Days. And to Be in
Conformance with BLM Strategic Plan, the 1998 Annual Work Plan Directs
Field Offices to Maintain Case Processing on an Average 60‑day
Turnaround and Reduce Right‑of‑way Backlog by 20%. Mike, I Would like to
Turn it Over to Jim Who Can Cover Some Of the Major Provisions of the
Gsa Bulletin.

Ford: Thanks, Bil. Jim, I Guess It\'s Your Chance to Go Up. If You Would
Continue with Some Insights into the Telecommunications Act of 1996 And
Other Things Here.

Galaba: Thanks, Mike. The Intent of the Direction by The Administration
and Congress Is to Expedite Telecommunication Siting Requests for New
Antenna Sites on Federal Property, That\'s Buildings or Land. In
Addition, Section 704‑c of The Telecommunications Act of 1996 Directed
the Federal Government to Prescribe Procedures for Locating Wireless
Communication Facilities on Federal Properties. The General Services
Administration Was Designated The Lead Federal Agency in Developing
These Guidelines and Procedures. The Final Product Was Published In the
Federal Register in June Of 1997. The Presidential and Congressional
Mandates to the Agencies Are to Improve Customer Service. In Short, to
Expedite Telecommunication Siting Requests on Federal Properties. The
Bulletin Set Specific Performance Standards for Both The Agencies and
Companies Seeking Lands Use Authorization. However, Neither the Gsa
Guidelines, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 Or the President\'s
Executive Memorandum Changed or Reduced The Forest or Service or BLM\'s
Environmental Requirements When Considering the Use of National Forest
System or Public Lands. Both Agencies Are Still Required To Follow
Existing Laws and Regulations When Considering and Authorizing These
Uses. Sites Made Available by the Agencies Are to Be Provide to Do
Companies on a Fair, Reasonable And Nondiscriminatory Basis. No
Favoritism Can Be Shown to Any One Company. In Summary, the
Telecommunications Act and the Gsa Bulletin Instruct Our Agencies to
Give Requests Prompt Attention, but That Does Not Mean That Requests
Antenna Sites Will Automatically Be Approved.

Ford: Thanks, Jim. On That Favoritism Deal, Cindy Was Kicking Me under
the Table, What about Commnet Cellular and The At&t Man Here on the End.
But That\'s True, We Try Not to Have Any Favoritism Here. Jim, You
Mentioned Specific Customer Performance Standards To Be Followed by the
Agencies, And That\'s Another Term That Makes Some of Us Nervous,
Although it Shouldn\'t. What Specific Standards Will the Agencies Be
Held Accountable For?

Galaba: Well, the Agencies, There Are Several I Would like To Mention,
Mike. Agencies Should, Number One, Identify the Points of Contact And
the People Responsible for Processing Applications. Two, Grant the
Authorization If There Are No Problems. The Application Should Be
Rejected If There Is an Unavoidable Conflict with BLM\'s Or Forest
Service\'s Mission or Current or Planned Use of the Properties and
Lands. The Use Applied for Should Be Consistent with Current Planning
Decisions and Various Environmental Requirements. Three: Provide a
Preliminary Written Response to the Applicant Within 60 Days or Sooner
after Receipt of the Request. The Response Should Report the Current
Stat Us and Any Additional Information Needed to Expedite the
Application. Throughout the Process, it Is Expected That the Agency Will
Keep the Applicant Informed as To the Status of the Siting Requests.
Four, Approve the Request in 60 Days or less If There Are Sufficient
Preliminary Information Available to Make This Decision. Five, Send a
Written Response If The Application Is Rejected Giving the Reasons for
the Denial. For the BLM, the Letter Should Include Instructions on How
to Appeal the Decision. There\'s No Formal Appeal Provision for Denial
by the Forest Service for an Unsolicited Application. However, Forest
Service Officials Should Be Willing to Listen to an Applicant\'s
Proposals for Making an Application Acceptable. Sixth, and Lastly,
Agencies Are To Report the Number of Siting Requests Received, Approved,
Completed and Denied During the First Six Months after Publication of
the Bulletin. That\'s from June Through December of 1997.

Ford: Thanks, Jim. You Know, You Also Mentioned That the Applicant Has
Certain Responsibilities in the Process. Jim, or Perhaps Bil, Can Either
Of You Give Us Some Examples of What\'s Expected from the Companies?

Weigand: Sure, Mike. As Our next Visual Shows, the Companies Are
Responsible for Complying with Laws, Regulations And Orders Governing
the Use of The National Forest System Lands And the Public Lands
Administered by the BLM. They must Also Comply with State And Local Laws
and Regulations Governing Health and Safety Issues, Be in Conformance
with Local Zoning and Building Codes. Companies must Provide the Basic
Information Necessary for the Agency to Process the Application. For
Example, Company Name, Address, Phone Numbers, Location, Type and Size
of the Antenna, Description of the Facility, Including Access to Roads
and Power Sources. Companies May Also Be Required To Provide All the
Necessary Data to Comply with Nepa and Other Environmental Laws. And, of
Course, They\'re Responsible for Paying Reasonable Processing Costs and
A Fair Market Value Rent for the Use of the Site. If Companies Submit
All the Information Now Required by the Agencies to Process the
Communications Site Application, They Will Have Met the Standards
Provided in the Gsa Bulletin, Mike.

Ford: Great. Well, I\'m Happy to Say That We Do Have Some Questions That
Have Come In, and Now Would Probably Be a Good Time to Address the
Issues Raised. The Early Ones Come in Without Anybody\'s Name on Them
Here, So We\'re Not Sure Who Sends this In, and as We Go on and Either
We Get Better or Worse, People Get More Brave and They Send Their Name
In. So We Know Who Is Putting Us on The Spot Here. But the First
Question Here Is a Question for ‑‑ Jim, I Guess I\'ll Throw it Back to
You and It\'s a Follow‑up to the Customer Performance Standards, and
It\'s: Does the Bulletin Include Specific Customer Performance Standards
to Be Followed by the Agencies?

Galaba: Yes, it Does. Basically I Related Those When I ‑‑ in My Six
Points. Probably the Key Standard Would Be the 60‑day Response Time. Let
the Agency ‑‑ Let the Applicant Know Within 60 Days What the Status of
Their Application Is. Give Them a Prompt Reply.

Ford: Ok. I Want to ‑‑ Cindy, You Have Been Quiet and Keeps Kicking Me
Under the Table and I\'m Not Sure That\'s a Prompt or Her Knees Knocking
Here, but a Question That Came in from Industry Perspective Is: How Can
We, and This May Have Come from an Industry Person, How Can We Keep The
Forest Service and BLM Informed about Our Future Needs? What Can You Do?

Phillips: Well, I Think It\'s The Industry\'s Responsibility to Give
Some Kind of Idea to Both Agencies What We Have Forecasted In Terms of
Our Needs for at Least a Year, and If We Can Provide Your Agencies with
That, Then I Think That You Can Try to Be Proactive in Trying to
Anticipate What Our Needs Will Be on Public Lands.

Ford: Ok. Ron, Do You Care to Add Anything To That?

Fowler: Well, Yes, I Agree With Cindy. I Think That We Should Look at a
Year out and as Much as Possible Reveal Our Plans for the Future. But We
Have to Realize this Becomes Part of the Public Record and Our
Competitors Would Certainly like to Know Where We\'re Going. I Think We
Need to Keep in That Mind, Too.

Ford: I\'ve Got ‑‑ the Wyoming Gets the Award. Dwayne ‑‑ I Don\'t Want
to Mess Up Your Last Name, Dwayne. Feick. He Gets the First Five Free
Hours Because He Sent in the First Message. He Is in the Cody Resource
Area. BLM ‑‑ Actually, Cody Resource Area, Which Is a BLM Office up In
Wyoming and this Question Is Directed to the BLM or the Forest Service,
But, Bil, I\'m Going to Direct it to You. Dwayne, I\'m Going to Struggle
a Little with Your Handwriting Here. It Says: We Have an Application For
a Cell Extender Site. Basically a Repeater for a Cellular Signal. The
Facility Consists of an 80‑foot‑high Wooden Pole with Antenna and a
Small Shelter on The Ground with Equipment. This Is Not ‑‑ and He Has
Underlined \"Not\" ‑‑ a Microwave. In Parens. He Has 2 Foot by 4 Foot by
10 Foot Facility. The Applicant Believes the Rental Should Not Be in the
Same Category as a Cell Site. Where Does it Fit on the Schedule?

Weigand: Well, You\'re Asking The Wrong Person Because I Always Believe
We Ought to Collect Everything We Can. From What the Question Sounds
Like, it Ought to Be Put in the Cellular Telephone Category, From the
Information That He\'s Given Us. I\'m Not Sure of All the Technology
There, but I Would Think That That\'s Where it Should Fit.

Fowler: Well, a Cell Extender, for Example, Is Just What it Sounds like.
It Just Repeats a Signal, and it Brings it from a Main Cell Site And
Repeats It. It Doesn\'t Need Microwave in Order to Operate. You Can
Certainly Look at it as Being Part of the Cellular System, but its
Limited on its Capacity and its Ability to Transmit from That Site,
Depending on the Technology. It Could Be from 4 to 7 Radio Channels off
of That as Opposed To 25 to 90 off of a Main Cell Site.

Ford: So, Let Me See If I Understand. Bil Wants to Go for the Top Dollar
Here. Ron, If I Heard You Right, You Want to Go the Bottom Dollar. Jim,
I\'m Going to Pass to the Forest Service.

Galaba: My Inclination from The Information Provided Was to Go along
with Bil.

Ford: So We Have the Money People over Here, and We Expected That. By
the Way, Dwayne, It\'s a Good Question. I Think What it Points out Is
There Are Going to Be Some Exceptions and There Are Some Things We Need
to Learn More About So We Understand Where This Fits. As Those of Us in
BLM and Forest Service Know and Industry, Occasionally We Will Have an
Exception Where We Will Have to Sit down Together and Try to Figure out
What\'s Fair and What\'s Right. I Want to Ask a Question Here, Cindy,
Briefly of You, and That Is: Why Are Wireless Carriers Seeking Access to
Federal Lands? You ‑‑ I Heard George Say in His Comments Earlier, Well,
We Don\'t Control the Lands and Stuff, but Why Not Private Lands? Why
the Federal Lands?

Phillips: Well, Because out West We Have So Many Federal Lands, and
Sometimes It\'s the Federal Lands That Connect Two Private Lands. Our
Customers Expect Seamless Coverage along the Highway, and When They\'re
Traveling from One City to the Next, They\'re Going To Be Crossing
Through Federal Lands, and So That\'s Why We Have To Approach You to Get
Our Antenna Sites on Government Property.

Ford: Ok. Good. We Certainly Know, and I Guess For the Forest Service
Folks in The East Where There\'s a Lot More Private Land out There,
It\'s Not as Problematic as it Is For Us BLMers Primarily Here in The
West, but It\'s Going to Be a Function Of, I Guess, Land Ownership out
There. I\'ve Got Two More Faxes Here and I\'m Telling You this At&t Is
Bringing Them out Quick Here. This One Is from Dan Vaughn in
Bakersfield, and I Know BLM Has An Office There. I\'m Not Sure If Forest
Service Does. I Assume It\'s a BLMer Writing In. This Question Again Is
to Bil or Jim, and the Question Is This: We Need Clarification on
Figuring Rental under the New Schedule Where an Access Road Is Also
Needed by the Applicant. Is the Fee Schedule Intended to Automatically
Cover Rental on The Access Road? That\'s Circled on Here. Ok? Or Do We
Use the Linear Fee Schedule for the Road Portion? Some Access Roads Are
300 Feet Long. Some Are Five Miles Long. How Are the Rental Fees Figured
On Access Roads. Bil?

Weigand: I\'ll Go First, Mike. That\'s a Good Question. It All Depends
upon Whether the Access Road Is Included in the Authorization Document.
If it Is, It\'s Included as Part Of the Communication Rent Schedule. If
It\'s Authorized Separately, Then We Would Use the Linear Fee Schedule.

Ford: Jim, Say for Forest Service?

