FCC Regulations for Towers
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the governing body over television, radio and satellite communications. The FCC also regulates the hardware associated with these forms of communications. It has rules and regulations for registering towers, reviewing the impact of a tower on the environment and following maintenance procedures for making the tower visible.
Tower Construction Notification
The FCC offers the Tower Construction Notification System that provides information on all new tower construction projects. This is in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The act says that any new construction on specific sites such as Native American reservations, historical sites and other restricted areas should be reported to the proper authorities as part of the approval process for building the towers. While the notification system is voluntary, the tower review process is still required before any tower or antenna can be built.
Backup Power
The FCC requires that towers for landline phones and cell phones have backup power supplies. The backup power allows any tower without a permanent source of backup power to be protected from outages due to a strong storm or other type of natural disaster.
The ruling comes from the tower problems caused by hurricane Katrina. Many cell phone towers did not work after the storm because the tower did not have an adequate power supply to continue signal operations.
Cell antennas and smaller tower systems are not exempt from this rule.
Federal Registration
Not all antenna towers need to be registered with the FCC. Some structures that do not meet a specific height for the location will not need to be registered. The general rule for registering a tower with the FCC is when the tower is more than 200 feet tall or if the tower is located next to an airport.
Registration provides the FCC with information needed for performing routine maintenance on these towers.
Maintenance Regulations
Antenna towers that are deemed a hazard to air navigation must have proper routine maintenance to make the tower visible to all incoming aircraft in the area. The towers must be painted regularly and have the proper lighting for aircraft to detect and avoid all parts of the tower. Maintenance procedures apply to all towers registered with the FCC.
Environmental Consideration
Tower placement must also follow guidelines provided by the National Environmental Policy Act to protect the environment around the tower structure. Environmental considerations need to be weighed before a tower can be built on any specific location. If the tower has a large negative impact on the immediate environment, this must be disclosed to the FCC for review.
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