Galaba: Pretty Much the Same. What I Tell Folks Is If ‑‑ a Hard and Fast
Guideline Is If The Road Is Within the Site Lan Plan for the Site, Then
It\'s Included in the Authorization. If It\'s a Long Ways to the Site,
Then That\'s Separate ‑‑ That Separate Authorization Would Be Required.

Ford: I Always Want to Offer ‑‑ Industry Comfortable with the Response
for Both Those?

Phillips: I Would Say If You Need a Road to Your Site, Make It Part of
Your Original Application, Because We Certainly Don\'t Want to Pay Two
Fees.

Fowler: I Guess in My Opinion You Can\'t Rent Us a Site Without A Way to
Get There, and it Should Be Included as One Fee.

Ford: My Part of the World We Have a Lot of Hot Air Balloons Here. If
You Can Transport Things That Way ‑‑ I\'m Teasing You Here. Listen, We
Have a Third Question Here. This Is, Jim, from Your Part of The Country.
It\'s Lloyd, Henion, and I Apologize If I\'m Goofing up People\'s Names
Here. He Is in Portland, Oregon. I Guess this Question Is to All Of Us
Because it Says: Are Any Of You Working with the State Department of
Transportation or The Federal Highway Administration To, One, Utilize
The Freeways or the Roadway Right‑of‑way Sitings to Help Complete a
Network, Or, Two, Establish Common Policies Regarding Siting and
Installation Regulations? Let\'s Start over Here on this Side First.

Phillips: I Don\'t Really Think That We\'ve Had the Opportunity to Work
with Any of The State Department of Highways Yet, but That\'s a Terrific
Idea And We Should Probably Look into That.

Ford: Ron, How about this One?

Fowler: Obviously They\'re Aware of What\'s Going on up There. The State
of Washington Has a Very Aggressive Program Going on Right Now to Open
up the Dot Highways in the State of Oregon Is Monitoring That to Follow
the Lead of Washington State, and I Believe We\'re Very Close to Making
an Agreement in Washington Regarding Use of the Highway System And, of
Course, It Requires the Cooperation of Federal Highways, But, Yes,
We\'ve Worked Both ‑‑ with Both Agencies for Many Years Now, and We Have
Developed Mainly in Surplus Right‑of‑way, but this Newbill Would Give Us
Access to More Limited Access Highway.

Ford: Great. Jim, How about You? Same Response Here up There in That
Part of the World?

Galaba: I\'m Aware of Local Forest Units and Working with The BLM, Too,
Exploring this Type of ‑‑ in Answer to this Person\'s Question, Where We
Have A Lot of Sitings along Highways. I Know That They\'re Discussing
This with the Department of Transportation on a Local Level. Sometimes
There\'s Some Realty Issues to Work Out, but They\'re Doing That.

Ford: Bil, How about in Southern Idaho and Elsewhere?

Weigand: I\'m Not Aware of Anything in Southern Idaho. It Is a Great
Idea. I Am Aware of Something Going on Here in Arizona Where BLM and I
Think Some Other Agencies Are Working with the Federal Highway
Administration and I Think it Probably Covers a Lot of Those Activities
That We Need the Coordination, You Know, to Carry Off, and it Wouldn\'t
Surprise Me If the Siting of Cellular Facilities Didn\'t Somehow ‑‑
Isn\'t Somehow Covered by That Working Relationship.

Ford: the next One Is from Angela Williams in the Utah State Office in
Salt Lake City. I Looked at the Top. Angela Wanted to Make Sure She Got
in Right, Because She Wrote Her Name Big in the Bottom Here, Ron. But
this Question Is Directed, Bil, to You Here, and I Guess Everybody Likes
You Today Here. What Category Would You Place Sites for Air Phones
Located on Airplanes? What Category Would You Place Sites for Air Phones
Located on Airplanes?

Weigand: Hi, Angela. That\'s Another Good Question, And I Think That\'s
Been Asked Recently from Some Offices in Oregon. I Saw Some Information
on It. I Did Do Some Followthrough and I Think the Correct Category
Would Be, Again, the Cellular Telephone Category Would Cover That Type
of Use. So Charge Them, Angela.

Ford: Charge Them! We\'re Getting a Consistent Theme Here with Bil
Weigand Today, and Also with Jim Galaba, and That\'s Charge Them. We
Will Probably Have a Heated Discussion about That after We\'re Done
Here. Thanks, Angela, for Your Question Here. We Appreciate That.
You\'re Still in Here. Let Me Turn Back over Here. One of My Favorite
Questions, We Hear it All the Time and I Jokingly Refer to the Hot Air
Balloons in Albuquerque in Terms Of Access, But, Cindy, Why Can\'t
Wireless Services Be Offered by Satellite? We Hear So Much about
Satellite. That\'s Got to Be the Answer. Get off the BLM Land and Get up
On the Satellite?

Phillips: Well, Speaking of Charge Them, It\'s Just Simply Not
Affordable to Offer it to The Public, and I Think That Ron Really Has
Some Good Information On Satellites, and He Can Speak Technically about
It.

Fowler: Good Handoff. Good Handoff. I Think the Big Issue with
Satellites Is with the Number of Customers We Have, about
50‑million‑plus, the Satellite System Would Have to Be Enormous To
Handle That Kind of Load, and That\'s Just over the United States.
Satellite System Was Never Designed, Really, or Intended to Replace the
Ground‑based System. Cellular and Pcs Were Designed To Do One Thing, and
Satellite Was Designed to Enhance Those Systems, Offer Service in Those
Remote Areas Where It\'s Not Feasible to Bring the Service. A Good
Example Might Be the Great Desert Regions of the World Here, the Outback
of Australia, Something like That. To Those Satellite Providers out
There, I Apologize If I Slaughtered Your Product.

Ford: Well, Now We\'re Getting Into the Negative End of the Cost Deal
Here. Because Cost Is Up, and Maybe We\'re Not So Hot to Trot on Heavy
Fees Here Right Now. Listen, I Want to Take One More Fax Here. This One
Is from Bob ‑‑ Again, I\'m Not Going to Try to Pronounce the Last Name,
Posiklim, BLM in Washington, D.c.. This One Is for Jim. The Question Is
This: Are Specific Guidelines and Application Procedures Now in Place
Which Will Allow a Telecom To Secure BLM and Forest Service Property for
a Telecom Site? Do You Need to Repeat That?

Galaba: Yes.

Ford: Are Specific Guidelines And Application Procedures Now In Place
Which Will Allow a Telecom to Secure ‑‑ Basically a Site from a Property
from BLM or Forest Service?

Galaba: Yes, I Would Say Those Procedures Are in Place. I Don\'t Know If
They\'re Written Or Stated the Way He Is Asking For in the Answer. We
Have the Guidelines in the Gsa Bulletin. We Also Have the Ordinary
Guidelines That We\'ve Been Working with for All Time. We Can\'t Just
Arbitrarily Approve a Site Because Somebody Applies for It. There Is a
Process We Have to Go Through.

Ford: Bil, You Want to Add Anything to That Here?

Weigand: Well, Again, BLM Has Their Own Standards, Program Standards,
And, of Course, We Want to Meet the Gsa Bulletin Provisions as Well. So
That\'s the Story from BLM, And I Don\'t Know Whether I Can Address the
Forest Service Part.

Ford: Bob, Let Me Tell You, If We Didn\'t Do a Very Good Job Of
Answering Your Question Here, Send Us in Another Fax and We\'ll Try to
Pick it up after the Break Here. Well, Listen, I Want to Thank Everyone
Right Now. As You Can See, We Have a Tremendous Amount of Information,
and We Really Want To Get to the Formal Industry Presentation and Some
Additional Faxes and Phone Calls Here. However, Before We Go to the
Lines and We Hear from Ron and Cindy, We\'re Going to Take a Short Break
to Allow You to Get A Fresh Cup of Coffee and to Call or Fax Us with
Your Question. We\'d like to Get Some Phone Calls. We\'re Going to Be
Returning to The Air in Exactly 15 Minutes. And So for Those of You That
Operate on Taos Time, Be Prompt. For Those of You Who Don\'t Know What
Taos Time Is, Send Me a Fax And I Will Explain. Now Is the Time to Send
in Those Questions, and We\'ll See You in 15 Minutes.

Ford: Welcome Back to the Satellite Broadcast on Wireless
Telecommunication Systems. I\'m Mike Ford and I\'m Joined Again on Our
Panel by Bil Weigand. Cindy Phillips. Ron Fowler. Jim Galaba. Welcome
Back, Everyone. Before We Get Started Answering Your Questions, and a
Bunch of Them Came In, I Would like to Mention an Upcoming NTC Distance
Learning Event. On February 5th, a Workshop on Conflict Management in a
Changing Work Force, And, Boy, There\'s Something We Need to Hear About,
Will Be Broadcast For All Employees. We Will Be Providing Some
Additional Information at the End of the Program Which Will Help You
Prepare for this Important Telecast. Now, Let\'s Get to Some of Those
Questions, Faxes and Phone Calls, and I\'m Happy That We Have a Couple
of Phone Callers On. So We\'re Going to Go Right to Salt Lake City,
Utah, and Law Vern. Hello, Are You There? Hello? Ok. Lavern, Can You
Hear Us out in Salt Lake? No? Well, I Tell You What, We\'re Going to Go
to Line 2 Here. Let\'s See If the Phone Lines Are Any Better in Miles
City, Montana. Brian, Hello out in Miles City. Caller: Good Morning.

Ford: Say Hi to My Good Friend Mr. Murphy out There. Caller: I Will
Certainly Do That For You.

Ford: What\'s Your Question Today, Brian? Caller: My Question Refers to
Rural Telephone Cooperatives, Which Present Regulation Are Exempt from
Rental Fees. We\'re Increasingly Seeing That They Are Applying for
Cellular Communications Sites, and as Such We\'ve Been Granting Them
Rent‑free for the Present Time. However, it Appears to Me That The
Exemption from Rental Was Established Because of the Tremendous Distance
That They Had to Plow in Copper and Fiberoptics Cables in the past
Regarding the Customers That They Served. That Same Situation May Not
Apply to the Fact of ‑‑ That They\'re Getting into the Cellular
Communications Market, And, Therefore, I Feel That It\'s Possibly a Time
That the Government Should Rethink That Policy on Rental for
Communication Sites. I Guess Question Would Be Addressed to Bil as to
Whether Or Not That Is Being Considered Presently Within the BLM?

Ford: Ok, Brian. Bil, We Were Just Having a Discussion about Reas Here
at The Break.

Weigand: That\'s a Good Question, Brian. I Don\'t Think It\'s a Matter
of Policy since I Think by Statute The Reas, or the Rural Utility
Service Companies, Are Exempt From Rent. I Think It\'s Even Been Changed
To Where All They Have to Do Is Meet Eligibility Requirements For
Financing of Their Projects, And If They Meet That Eligibility
Requirement, They Are Then Exempt from Rent. So this Is an Area That
We\'ll Need to Look At. It\'s Not Necessarily a Matter of Policy. It\'s
a Matter of Changing the Statute. I Know That Both Agencies Are Working
with Some Subcommittees On the Eligibility Requirement As Well. So,
That\'s a Good Question. That\'s Something We\'ll Take Under
Consideration.

Ford: Anybody Care to Add Anything to That? It\'s Obviously an Area
We\'re All A Little Uncomfortable with.

Galaba: I Go along with What Bil Says, but I Think I Would Be Inclined
to Explore the ‑‑ Each Situation Separately and See What They Actually
Are Providing And Also Maybe Consult with Our Legal Counsel to Make Sure
That That Type of Exemption Does Come Under the Statute.

Phillips: I Think That\'s a Good Idea. I Have Run into That Situation
Where We\'ve Had a Competitor That Also Happens to Qualify for This
Non‑rental and We\'ve Ended Up Being the Company That Has Had to Pay the
Rent. So it Seems like It\'s Almost a Loophole. But Certainly Worth
Looking into To See Whether or Not That\'s the Intent of the Law.

Ford: Great.

Fowler: I Agree.

Ford: Thanks for Calling Us. What I Didn\'t Get to Say Is You Get 10
Free Hours of At&t for Being the First Caller on the Line. Thanks for
Calling Brian. Caller: My Pleasure. Thank You.

Ford: I Tell You What, We\'re Flexible Here, and I See That Lavern Is
Back on the Line. Hopefully the Salt Lake District Paid the Phone Bill.
Can You Hear Us this Time? Caller: Yes, I Can.

Ford: We\'re Sorry about the Glitch Early on Here. Caller: You Guys
Disconnected Me, Gave Away My 10 Free Minutes.

Ford: We Feel So Bad Not Only Are You Going to Get 10 from At&t but 10
from Commnet Cellular. You\'re Just Going to Have to Move to Denver. Go
Ahead. Caller: My Question Is I Just Wanted to Know If Realty
Specialists Should Be Coordinating with Telecommunication Specialists on
New Applications to See That the Technical Information That We\'re
Getting from the Applicant Is Correct and to Maybe Help Us Determine If
It\'s Going ‑‑ Have ‑‑ Cause Us to Have Any Interference Problems with
the Other Users.

Ford: Bil, You Want to Jump In?

Weigand: Yeah, I Think That\'s Always a Good Idea. And If Your
Telecommunication Specialists Are up on the Cellular Technology and
That, I Think They\'re a Great Source to Ask Questions and Technical
Questions. So, by All Means.

Ford: Ok. Good. Everybody Comfortable with That. Did That Take Care of
You? Caller: Yeah.

Ford: Thanks for Being Tenacious and Calling Us Back Here.

Fowler: as a Side Note, We Would like to Have That Communication
Specialist at the Preapplication Meeting If That\'s Possible.

Ford: Good Point Here. So for Those of You out There, What Ron Fowler Is
Suggesting Here Is That If You Have a Telecommunication Specialist on
Site, Don\'t Just Put Your Realty Specialist in There, Get Your
Telecommunication Specialist Involved. They Can Answer a Lot of
Questions. All Right. We Have a Call ‑‑ Actually, a Fax Now from a
Friend of Mine Out in Montross, and Tom, Thanks For Sendingness a Fax
Here. I\'m Going to Go Through It. This Is a Question Directed to BLM,
Bil, to You. It Says: on Top of Everything Else That Is Supposed to Be a
High Priority ‑‑ this Is My Favorite Question ‑‑ Tom, You\'re In
Trouble, Bud ‑‑ Including Reducing the Backlog by 20% a Year, How Does
Granting New Right‑of‑way for Telecommunication Uses Fit in With
Processing Other Priority Realty Casework? In Other Words, Are
Telecommunication Applications To Be Given a Higher Priority Than Other
Right‑of‑way Customers? You\'re in Trouble Here.

Phillips: That Should Be Top Priority, Wouldn\'t It?

Ford: Right. I Knew the Answer on this Side.

Weigand: Look at Mike. Mike, You\'re the One That Is Making the Big
Bucks and Sets Priority Work Loads.

Ford: Tom, Seriously, You Know, I Think We All Have a Lot Of Balls to
Juggle Right Now. We\'re Working Hard to Try to Deal with Our Customers
First. I Guess the Short Answer Is This: If You Were in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, I Would Tell You Right Now That Our Priorities Are This: If
It\'s a Customer‑driven Thing, in Other Words, If It\'s Applicant Driven
Versus Bureau or Bureau Initiative Things, We Would Be Doing it First.
In Other Words, We Set Aside the Things That We Tend to Bring to The
Table. Now, it Gets Tough When You\'re In My Part of the World Where We
Have a Lot of Oil and Gas Activity and Everything Is Who Is First?
Fairness Really Dictates First In First out. But the Other Point Is That
We\'re Trying to Respond to These In a Timely Manner. As Bil Told You
Earlier, and Jim Referred To, on a 60‑day Notice At Least, Let People
Know Where We Stand, and We\'re Going to Do The Best We Can. When I Say
60‑day Notice, the 60‑day Notice That We Would at Least Tell Them If We
Couldn\'t Get to Their Application.

Weigand: I Will Reemphasize The Fact That We Do Have a Presidential Memo
That Gives This Particular Activity a High Priority. We Have a
Congressional Mandate. We Have a Gsa Bulletin That Directs All
Governmentwide Agencies to Adhere to Certain Customer Standards. And We
Have BLM Customer Service Standards to Adhere To. So When You\'re
Dealing with Applications from the Wireless Industry, Take All this
Information to Your Managers, Just like Mike Explained, and They Can
Certainly Set the Necessary Priorities to the Workload You Have. I Know
You Have an Awful Lot of Workload out There. That\'s Probably the Last
Thing All of You Want to Have Is Someone Else Walking in the Door,
Making Another Application. But It\'s Just up to Setting the Priorities,
and We Have the Standards in Place, and I Think You Just Have to Make
the Best Decision at That Time. One Other Thing Is, We Also Are Giving
Offices the Tools in Terms of More Resources, More Funding to Process
Communication Site Applications, with Receipt Back from the Rental Money
Going Directly to Those Offices, That Should Be a Real Assist in Helping
Them Balance the Workload, at Least from the Funding Standpoint.

Ford: Thanks, Again, Tom. Like I Said, I Knew Somebody Couldn\'t Get by
the Day Without Asking That Question Here. I Have Another Fax That Came
in From Another Friend, Tom Guy, Out in California Desert District, And,
Tom, Thanks for Sending in a Fax to Us Here. I\'ll Read It. It Says:
Some Cellular Companies Are Facing a Requirement by a County Government
‑‑ this Has Got to Be Southern California, They Always Lead this Stuff
‑‑ to Obtain a Building Permit Before Constructing a Site on Public
Land. The Requirement May Arise When a Power Company Refuses to Provide
Power Without Seeing an Approved Building Permit. Now, Here\'s the
Question That\'s Kind of Circled: Should BLM Actively Assert That a
Building Permit Is Not Required on Public Land? Bil?

Weigand: You Know, If You Go Back to the Provisions of the
Telecommunications Act, it Does Require the Companies to Comply With Not
Only Federal Laws but State and Local Agencies, and They Need to Be in
Compliance With the Zoning Laws, and If There\'s a Requirement to Have a
Building Permit, Then They Need To Be Obtaining That Building Permit.
Now, We\'re Well Aware That Local Governments from a Federal Perspective
Shouldn\'t Be Zoning Land Use Allocations on Federal Land. However, If
There\'s an Activity That Requires a Building Permit, It\'s Best to Have
a Good Working Relationship with a Local ‑‑ With the Local Governments
and I Think It\'s in the Best Interest Of the Applicants as Well. Maybe
Ron or Cindy Would like to Comment on That.

Fowler: One Concern Is If We Have to Apply for Local Building Permit, it
Usually Means We Have To Seek Local Zoning Authority, Too, and If
That\'s True, Then There\'s a Very Lengthy Process That Really by
Preemption We Shouldn\'t Have to Apply for Either of Those on Federal
Lands.

Galaba: I Might Add Our Authorizations Require the Holder of an
Authorization to Comply with Local State and County Building Codes and
Often That\'s the Only Way We Know, Because We Have a Lack of Our Own
Professional Staff, That the Build Something Being Constructed to the
Appropriate Standards.

Ford: I\'ll Add One Thing, Jim. I Recall Reading in the Fcc Regulations
Where it Is Mandatory for the Companies to Follow Local Agency Codes,
and There Is an Appeal Procedure in Place in Terms of Whether a Local
Government Denies an Application, Especially If It\'s Denied on Radio
Frequency Emission Standards. If There\'s Other Standards, the
Telecommunications Act Strictly Requires Prompt Action by the Local
Agencies in Response to a Siting Request. I Think There\'s Some
Safeguards There as Well.

Ford: the Faxes Are Coming in Great. I\'ve Got a Whole Bunch of Them,
And Ron, I Have a Couple Specific Ones for You Here I Will Get To, and
We Really Appreciate the Interaction, Because That\'s Really the Key to
These Things, Rather than a Bunch of Talking Heads. But We Would like to
Shift or Focus to the Industry Perspective and Objective Number Two,
Where We Will Distinguish Among Different Wireless Communication
Technologies and Services. Cindy and Ron Are Going to Present
Information Which Will Help All of Us Gain a Better Understanding of the
Important Issues Which Are Germane to Authorizing a Wireless
Telecommunication Site. Cindy, I Know You Have Been Dying to Go on for
this Portion Here, and the Question and Answers Have Kind of Helped
Loosen Us up and Your Leg Is Not Knocking on Mine as Often Here. You\'re
on Here.

Phillips: Thanks, Mike, I Have Been Sitting on My Hands For a While, So
I\'m Anxious to Get Started. First I Would like to Give the Agencies a
Little Background on Our Industry. Wireless Communications Is Really
Just a New Application of An Old Technology, Radio. Bell Labs Originally
Developed Cellular Communications in 1947. It Took over 30 Years for
Technology to Catch Up, and for Cellular to Reach the Public
Marketplace. The Technology to Miniaturize The Bulky Equipment in the
\'70s Timed with the Fcc Granting Operating Licenses Brings Us to
Placing the First Cellular Phones in the Hands of Eager Customers in the
Mid‑\'80s. Cellular Phones Were Originally Thought to Be a
Rich‑person\'s Toy and a Business Tool. But Do You Know Which Vehicle
Most Often Has a Cell Phone? The Pickup Truck. Early Industry Experts
Concluded That There Would Only Be 900,000 Cellular Subscribers by the
Year 2000. In Fact, There Will Be 53 Million by the End of this Year.
The Wireless Industry Employs 97,000 People and Produces Revenues of
over \$25 Billion Annually. Over the Last 12 Months, 10 1/2 Million New
Customers Signed up For Wireless Service. Currently in the U.s., There
Are 50 Million Wireless Subscribers, And Estimates Place That Number At
90 Million in the Year 2000. Out West, Where So Much Recreation Takes
Place on Public Lands Our Customers Expect to Be Able to Use Their
Wireless Phones, Whether Skiing at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Biking Around
Canyonlands, Utah, or Camping in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. It
Also Becomes a Means of Security to the Soccer Mom Carpooling in Rural
Areas. We\'ve All Heard, in an Emergency Seconds Count. Cellular
Communications Have Enabled Emergency Professionals To Respond Swiftly
to Fire, Police and Ambulance Calls. Whether Our Customers Are on the
Ski Slopes, Traveling down the Highway or in Their Hometown, We Want to
Keep Them in Touch with Their Loved Ones and Help Them Feel Secure in
Their Travels. The Continued Cooperation Between Federal Agencies and
the Wireless Industry Will Help Make These Services Possible. Now Ron Is
Going to Go into the Differences Between Pcs, Cellular and Esmr.

Fowler: Thanks, Cindy. Real Appreciate It. For Those of You out There
Who Have Heard Me Speak Before, this Is Not My Real Voice. I\'m Going
Back into Preadolescence Here. But Hopefully it Will Hold out. Anyway,
Let\'s Take a Brief Look At Differences Between Cellular And Pcs and
Esmr or Maybe We Should Even Look at Similarities. For Purposes of this
Talk, I Think We Can Assume That Cellular Is the Cellular That We Have
Seen for the Last 10 to 15 Years, and this Is Where We First Started
Seeing the Portable Hand Sets and the Car Phones and Started Cursing at
Them on the Highways. But Then about Two to Three Years Ago, with the
Help of the Government a New Spectrum Was Allocated and We Saw Pcs Come
Along, or Personal Communication Systems and Now Within the Last Two to
Three Years We\'ve Seen These Systems Come up and Even More People Have
Phones in Their Hands and in Their Cars. Esmr Is a Technology Called
Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio, and it Is Just That. It\'s an
Enhancement of the Specialized Mobile Radio System Many of You May Be
Familiar With. Esmr Has Been Around for about The Last Five Years or So
and Probably Targets More the Commercial User than Anything Else. The
Differences Here Are Pretty Minor Between the Uses. If We Look at the
Handsets Involved in Using These Technologies, the Handset, this Happens
to Be a Digital Handset, But the Technologies Are Virtually the Same.
They Are Minor Differences, but They Are Minor. The Technologies ‑‑ All
Three Technologies Have Digital Technology in Handsets. Cellular Also
Has an Analoguehand Sets and Analogue/digital Handsets. I Will Go into
That in a Few Minutes and Why It\'s Important. As Far as Communication
Sites, I Think the Important Thing Here Is That They All Require a
Tower, and They All Require a Shelter of Some Type When They\'re in
Remote Locations. The Differences in Sizes May Be A Little Bit, but That
Will Be According to the Individual Need Of the Applicant. But They Will
Require a Shelter And a Tower. As Far as Operationally, the Sites All
Operate on the Cell Type Configuration. That Is, They Require That One
Site Overlap Electronically with Another So That They Can Do an
Uninterrupted Handoff Between The Two Sites as a Person Is Driving down
the Road. This Is Important to Maintain The Integrity of the System and
The Usability of the System by Our Customers. The Other Thing Is, as
Mentioned Before, it Has to Be Line of Sight. This Means That the
Electronic Sight must See the Handset or The Car‑mounted Set in Order to
Work Correctly. And They Are Low‑powered, Meaning less than 100 Watts of
Power on Each Sight, and They Need to Be Free of Obstructions,
Obstructions Being Trees, Stone Work or Rocks or Anything Else. They All
Interrupt the Signal. Now, about Digital and Analogue, I Guess There\'s
a Lot of Confusion Here and in the past I\'ve Had Questions at Some of
These Talks about What\'s the Difference Between the Two? Well, Simply,
an Analogue Transmission Is That We Can Handle One Voice Transmission
For One Voice Channel in the Site. A Digital System Allows Us to Handle
Multiple Transmissions Through One Voice Channel. It Increases the
Capability of The Site, and it Increases the Capacity of the Site. A
Good Example of this Might Be That Analogue Would Be like If We Took a
Bag of Red Marbles and Poured Them into a Funnel and This Funnel Went
into a Hose That Allowed One Marble to Go Through at a Time. At the
Other End We Get Red Marbles and When All the Red Marbles Are out We Can
Make Another Phone Call with Green Marbles. With Digital We Can Put up
to Seven Differ Different Colors, Put Them in the Funnel, and as They
Enter Mix and Come out the Other End, and They Are Filtered Out and the
Red Ones Going Here And Green Ones Here, and this Is Kind of the Way
Digital Works. It Separates the Signal at the Other End after it Breaks
it out So That We Can Pick up the Conversation and Make the Call. For
Those Techno‑heads out There, I Think We Could Call This a Computer
Binary Code of 1s and 0s, and I Am Not a Technical Person, So That\'s
About All the Explanation You Are Going to Get on That. But it Does
Break up the Signal Into up to Seven Calls at a Time. Now Cellular Has
Both Digital And Analogue Signals. Pcs and Esmr Are Only Digital in
Their Transmissions. Once Again, Why Is this Important? Well, I Think
It\'s Important for The Agencies in That Analogue Phones Are Universal.
They Can Be Used Pretty Much Anywhere in the Country Where There\'s
Analogue Systems. Analogue Has Been Operating Basically on One Format.
With Digital, It\'s a Little Different. They Have Three Different
Formats Called Cdma, Tdma and Gsm, and I\'m Not Going to Go Into What
These Acronyms Mean Because They Really Aren\'t Significant, but Just
Realize That There Are Three Different Digital Formats in Use in the
United States. What\'s Important Here Is That The Digital Formats Are
Not Really Compatible with Each Other. By Compatible, I Mean If You Have
a Cdma Phone, You Cannot Use it in a Gsm or Tdma System, And Conversely,
Around the Horn There, Gsm Phones Will Not Work In the Other Systems.
This Is Important Because Each Of These Users, If There\'s a ‑‑
Different Users out in the Forest or on BLM Territory, They Will Require
a Different Site or Their Own Site in Order to Offer Customer Service.
Also, There\'s No Assurance That A Pcs Subscriber Can Go Anywhere In the
United States and Use Their Phone. So this Is Going to Bring about A
Desirability of Establishing Separate Phone Systems for Each Of the
Major Providers. Now, as Far as Frequency Differences, this Is Probably
The Main Difference in the Two Technologies. Cellular Operates in the
800 Megahertz Band. As You See, It\'s above the Tv Spectrum Here. Esmr
Operates in the 800 and 900 Megahertz Band. And Pcs Operates in the 1900
Megahertz Band. Because of the Higher Frequency, This Causes Differences
in What We Call Propagation. What Is Propagation? As I Understand It,
Propagation Means Something Different to the Government than it Does to
Us. In Our Vernacular, it Means How Does it Cover? How Does this Site
Work? For the Most Part, 800 and 900 Megahertz Operates Much Better And
Works Much Better than 1900 Megahertz as Far as Overall Coverage of
Area. This Means That the Higher the Spectrum, the Little less
Efficiency in Covering in Certain Areas. What this Means Is the Pcs Is
Going to Require More Sites. How Many More Sites? Generally, It\'s
Accepted That Maybe One‑and‑a‑half Pcs Sites To Every One Cellular Site.
Maybe a Good Example to Define This a Little More Is We Can Imagine a
Small Pond and There\'s Logs in this Pond, Branches and Grass, a Little
Mud Alongside The Pond and We Take a Two‑pound Cellular Rock and We Have
a One‑pound Pcs Rock. When We Throw the Cellular Rock In the Middle, the
Ripples Move Across the Pond and They Wash Across the Log and Even Cross
The Log over onto the Shore, and As They Go Through the Grass They Wash
along the Shore. The Pcs Rock When We Throw it in Is a Smaller Splash.
The Ripple Goes Across and as it Encounters the Log, it Washes Back and
Doesn\'t Cross It. When it Gets to the Shore, the Signal Is Dissipated
or the Ripple Is Dissipated and Doesn\'t Cover onto the Shore. So
What\'s the Solution Here? Well, with Pcs, We Simply Take Another Rock
and Throw it Closer To Shore. That Would Be Another Site. Once Again,
the Idea That Similar Coverage Be Granted to Both Carriers. Pcs Will
Require More Sites than Cellular as a General Rule. As Far as Licensing
Requirements, this Is Important Because Pcs, Esmr and Cellular Are All
Different in Their Licensing Requirements. The License Areas for
Cellular, For Example, Are ‑‑ There Are 734 License Areas in the United
States, but for Pcs, There\'s 544. This Is Significant Because These
License Areas Did Not Correspond with One Another. A Cellular License
Area Can Be a Different Size Significantly Than a Pcs Area. There\'s
Also a Buildout Requirement under Our License, And What That Means Is
That We Must Build out a Certain Amount Of the Market in Order to
Satisfy the License Requirements. For Cellular It\'s Defined as a
Cellular Geographic Service Area. This Means That We must Cover The
Geographic Area Covered by Our License Within Five Years. With Pcs It\'s
Somewhat Different In That One‑third of the Population Has to Be Covered
Within Five Years and Two‑thirds Of the Population Within 10 Years. Pcs
Has an Advantage in That Probably by the Time They Turn Up Their System,
They in Fact Have Met this Licensing Requirement. Now I\'ll Turn this
Back over to Mike.

Ford: Well, Thanks, Ron. Before We Go Back to Cindy, I Want to Remind
Everyone That We Are Going to Get Back to Your Faxes and We\'ve Got a
Gob of Them Coming In, but What We\'re Going to Do Is We Have a Phone
Call Here, and Rather than Keep This Person Waiting Any Longer, And I
See They Have Been Waiting 6:25 Here, We\'ll Pick Them Up, And It\'s
Somebody from the Pacific Northwest. It\'s Robin Up. Good Morning,
Robin. Caller: Good Morning.

Ford: Go Ahead. You\'re on the Air with Us. Caller: All Right. This Is
for Industry or Jim Galaba. My Question Is: Can Fcc Regulate, and I Know
That it Was Just Kind of Spoke to but Not Really Answered, How Many
Cellular Companies Can Actually Be Within a Certain Geographical Area?
For Instance, What If We Had One Cellular Company on One Mountain And
Let\'s Say Maybe 20, 30 Miles Away There\'s like Two or Three Others. Is
That Feasible? And Can Fcc Actually Regulate That?

Ford: Thanks, Robin. Ron, Did You Want ‑‑.

Fowler: Robin, Probably Not. The Fcc Has Issued These Licenses, and They
Won\'t Regulate Where These Systems Go. At the Present Time, and I
Don\'t Want to Scare You with This, but For Most Areas of the United
States, There\'s Nine Providers In Each Area Allocated ‑‑ Provided with
Licenses. Six Pcs Carriers Is the General Rule, Two Cellular Carriers
and An Esmr Carrier. This Doesn\'t Mean That All These Providers Will
Want to Develop In Your Area. Certainly the Rule of Economics Is Going
to Apply and Also There\'s Different Theories on The Type of Use.

Ford: Good. Caller: Could I Ask an ‑‑ a Little for from Jim Galaba on
That?

Ford: Absolutely.

Galaba: Jim, ‑‑ Cull. Caller: Jim, If We Have a Telecommunication Site
Plan Established on a Certain Site And Mountain and That Requires And
That Plan Indicates Only One Cellular Company Will Be Allowed On That,
and It\'s in Our Plan, Can We Deny under Those Rules And Regulations Set
by the Forest Service and Our Site Plan An Applicant for Another
Cellular up There?

Ford: Nice to Hear from You Again, Robin.

Galaba: Basically, Most of Our Plans Are ‑‑ Our Plans Should Not Say
We\'re Going to Limit Somebody to One Type of Use. If We Can Only Have
‑‑ If the Mountain Is Such We Can Only Have One Building up There,
That\'s What it Should Say, and It Should Be Enough to Accommodate
Whatever Can Be Accommodated Without Violating Any Other Objectives for
the Site Plan. One of the Things That I Tell Folks Is ‑‑ in the Past, in
Our Site Plans, We Usually Tried to Limit Development on a Site to Meet
Some Other Resource‑mentioned Objectives, And I Tell Folks That They in
Their Site Planning and Upgrading of Site Plans They Should Be Open to
Maybe Changing That So That We Can Accommodate More Uses in Response to
the New Technologies for Servicing the Public That Are Coming to the
Front. Industry Might Tell You That They Have Some Other Problems With
That, Too. I\'ll Pass it Back on to Ron.

Ford: I Think We Are Going to Get into Co‑location a Little Bit More on
the next Part Here, Robin and We Will Pick Back up And I Know We Have a
Couple Other Faxes to That Point Here. So I Know That, Again, Ron and
Cindy Are Going to Talk a Little Bit about Co‑location and We Will Come
Back to this Here. Caller: Thank You.

Ford: Thanks a Lot for Calling In. Ok. We\'re Going to Be Return to Go
Your Calls and Faxes and So, Again, If You Have a Question, Call this.
We like the Live Phone Calls. It Puts Us on the Spot. We Can\'t Claim
It\'s Canned Here. Now Would Be a Good Time to Send Those In, the Faxes.
I Want to Get Back to Cindy And, Cindy, Tell Us How All this Works.

Phillips: Well, I Will, Mike. I\'m Going to Go into the Components of a
Wireless System Now. The Wireless Phone Service Works Just like an
Ordinary Telephone Service. It Just Uses Radio Waves in Place of Wires
to Transmit and Receive Calls. But There\'s Still a Lot of Wires
Involved to Make this System Work. When a Call Is Made on a Wireless
Phone, the Message Is Transmitted via Radio Signal to The Nearest Cell
Site. The Call Is Then Sent to the Mobile Telephone Switching Office, or
Mtso. The Mtso Is the Brain of the Network. The Mtso Determines Where to
Direct the Call. Most Often the Call Is Directed To a Local Phone
Company for Routing to a Home or Office. Or the Call Might Be Delivered
Right Back Through the Wireless Network to Another Mobile Phone. The
Word \"Cell\" in Part Describes the Way Cellular Works. It\'s the
Splitting of Cells That Allows the Frequency to Be Reused over and over
Again. Let\'s Say for Example There Are 25 Channels Available for Voice
Transmission in Phoenix. That Means Only 25 Calls Can Be Made
Simultaneously on the System. The Solution to this Problem Is To
Decrease the Power of the Transmitter, Thereby Reducing The Coverage
Area of That Particular Site. The Adjacent Cell Then Has a Different
Frequency, but this Distant Cell Site Could Have the Same Frequency as
the First Site. Thus, Reusing the Same Frequent Say. The Cellular
Concept Allows Frequencies to Be Reused, Thereby Increasing the Capacity
Of a System. Next I Would like to Talk about Handoff. As a Vehicle Moves
Away from One Cell Site, it Signals ‑‑ its Signal Strength Decreases. A
Cell Site Monitors the Phone Signal Strength During a Call. When the
Signal Strength Falls Below a Predetermined Threshold Level, the Network
Will Hand off The Call to the next Neighboring Side. As You Drive, Say,
30 Miles down The Interstate Carrying on a Long Conversation, Your Call
Might Be Handed off Many Times. The Mtso Also Referred to as the Mobile
Switching Center, or Msc, Does More than Route Calls. It Also Processes
the Majority Of the Information Necessary to Operate the System. The
Mtso or Msc Monitors All Calls. It Processes Call Handoffs, Controls and
Monitors Cell Sites, and it Also Processes Other Features Such as Voice
Mail and Call Forwarding. The Mtso Itself Is Not Likely to Be Located on
Public Lands. Now Let\'s Go into the Cell Site. Cell Sites on Public
Lands Tend To Be Located on Higher Elevations. Many Times on Mountaintop
Locations to Maximize Their Coverage Signal. All Wireless Cell Sites
Share Certain Common Elements. The Antenna Is the Point Where Radio
Energy Is Transformed into The Airwaves. Antennas Receive the Signal,
and They Also Transmit the Signal. They Can Vary in Size from 6 Feet on
up to 20 Feet in Length, Most Being Around 10 Feet. The Antennas Are
Attached to the Tower by a Boom or Sidearm Mount. A Cable Runs from the
End of the Antenna down the Length of the Tower, Across the Bridge, into
The Bulkhead Entry of the Equipment Shelter. Panel Antennas Are Another
Commonly Used Antenna, More Often Found in Densely Populated Areas. The
Support Structure You Are Most Familiar with Is the Tower. There Are
Three Types of Manufactured Towers. , the Guyed Tower, So‑called Because
Guy Wires Help Stabilize The Structure. The Self‑support Tower, or
Latice Tower and the Monopole, Which Is a Type of Tower More Often Found
in Urban Areas. Note on this Photo There Are Two Sets of Antennas and
Ron Will Discuss the Topic of Co‑location In a Few Minutes. The Tower Is
Intend to Do Elevate and Support the Antenna To Provide Sufficient
Height to Gain the Intended Coverage. In Rare Instances, a Wooden Pole,
Much like a Telephone Pole, Is Used to Support the Antenna. Typically
the Towers Don\'t Exceed 300 Feet on Flat Terrain. The Higher the
Elevation of the Cell Site, the less Likely the Tower Is to Be over 100
Feet. All of the Radio Transmitters And Receivers Are Housed in a Small
Equipment Shelter. The Shelters Are Specifically Designed to Protect the
Equipment from the Elements. They Are Generally 15 Feet by 20 Feet and 8
to 10 Feet in Height. They Also House the Backup Batteries, Should the
Site Experience a Power Failure, Sometimes a Generator as Well, Along
with an Air Conditioning Unit, a Heater, an Alarm System And Other
Ancillary Equipment Associated with the Operation of A Cell Site All
Cell Sites Require Two Other Components\... Electricity to Power All of
the Electronic Equipment Located in The Structure and Connection to A
Conventional Telephone Line. With the Remote Locations of Many Cell
Sites, Telephone Lines Are Often Too Costly to Install Or Just Plain
Unavailable. In this Case, Point‑to‑point Microwave Systems Are Used to
Carry the Signal to a Destination Where Telephone Facilities Are
Available. Which May Be the Mtso or Another Cell Site. A Microwave
Antenna Can Be Seen On this Tower. A Company Technician Will Make a
Monthly Site Visit to Tune the Radios and Perform Other Routine
Maintenance. The Road to Gain Access to the Site Will Not Only Be Used
for The Ongoing Maintenance of the Facility, but Also for the Initial
Construction. Now That You Know the Necessary Hardware, Ron Is Going to
Discuss System Design Considerations.

Fowler: Well, I Think It\'s Time Now, Let\'s Take a Look at What Do We
Look at When We, in Fact, Design a System or Select A Site? I Think Many
of You out There Think We Don\'t Ever Give Any Consideration as to Where
We Want to Go. But, in Fact, We Do. There\'s a Lot of Different Factors
That Enter into These Siting Decisions. One of the First Ones Would Be
Signal Physics. Once Again, We\'re Back to the Issue of the Rock in the
Pond. How Does the Site Propagate or Cover? We\'re Concerned about How
Big a Footprint Is this Going to Cover? What Coverage Can We Expect from
It? If It\'s a Smaller Footprint, Then We Need More Sites. If We Need
Building or Obstacle Penetrations Are a Concern. Once Again We Will Need
More Sites. Another Concern Would Be Our License and Regulatory
Requirements. Do We Have a License Requirement That Requires Us to Build
in a Certain Area in Order to Provide The Desired Coverage? If So, That
Will Certainly Drive Our Siting Decision. Topography Enters into It. If
We Have Certain Terrain Such As a Canyon or High Mountain That Creates
an Obstacle to Coverage to Our Customers, Then We Need to Consider How
We Can Provide the Service to the Desired Area. Vegetation Also Enters
into this Factor in That We Can\'t See Through the Trees, So We Got to
See above the Trees. Our Main Objective Here Is to Cover the Population
Centers and Then after That the Major Highways Between the Population
Centers, and Then next after That Is to Infill in Between Those
Highways. This Is Where Your Lands Usually Come into Play. The Mandate
for Cellular in These Areas Could Be Market Driven. We Could Have a
Customer out There That Simply Needs the Service in Order to Maintain a
Business or an Ongoing Recreation Entity. This Moves Us into Our Final
Consideration, and That\'s Company Objectives or Business Plans.
Certainly Our Budgets Drive Where We\'re Going to Build. We Have to Get
Our Money Back Somehow, So There Is Going to Be A Budgetary
Consideration. But There Is Also Service Priorities. Who Do We Provide
Service to and Why Do We Need to Provide That Service? The Design Intent
of the System Also Enters into this What Do Our Engineers See as a Need
in The Area and Where Do They Need Coverage? Finally, What Kind of a
Priority To We as a Company Put on the Service? One Company May Want to
Cover The Mine in a Certain Area Whereas Another Company Would Want to
Cover the Ski Area 10 Miles Away. Our Objectives Are Totally Different,
and Totally Legitimate. And Those Have to Be Recognized. Other
Considerations Inciting That Are Certainly a Major Factor Are Terrain,
and That Includes Access to the Site, Helicopter Sites Are No Fun,
They\'re Very Difficult to Build And Maintain. Are There Any Viable
Existing Structures? Is There a Tower? Is There a Shelter There That We
Can Utilize? How about Utility Available? Do We Have Commercial Power to
The Site? For the Most Part, as a General Rule, Cellular, Esmr and Pcs
All Require Commercial Power. Alternate Power Does Not Work Well for Our
Uses in Most Cases. What Regulatory Approvals Are We Looking At? Do We
Have Zoning Requirements? Or Do We Have Faa Considerations? Are They
Going to Require Us to Light the Tower? Or Are There Other Federal
Regulations? Finally, What Do Our Test Results Show? We Do Test ‑‑ or
Attempt to Test Every Site That We Build Ahead Of Time and We Do this
Through The Use of a Boom Truck or a Portable Tower. We Raise an Antenna
to a Predetermined Level and Actually Conduct a Signal Test off That
Site. So We Have a Good Idea of What The Propagation Is Going to Be.
Now, as Far as Co‑location, I Have Heard it Mentioned by Bil And I Think
That Certainly by Other People Here, and I Think It Sounds like a Very
Simple Concept, but in Fact It\'s Very Complicated. For the Purposes
Here We\'re Going to Assume the Co‑location Here Is the Bringing
Together of Two Wireless Entities of Some Type into One Common Structure
Or Shelter or on One Common Tower or Together in One Common Tower and
Structure. This Raises a Big Concern as Far As Industry Is Concerned
Because When We\'re Dealing with Our Competitors, and Our Competitors
Are Certainly the Pcs Carriers And Esmr, There Are What We Call
Antitrust Concerns. Antitrust Has Certain Prohibited Behavior, and among
Those Are We Can\'t Make Any Agreement with a Competitor Not to Deal
with Another Competitor. This Would Certainly Bring up This Issue of
Only One Person on A Mountaintop. If There Is Some Agreement to That
Effect, That Would Be Prohibited. Any Agreement Not to Deal with a
Particular Land Owner or Contractor Is Also Prohibited. An Agreement
That Affects the Rent We\'ll Pay in a Certain Market Is Prohibited. Of
Course, There\'s an Exception. I Think Jim and Bil Here Argue That We
Will Pay the Rent and We Will Pay the Rent That They Set. An Agreement
to Limit the Number Of Sites in That Area or to Not Cover a Certain Part
of an Area Is Also Prohibited. An Agreement Not to Build out or Compete
in a Certain Area Is, Finally, Another Prohibited Behavior. What
Criteria Do We Look at for Co‑location? Well, There\'s Several Factors
That Enter in Here. There\'s Compatibility, Mainly. Are We
Electronically Compatible? That Is, Do Our Engineers Feel That the Two
Electronic Uses or Four Uses or 8 Uses Can All Exist Together? And Is
There Physical Compatibility? By Physical Compatibility, We\'re Looking
at ‑‑ We Take a Look at The Tower and Say, Is it an Adequate Design and
Construction That it Will Meet Our Needs and Handle the Load Presented
by Adding That Secondary User, or Third User? How about the Tower
Foundation? Similarly, Is That Designed and Engineered to Hold All
Users? The Grounding System, Is That Adequate on the Tower? By
\"Grounding System,\" this Is a System That Grounds the Tower to The
Earth to Protect the System During Lightning Strikes and Power Surges.
Is the Height Adequate for the Antennas? This Would Be the Primary
Transmit and Receive Antennas, And Also Other Microwave Dishes Used for
Interconnect. As Far as the Shelter, We Need To Look at a Space of about
Two To 300 Square Feet per Wireless Company in Most Cases Within the
Shelter. Ideally They Should Be Segregated Spaces since We Don\'t Trust
Each Other a Whole Lot. We Also Need Emergency Power. Many of These
Sites Are Remote In Nature, and If the Power Goes Off, the System Goes
down. So We Have to Look at Some Type Of Emergency Power Other than
Batteries in Most Cases and We\'ll Look at Generators. Is There Heating
and Air Conditioning Available? Our Equipment Is Temperature Sensitive.
It Needs to Be Regulated as Far As the Environment. How about Grounding
in the Shelter. Once Again, We Need to Ground The Equipment Itself. It
Has to Be Dust‑free, Secure, Fireproof. Obviously We Don\'t Put a
Structure out There That\'s Going To Burn up in the First Forest Fire.
Also Is There Fire Suppression To Protect Against Internal Fires? In the
past It\'s Been Suggested That We Can Co‑locate Almost Anywhere, and
this Might Be One Of Those Candidates That You Feel Is Appropriate. I
Think That We Would Have Real Reluctance to Go into a Structure of this
Type or Even Consider It, Because it Doesn\'t Simply Meet Our Needs.
Those Needs, to Restate Them, Very Simply Would Be That for The Most
Part in Co‑location, We Need a Heavier Tower, Aby Bigger Builder, and
Environmental Things Such as Heating and Air Conditioning and Backup or
Emergency Power. Co‑location Is Something We Always Prefer and We Would
like To See Almost Everywhere If It\'s Feasible, but in Many Cases it
Simply Isn\'t. Now, How about Back to Mike?

Ford: Ok, Thanks, Ron. Listen, We\'ve ‑‑ from Ron and Cindy We Have
Heard a Tremendous Amount of Information, and We\'ve Got All Kinds of
Faxes That Have Come In, and So We\'d like to Get To Those with the
Remaining Time And Then We Have Our Third Objective That We Have to
Cover For a Minute or Two. So I Want to Begin by Taking a Couple Faxes
That Have Come in And the First One Is for Cindy, Comes from Doug Jones
in Portland, Oregon, and it Says: Can We Expect More Smaller Isolated
Cell Sites That Use Solar Power Versus Commercial Electrical Service?
Can We Expect to See More of These Sites? I Understand That Commnet Has
One of These Sites?

Phillips: Yes, in Fact, We Have Two Solar Sites, and in Industry, We Are
Encouraged to Be Creative, and That\'s Probably Why We Have a Couple of
Solar Sites. They\'re Not Always Dependable. We Use Them When It\'s
Difficult And Very, Very Expensive to Get Power to a Site. It\'s
Advantageous to Have a Back‑up System, like a Propane Generator. I Would
Imagine Getting Back to Your Question That We Will Be Seeing More of
These. But We\'re Hoping That the Dependability of Solar Is Also Going
to Improve So That We Can Depend on These Alternate Sources of Energy.
That\'s a Good Question.

Ford: Thanks. Ron, I\'ve Got a Question for You. It must Be from a
Friend of Yours Here Because There\'s a Ps Note down Here. This Is from
Christie Covington From the Forest Service up in Portland, and the
Question Goes Like This: Does the Panel, or Ron, Do You Have Any
Information On Osha Regulations Pertaining To Radiation at Communication
Sites? We Have Heard Rumors about Sites Needing to Be Fence to Do Keep
The Public at a Safe Distance From Sites. Then, Ron, Here Is the Ps, and
‑‑ No, I Was Going to Tease You And Say, Ps, I Love You, but it Doesn\'t
Say That Here. It Says, Ps: Ron, Are You Ever Going to Build That Site
at Frog Lake, Mount Who Had Meadows Needs Better Coverage.

Well, in Answer to the Last Questions First, Christie, as Far as That
Site at Frog Lake, We\'re Paying for It, So Why Do You Care? And as Far
as the Other Question ‑‑ or Comment I Got, Is Where Is Our Permit for
Mount Hood, Anyway? As Far as the Osha Requirements, That Was Pretty
Much Covered by The Telecommunications Act. I\'m Not Sure Osha Has an
Erp Requirement That Applies Here or Radiation Limitation That We Should
Be Concerned about. There Is an Osha Concern as Far As Servicing Some of
the Antennas When the Site Is on the Air. But That\'s Very Minor, and
It\'s Something That\'s Easily Addressed. We\'re a Very Low Powered Use.
It Transmits Typically at Between 25 and 100 Watts. A Few Sites Will Be
a Little Higher than That on Erp, but Not ‑‑ Marginally. It\'s Not
Anything High‑powered Like a Big Broadcast Antenna Such as an Fm Radio
Station or a Television. And Where Is My Permit?

Ford: Where\'s His Permit. We\'re Going to Take One More Question and We
Want to Get to Our Third Objective, Which Is Kind of a Roundtable and
Wrap up With Some Questions and I\'m Going to Bounce this One Back Over
on this Side of the Table Here to Bil or Jim. This Comes from Colorado
BLM. They Didn\'t Put Their Name on Here, So I Can\'t Tell You What
Office, but Here it Is, and it Says a Lot of Things, but I\'m Going to
Cut to the Meat: it Says Give Us Some Good Examples Of Some Good Reasons
for Not Approving an Application. Bil, Let Me Start with You.

Weigand: for Not Approving an Application? I Don\'t Think on the Other
Side There Are Any.

Phillips: You\'re Right.

Weigand: but the Agencies Do Have Several Reasons for Maybe Denying an
Application. It May Not Be in Conformance With Our Land Use Plans. Your
Siting Requests May Be in a Designated Congressional ‑‑ Congressionally
Designated Area Like a Wilderness Area That\'s Not Compatible. May Not
Be in Conformance with Some Other Local Laws or Requirements. Those Are
the Kinds of Things That May Lead to a Denial. Jim, I Know You Have Some
Thoughts on this as Well. So Take it from There.

Galaba: We Practiced That Question Yesterday, and You Answered It. There
Is One Other Thought That I Did Think Of, Though, and That Was, Some
Sites May Not Be Available Because There Is Other Concerns, T & E
Species, Culture Resources That Can Be Be Disturbed, They Are Being
Preserved for Some Other Purpose.

Ford: Generally, I Said We\'re Going to Do the Best We Can, but
Unfortunately There Are Some Instances Where We Just Can\'t Get from
Here to There and I Think the Key to That Is Making Sure We Have a
Mutual Understanding of What Those Differences Are Here. Before We Get
into Our Third Objective to Kind of Wrap Up, I Want to Remind Everybody
That We\'re Just ‑‑ We Have Enough Faxes Here. We\'ll Take a Couple More
Phone Calls When We\'re Die. If Anybody Is Die to Go Talk to Me, Now Is
the Time to Dial Us Up Here. Our Third Objective for the Broadcast Is to
Discuss Ways to Improve the Processing of Applications and this Really
Gets to this Last Question. I Would like to Ask Our Panel Members for
Their Thoughts and Ideas on How We Might Improve The Siting of Wireless
Facilities on Forest Service and BLM Lands and I\'d like Also to Ask
Everyone to Kind of Summarize Additional Sources of Information That Our
Viewers May Wish to Access in the Future. I Think What I\'ll Do Is,
Cindy, Start with You Here Here.

Phillips: Mike, First I Just Want to Compliment the Agencies Because We
Have Seen Improvements in Application Processing. The New Fee Schedule
Has Streamlined the Process, Although We\'re Paying Higher Fees, We Are
Not Having to Go Through the Process of Having an Appraisal Done. But
What Both Industry and the Agencies Can Do Is Improve on Communication.
If a Realty Specialist Is Holding an Application That They Have
Questions About, Don\'t Wait For the Industry Person to Call. Go Ahead
and Pick up the Phone And Get Your Questions Answered, Because One
Question Might Lead To Another, and So You Would Be Killing Two Birds
with One Stone. I\'d Call Them First at Their Office, But, Face It, We
All Have a Cellular Phone. So You Should Be Able to Try to Reach Any One
of Us in the Industry.

Ford: Bil, You Want to Give Us Your Perspective Here?

Weigand: Well, I\'ll Kind of Take off from Where Cindy Left Off in Terms
of How Important it Is to Have Good Communication. You Know, One of the
Most ‑‑ It\'s Never Too Early to Start That Process, and We Would like
To See it Begin at the Preapplication Process Where We\'re Asking for a
Lot of Information. Some of the Information That We\'re Asking for Has
to Do with The Scope of Your Requests. Are You Asking for One Site on
Public Land or Forest Service System Land? Is There Multiple Sites That
You Need? And If So, Is There a Way That We Can Deal with Those in a
Package Rather Than, You Know, Each Individual Request. Are These Sites
Located along a Major Utility Corridor or Transportation Corridor? And
If So, Is That Particular Transportation Corridor, Has it Been
Designated as a Utility Corridor in Which Case, If it Has, That Would
Lessen Our Nepa Compliance Requirements in Terms Of Considering a Lot of
Other Alternatives. Are There Other Agencies Involved? If So, We Could
Do a Joint Agency Effort. That Might Speed Things Up. We Could Give the
Forest Service The Lead If it Involves Forest Service Land, and They
Could Take it Away. We Can Share Our Resources to The Extent That
That\'s a Possible Thing to Do. We Need to Ask Questions about ‑‑ like
We Got from California ‑‑ You Know, What\'s Going on in The Local or
State Agency Requirements? Zoning, Building Permits, Are You Required to
Hold Open Houses, for Instance? I Know That I Attended Some Open Houses
on Some Pcs Siting Requests in the Boise Area, and Those Are Very
Informative. You Know, If We\'re Aware of Them, I Encourage All Our
Field People to Attend Those. They Generally Have Your Technical Experts
Right There to Answer All the Questions, And, Anyway, It\'s a Great
Source of Information. We\'ve Talked about this Before, But What Are
Your Siting Requirements? First Thing We\'re Going to Ask You,
Co‑location\... If That\'s Not Possible, Can You Co‑locate At an
Existing Site That Has an Approved Management Plan Where We\'ve Already
Done All the Site Clearances, Done All the Environmental Clearances. So
If That\'s the Case, Then We Can Really Speed That Process Up. What
about Federal Communication Commission Requirements in Terms Of the Nepa
Compliance Process? As I Understand Their Regulations, They Only Require
An Environmental Assessment If Your Siting Request Is Going to Be
Located in an Environmentally Sensitive Area. If That\'s the Case, Maybe
We Can Tier to Those Environmental Assessment ‑‑ That Work That You\'re
Going to Do on Behalf of Those Regular Leg. By the Way, the Fcc Is a
Great Source of Information, I\'ve Found and I\'ll Make a Plug for The
Training Manual Again. Their Address Is in the Appendix Of That Training
Manual. There\'s an E‑mail Address, an 800 Number, a Fax Code and
There\'s Some Just Great Information. In Fact, There\'s Some Information
on Those Zoning Questions Again That We Had. Where Can We Go for Some
Other Additional Information? We Would like to Know That. If There\'s
Industry Sources, Company Sources, That\'s Always Good to Know. And Then
I Urge the Agency People to Stay in Close Contact With Your State Agency
‑‑ or Your State Communication Coordinators. Each State Has One. I Think
the Forest Service Has Regional Coordinators. If We Have a Question like
We Got from Wyoming on the Cellular Extension Thing That We Haven\'t
Dealt with Before, There Is a Process That We like to Go Through, and
State Coordinators Bring That up in a Conference Call with All Our Other
Coordinators. We Have a Review Committee That Tries to Find out as Much
Information about It. The Reason We Do That Is We Want To Handle Each of
Those Questions in a Consistent Manner. So One Agency or One Field
Office Isn\'t Putting That in One Category and Another Office Is Doing
Something Different. And Then, Finally, What Are the Time Frames? From
Our Standpoint, We Need to Know What Your Needs Are, and I Know That\'s
Probably the Bottom Line in Terms of Meeting Your Needs. So, Mike, Those
Are Some Ideas. Communication Is the Basis, Though.

Ford: Thanks, Bil. All Good Stuff. Ron, I Am Going to Ask You Briefly
Because We\'re Winding Down, I Heard Your Presentation And I Know You
Always Speak About the 3 Cs. Do You Want to Share Those with Us? Foul
Fall We Kind of Made up a List of 3 Cs We Call it in Dealing with the
Agencies. One Way to Smooth the Process And I Guess the First C Being
Communication. You Have Heard it from Several People Here. This Is
Really the Key to It. We Need to Keep Communication Links Open and Keep
it Open and Honest. Be Very Direct. Ask Questions. Demand Answers.
Encourage Open Communication Between All Parties. And in My Mind this
Should Be Open and Honest Communication. Don\'t Be Afraid to Call up and
Ask Questions. On the Other Side, Ask Where My Permit Is. Demand Some
Timely Answers. And as We Put It, Be Politely Persistent. Sometimes We
All Respond a Little Bit to a Gentle Poke. The next C Would Be
Cooperation And I Think You Heard this Here Today, Too. We Need to Work
Together Professionally as Professionals And Try to Get the Job Done. We
Have Got to Be Willing to Work out the Issues and Come to A Timely
Resolution Together. We Have to Be Available to Do This, and this Means
That We Have to Respond to Phone Calls And You Have to Respond to Those
Memos and E‑mails and Everything On a Timely Manner. You Have to
Appreciate and Understand the Requirements of The Agency, Too. Industry
Sometimes Gets in a Real Hurry to Meet Their Own Needs and Doesn\'t
Appreciate the Needs and the Wants of the Agency Itself. Finally, I
Guess, a Tip for Agency on Cooperation, Don\'t Become Confrontational.
The Agencies Know What They\'re Required to Do. They Know Their
Requirements That They Work under. It\'s Better to Encourage Them That
You Can Work Together Toward a Resolution. Finally Is Consistency. You
Get What You Give Here, and That Is, If You Turn in a Sloppy
Application, You\'re Going to Get An Untimely Response in Most Cases. So
Make Sure That Your Application Is Professional in Appearance, It\'s
Comprehensive, Complete, and Follow up on It, Too, and Ask If They Have
Questions, If They Need Additional Information. Also, the Agencies
Should Strive To Make Their Rules and Regulations Uniform. There\'s No
Reason That One Permit Should Come out with Five Pages of Regulations
and Requirements Whereas Another Permit Will Come out with a Half Page
for Exactly the Same Use. And I\'d Encourage Agency Heads Here to Avoid
Making Their Employees Think That They Need To Cover Their Rear All the
Time And Make a Conservative Decision Rather than Err on the Other Side.
Let Them Make a Mistake Once in A While and Don\'t Criticize Them Too
Harshly If It\'s a Small Mistake.

Ford: You Need to Talk to My Bosses, Because That Creativity, Some Have
Accused Me of Being on The Lunatic Fringe a Little Bit. So It\'s a Fine
Line for Some of Us Here. Before I Go to Jim, I Want to Tell Everybody
We\'ve a Bunch of Faxes and One Phone Call Coming In. We Will Probably
Not Get to the Faxes. But If You Want to Speak Us To, Call and We Will
Get to Your Phone Call Instead of Your Fax. If You Are Sending a
Question And You\'re Burning for an Answer, Let Us Know on the Phone And
We Will Try to Get to You Before We Get off the Program. Jim, Go Ahead
from the Forest Service Perspective.

Galaba: I Would like to Say That ‑‑ Emphasize for the Industry
Preapplication Contacts Are Really Important. Preapplication Meetings,
Preapplication Inquiries. One of the Things That Might Help an Industry
a Lot Is Learn What the Restrictions Are, Land Use Restrictions Are in
the Area They\'re Interested In. Way Ahead of Time. That Would Be of
Particular Help To Them in Designing Their System If They Know They
Can\'t Be in Certain Areas, If it Would Be Impossible for Them to Locate
In Other Areas. For the Agency, We Should Be Anticipating That We\'re
Going to Be Getting a Lot of Requests for These Kinds of Uses and Where
They Might Come from. If We\'re an Area near a City or Have a for West a
Major Highway Going Through It, We Can Anticipate We\'re Going to Get
Applications for These Types of Uses in Those Areas and We Might Think
Ahead of Time of Updating Site Plans for Existing Communication Sites in
Those Areas and Identifying Other Potential Sites and Think about What
Kind of Site Planning We Would Do for Them. One Thing for the Agencies,
Too, Is to Sort of Follow up on What Bil Said, Is to Talk Things over
With Your Peers. Main Tucson Contacts with Your Peers. When We
Implemented the Communication Use Policy, the New Policy a Couple Years
Ago, We Did a Joint Field Review Between the BLM and the Forest Service,
and We Visited a Lot of Sites Where There Was a BLM Unit And a Forest
Service Unit in the Same Town Doing ‑‑ Implementing The Same Process but
Had Never Talked to Each Other about It, And They Both Had Real Good
Ideas and Real Good Ways of Doing Things That Would Have Helped Each
Other. So Keep That in Mind.

Ford: Good Point, Jim. Listen, I Promised I Would Get To a Phone Call
Here and We Have A Phone Call That Has Been Waiting for about 9 Minutes
Here. So We\'re Going to Go to Line 1 And We Have Sherwood in Needles,
California. Welcome, Sherwood, and Thanks For Hanging On. Caller: Hi.
Can You Actually Hear Me?

Ford: We Can Hear You. Caller: I\'m Sherwood and I\'m in The Needles
Field Office. My Question Is Kind of Simple. How Are We All Looking at
Cumulative Impacts? The Answer, I Know, Is Not Going To Be Simple, but I
Just Think We Need a Way of Getting Together. I Get Several
Applications, You Know, for One Spot Here, One Spot There for the Same
Company, And Then I Know They\'re Going Into Another Resource Area and
They\'re Moving on Even into Another State, and There\'s this Feeling
That It\'s a Little Bit Out of Control and We Have No Handle on How to
Look at Cumulative Impacts.

Ford: That\'s a Very Good Question, Sherwood, and That Kind of Gets to
the Point That Jim Was Just Making Right Now, That Maybe in One Town or
Towns That Are a Few Miles Apart Things Are Going on and We\'re Not
Communicating Enough Here. Bil or Jim, You Want to Take That, Take a
Stab at That Here?

Weigand: Hi, Sherwood. Yes, It\'s Not Simple, but I Think What You Need
to Do Is Sit Down with the Company, Hopefully You Can Have a Dialogue
with Them, and They Will Be Able to Share What Their Long‑term Plans
Are. I Know There\'s Some Reluctance To Do That, but If You Can Point
Out the Benefits of That Approach Versus Handling Each One on a One‑time
Site by Site Basis, Then I Think You Might Get Some More Cooperation
from Them, and You Might Be Able to Handle it on a One‑time Basis.

Ford: Anybody Care to Add Anything to That?

Galaba: Sometimes I Get Similar Questions to That and I Tell Folks to
Base Their Decisions on Resource Concerns And Not How They\'re Judging
the Technology.

Ford: Great. Sherwood, Thanks for Hanging on And Waiting for the Phone
Call. Did We Get You Taken Care Of? Caller: Well, I Would like to Hear
the Industry Side of That.

Ford: Ah, I Knew There Was a Strick Question.

Phillips: I Think It\'s Important for the Agencies to Try to Anticipate
What the Future Is Going to Hold for Public Lands and Be Proactive About
Trying to Pick Some Sites And Maybe Maybe Designate Maybe More
Electronic Sites for the Anticipated Future Use.

Fowler: I Would Concur with That and I Would Say Particularly along
Major Highways and Around Population Centers Would Be Where I Would Look
First. Sherwood, Is That Your Name? Caller: Yes.

Fowler: Are You Concerned That They Want a Series of Sites That Seemed
to Cross Your Area? Caller: Well, We Have We ‑‑ Well, Yes, a Series of
Sites, But Also the Fact That Perhaps One Site Can\'t Be Planned until
The First Site Is Already in Due To Some Technological Reasons, And Also
the Feeling That, You Know, If We Allow One Site, Then The next Site Is
Going to Have To Go in Someplace Where We Really Don\'t Want to Look at
it But We\'ve Already Committed Ourselves to That Location Because of
the Previous Location.

Fowler: Right. This Is Partially Because Most Of These Designs for Our
System Are Done First on a Computer Model, and the Computer Doesn\'t
Have the Ability to Insert Trees And Other Factors That Might Interfere
with the Signal. When We Test off the Site, Once Again, in an Ideal
World, That Test Would Exactly Simulate What We\'re Going to Get on the
Actual Transmission. But in Truth, They Sometimes Don\'t Work out That
Way. So We Have to Wait Sometimes Until the Site Actually Comes on The
Air Before We Can Determine What Kind of Coverage It\'s Going To Have
and Where We\'re Going to Need Another Site in Order to Avoid the Hole.
Or the Noncoverage Area. Caller: So I Think Just Overall Everyone Needs
to Have the Understanding That There\'s ‑‑ That We Do Need to Be Looking
Forward to What Is Going to Happen in the Future to Develop What the
Cumulative Impacts and Just Work Together?

Fowler: Definitely.

Ford: Ok. Sherwood, Did We Get You Taken Care Of? Caller: Thank You.

Ford: Thanks for Waiting and Thanks for Your Phone Call. We\'re Getting
near the End of The Show and We Want to Make Sure That We\'ve Addressed
All Your Questions, And, Again, If You\'ve Been Waiting or You Sent Us a
Fax We Didn\'t Get To, We Will Follow up with You Afterwards Here. Now
Is the Time to Hear from You On the Telephone Lines. So Get to Us Quick
Here. I\'m Going to Take a Couple of Final Questions and Answers That I
Have from the Faxes since We Don\'t Have Any Phone Calls Pending and
Then We\'ll Get to The Wrap‑up Here So Everybody Can Get to Lunch, at
Least the People in the Mountain Time and West Can Get to Lunch. This
Comes from the Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota, And the Question
Is this and Thanks, It\'s Good to Hear From, I Think ‑‑ What Is That,
Region 9? Yeah, Region 9 Back There. Who Will Contact the Agencies to
Request a Site? Cindy, this Is Really for Industry. Who Can Agencies
Expect to Hear From?

Phillips: Well, It\'s Generally One of Two People. We Have Field Project
Managers, And They\'re the People That Work For the Company and Go out
and Try to Pick the Sites. And Then We Also Have Contracted Companies
That Will Go out And, Based on the Recommendations of That Rf Engineer
with Our Company Will Try to Find Several Sites, Bring Them Back into
the Company, and We\'ll Choose the Best One and Those Are Typically The
Two People That the Agencies Can Look Forward to Hearing from And That
You Generally Have Been Hearing from in the past.

Ford: Good. Thanks. Jim, I\'ve Got a Question for You. It\'s from Carl
Richy in Cord Lane Idaho. It\'s This: Once a Special Use Application Is
Submitted and the Company Does Not Act to Construct the Facility, How
Long Is the Application Good for and Kit Be Overridden by a Competing
Application after a Set Time.

Galaba: I Think the Owness Is There for the Unit That Received The
Application If Nothing Happened to Get Back with the Applicants and Ask
What Their Intentions Are and Tell Them That Normally We Entertain
Applications on a First Come‑first Serve Basis and If They\'re Not Going
to Proceed With Their ‑‑ Providing Us the Application, I Assume That\'s
What He\'s After, the Information We Need to Do the Application, Then it
Will Be Open to Other Applicants.

Ford: the Answer to That Is This: If I Come in the Door, Submit an
Application and My Funding Dries Up, I\'m Not Able To Construct, and the
Site Just Lays There for Two Years and Ron Fowler or Cindy Phillips Walk
in The Door Two Years from Now, They Are Probably Going to Be in A
Position to Usurp My Previous Position, Is That Correct?

Galaba: Yes.

Ford: Great. Listen, We Have Another Phone Call That We Want to Go to
Here And this One Is from Elaine in Cedar City, Utah. Elaine, Thanks
Very Much for Calling Us. Caller: Hi, Mike. Thank You. We Have a
Question for Industry, And We\'d like to Know How They Feel about This:
What about a Site Management Plan with One Com Site Manager Being the
Facility Manager for the Entire Mountaintop as Opposed to Their Own
Particular Site. How Do They Feel about That?

Phillips: Elaine, Are You With the BLM? Caller: I Am.

Phillips: Say Hi to Irv Larsen There for Me. Caller: I Will. He Is Right
Here in the Room.

Phillips: Well, Facility Management Being Designated to One Company, it
Works on Occasion. It\'s a Good Idea, and If We Have The Cooperation of
All the Other Users on the Particular Electronic Site, it Can Work. But
It\'s Also Helpful If We Have The Forest Service or BLM Helping to
Administer it and Encourage It. The Long‑term Plan in Using Site
Managers, You Know, You Have to Realize That People Move Around, And One
Person That Might Be Designated as the Site Manager May Go to a
Different Company, And ‑‑ in the Reality of the Scheme of Things. And So
I Would Encourage the Forest Service or the BLM to Act As an Overseer
and Encourage Participation in It.

Ford: Ok. Elaine, Does That Take Care of You? Caller: it Does. Thank You
So Much. I Appreciate It.

Ford: Thanks for Calling Us Here. I Have a Question, Ron, for You. This
Comes Again from the California Desert District out In Ridgecrest. A Lot
of Interest out There Today. This Is from Mike Hogan, and it Says ‑‑
Mike, Thanks for Sending In Your Question: Would the Three Digital
Systems Be Compatible to the Same Site, or Would They Have to Be
Separate? In Other Words, Can One Company Have All Three Digital Signals
In One License for a Market Area? Do You Follow That Question?

Fowler: Well, Do We Have Another Hour? As a Rule, No. A License Holder
Will Pick One Technology and Pretty Much Use That Throughout Certainly
the License Area, and in Most Cases Throughout the United States. There
Are Exceptions. I Guess What I\'m Referring to Here Is with Multiple
Licenses There Is Always a Possibility There Could Be Three Different
Technologies Within That Market. If So, Then These Systems Are Not
Compatible as Far as the End User with Each Other. Now, on the Site
Itself, These Three Users Can All Exist on the Same Tower or Same
Facility. There Are ‑‑ They Are Compatible As Far as the Electronic Use
Itself. I Hope That Answered His Question. Incompatibility Is Kind of
Maybe The Wrong Term to Use Here. It\'s More That to Realize That The
Three Technologies Are Not Compatible.

Ford: Great. By the Way, Anybody, If We\'re Not Answering Your
Questions, or If We\'ve Done Kind of a Weak Job, Come Back to Us
Afterwards And I Promise That the Panel Will Get Back to You with More
Specificity after this. Bil, I\'ve Got a Question Here For You, and it
Has to Do with Cost Reimbursement, And, Again, This Question Is Also
from Mike Hogan out in Ridgecrest, And, Mike, You\'re Doing a Good Job.
You Get Extra Points for Two Questions Today. How Does Cost
Reimbursement Category 5 Fall into Place with These Types of
Applications, the Cellular Applications?

Weigand: Yeah, for Those Non‑BLMers, Category 5 Is When We Get into Full
Cost Recovery For a Particular Action. It\'s Usually Means That We\'re
Taking Several Field Trips, We Have Some Additional Nepa Work Or
Clearances to Do and That the Total Cost Exceeds over a Thousand
Dollars. So I Think Maybe the Question Has to Relate, Generally When We
Respond to a One Siting Request, That May Not Reach That Particular
Criteria and it May Be a Lower Cost Recovery. But Is There a Chance to
Group Up Several Applications, like Sherwood Was Talking About, and
Maybe Have Full Cost Recovery to Work a Number of Different
Applications? I Know Mike Is Very Creative in Recovering Costs. So ‑‑.

Ford: Not Too Creative Here. You Don\'t Want to Get Me out of Here.

Weigand: Mike Hogan.

Ford: Oh. I Get in Enough Trouble, Already, Bil, Without Accusing Me of
Being Creative with Costs. Thanks Again, Mike, for That Question. Cindy,
I\'ve Got a Question Here From ‑‑ this Is Kind of a Follow‑up Here, and
We\'ve Discussed This, but Obviously It\'s Important. This Is from Ken
Jacobs in the Coconino National Forest up in Flagstaff And, Ken, Thanks
for Sending in Your Question and Participating. I Am Going to Read this
to You: How Many Cellular Companies Can We Expect to Be Competing for
The Same Area? I Think You Touched on That Earlier, but it Probably
Bears Repeating. Recently We Have Processed an Application for a Cell
Site That Was Immediately Followed by an Application from a Competitor,
And this Really Gets to the Joint Occupancy or Co‑location Issue Here.
You Want to Take Another Stab at That?

Phillips: Sure. Ron Touched upon this Earlier. You Can Expect Cellular
Carriers In Every Market, and up to Six Pcs Carriers. It\'s Doubtful You
Will Ever See As Many as Six, but You Probably Will See Both of the
Cellular Companies. Do You Have Anything to Add to That, Ron?

Fowler: I Would Agree with That, and Also the Esmr Carriers Tend to Be
Very Common in the Outlying Areas. That Would Be Right. I Think You Can
Also Expect at Least One Pcs Carrier If Not Two.

Ford: What We\'ve Heard on This Co‑location Issue, That\'s Kind of the
Government Fix, Can\'t We Jam Another One In, Can\'t We Force Them to Do
Business? Sounds like Industry Is Receptive to That Where Possible,
Where the Technology Doesn\'t Get in the Way, But, Again, It\'s Not
Going to Happen In Each and Every Instance, and There Really Is No Pat
Answer Here. Is That about Right? We Got Two More Questions We Want to
Get to and Then Kind of Summarize and Wrap Up. This One Is from ‑‑ I
Think It\'s Stan Landers or Landis Who Is in The California Desert re
Gin, And, Stan, I Apologize If I\'ve Goofed Your Name up Here. This Is
One That Industry Will Like, Stan: Is There a Procedure for Expediting
the Application Processing? And What He Follows up with Is: Is Approval
Automatic If the Application Is Complete and No Additional Studies or
Issues Are Identified Within 60 Days? In Other Words, If You Got a
Perfect Application and No Big Problems, Can They Get it Automatically?
How about That, Bil?

Weigand: Well, It\'s Not Automatic. They Still Have to Go Through The
Process. The Decision Has to Be Made. They Have a Good Chance If They
Have a Good, Complete Application to Get it Done Within That Time
Period, Though. It\'s Still a Formal Decision That Approves the
Right‑of‑way Or the Lease.

Ford: How about That? Jim, We Have Always Heard Approval Was Automatic
on Forest Service and BLM Was Trying to Get Closer to That.

Galaba: That\'s Funny. I Have Always Heard the Opposite. I Can\'t Think
of Too Many Instances Where ‑‑ Unless There Was an Existing Site on a
Mountain Type with a Site Plan Prepared Where You Would Probably Get
Approval in 60 Days. But It\'s Possible. And I Think We\'re Working
Towards That. One of the Thing That the Forest Service Is Doing Right
Now to Streamline Their Process Is an Effort Called Reinventing the
Special Uses, and We Have a Team At the National Level That Is Doing
This, and They\'re in the Process of Developing Some Procedures and So
on Right Now, And ‑‑ Within a Year or Two We Will Probably Be Able to
Get Some Results from That Effort That Will Help to Streamline the
Application Process.

Ford: I Have One Final Question, and this Is One That Will Go to BLM and
Industry, and It\'s Actually Kind of a Good Way To Wrap up and That\'s
‑‑ It\'s Coming out of Denver, Colorado. Doesn\'t Say Whether It\'s
Forest Service or BLM. But: How Is BLM Using the Rental Dollars ‑‑ Bil,
You Touched on this Earlier ‑‑ That It Gets to Keep ‑‑ That the Agency
Gets to Keep from the Com Site Rent and Then after You Answer That, I Am
Going to Ask Cindy and Ron, Does Industry Think That the Dollars Are
Well Spent? Bil, You First?

Weigand: We Refer to Those Dollars as 1492 Dollars, and They\'re Used in
a Number of Ways. They Can Be Used for Anything That Relates to Managing
the Communication Use Program. They Can Be Used for Workmonths, For
Operating Dollars, but What We Really like to See Them Used For Is to
Take Care of Some of Those Things That Would Facilitate the Approval or
the Application Process. Let Me Give You Some Examples. In Idaho We\'ve
Recently Purchased Some Legal Access with Those Types of Dollars Where
We Never Had That Legal Access Before. Other Offices Are Hiring
Consultants to Prepare First‑class Management Plans. So We Will Be in a
Better Position to Approve an Authorization If it Happens to Fit Your
Needs to Locate in That Particular Site. Just this Last Summer I Had a
Chance to Meet Tom Terry, Susan Bernal, They\'re Right Here in Arizona
and They Have a Mountaintop That Has a Lot of Potential. It\'s Mount
Newman That Sits Between Phoenix and Tucson, and It Was Within a
Roadless Area, a Wilderness Study Area for a Number of Years and When it
Was Released, They Now Have to Make A Decision Whether They Want to Make
That a First‑class Communication Facility or Not. They Are Using Those
Dollars to Actually Get an Interdisciplinary Team up There. They\'re
Getting Managers up There. There Is a Lot of T & E Concerns They\'re
Dealing with. But like Ron Was Saying, Those Types of Mountaintops
Without Legal Access May Not Have a Lot Of Value to Industry. So They
Have Some Decisions to Make, but Using Those 4292 Dollars, We\'re Really
Facilitating That Type of Effort.

Ford: I Am Not Going to Give You a Opening on the Second Half Of That
Question. I Saw Them Scribbling Notes. Of Course That Money Is Being
Spent Well. What I Am Going to Do Very Quickly to Summarize, Are There
Any Last, 15, 20 Seconds or Less, Each One of You, Last Points You Want
to Make Before We Summarize and Wrap Up. Cindy, Let Me Start with You?

Phillips: Well, I\'m Very Encouraged by the Proactive Approach Both
Agencies Are Taking and Industry Appreciates It a Lot.

Ford: Great. We Appreciate the Relationship We Have with Industry. Ron?

Fowler: I Guess I\'ve Been Gagged, but I Guess I, Too, I\'ve Worked with
the Agencies Now for Several Years, and I\'m Always Encouraged Because
it Seems to Be Progressing. We\'re Getting Farther down the Line and
We\'re Definitely Maturing in Our Relationship. So I\'m Glad to See
That. But I Would Say, If You\'re Going To Be the Landlord, You Got to
Take the Responsibilities on the Mountaintop. So No Site Manager for
Entire Mountaintops.

Ford: Thanks, Ron. You\'re Not Going to Just Return The Rent Here? By
the Way, We Support That. I Didn\'t Mean to Cut You off. But I Knew He
Had Some Words There. We Want to Use That Rent Locally To Do That, to
Manage the Mountaintop. That Is Really Is Our Position Here. Jim?

Galaba: Well, I Guess to Follow What Ron Said, I Appreciate the Industry
in Trying to Help Us Get Through What We Have to Get Through in Order to
Authorize Their Uses on National Forest and BLM Lands. Ron in Particular
Has Been Real Helpful. I Can\'t Say as the Rest of the Industry Is That
Way, but They\'re Coming along.

Ford: Thanks. Bil, 10 Seconds.

Weigand: Thanks a Lot. I Really Want to Say Thanks to The People That
Called In, Faxed In Their Questions. I Always Learn Something New When
Someone Has Questions That Hasn\'t Come up Before. So I Really
Appreciate That and We\'ll Get Back.

Ford: as a Means of Wrapping Up Our Broadcast, I Want to Kind Of End
Where We Started and Summarize Our Broadcast Objectives, And, Again, in
Case You Forgot Those, the First One Was to Identify New Regulatory
Requirements and Agency Policies, Second One Was Distinguish among
Different Wireless Communication Technologies and Services, and The
Third One Was to Identify Ways to Improve the Processing Of
Applications. How Did We Do? You Feel like You Have a Better
Understanding of this Important New Initiative? Are You Motivated to
Learn More And Become More Actively Involved in a Positive and
Productive Manner? We Hope So. I, Too, Would like to Thank Everyone Who
Participated in Today\'s Show, Especially Everyone from the Field Who
Called in and Faxed During Our Interactive Segments. I Also Need to
Offer My Personal Thanks to the Panel of Experts From Industry, the
Forest Service and BLM. And I Know That Each of Them Will Be Available
to Follow up With You. So If You Have Questions That Remain Unanswered,
Get Back to Us. Again, You Can Also Find Most of The Information in Your
Training Manual. But If You Need Additional Copies Please Contact the
Cellular Telecommunications Association at 202‑785‑0081. We Hope That
We\'ve Motivated You To Pursue Wireless Telecommunication System
Activities in Your Area and to Try Some New Things as Opportunities Come
along. Using BLM\'s Wireless Telecommunications Telecast Is Just One
Example of How We Can All Work Together to Improve the Way We Do
Business When Managing Our Public Lands for the Americans We Serve. I
Would like to Remind All BLM Downlink Coordinators to Have All Viewers
Sign the Attendance Roster and Fax it to NTC Immediately after Today\'s
Show. We\'d Also like Everyone to Please Complete the Program Evaluation
and Fax it Back to NTC as Soon as Possible Following this Broadcast.
Both the Roster and Evaluation Forms Are in the Packets Sent to Your
Office Before Today\'s Show. To Help Your Office Participate In Future
NTC Broadcasts, See The BLM Satellite Downlink Guide Or Better Yet Visit
the NTC Home Page on the World Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is
www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of this Telecast and Other Other Ntc
Broadcasts Are Available on the Home Page. For Information on Ntc
Broadcasts and Traditional Courses Call the Training Center At
602‑906‑5500. Or Again Visit the Ntc Home Page. Thanks Again to Chip
Calamaio, Jim, All the Guys in the Back Room Who Made this an Enjoyable
Week. We Appreciate You and You Made Us Look Good in Spite of Some
Pretty Weak Material to Work With. We\'ll See You Again in the Future.
Bye‑bye! This Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.