This story by Caleigh Cross was published by the Stowe Reporter on July 25.
[S]TOWE — Can you hear me now?
Lately, in Stowe, the answer might be no.
Kelly Lilly lives on Cape Cod Road, and says over the last few months cell service has worsened to the point where “around town, you can’t get any service. Nobody can send pictures, text or call. It’s just frustrating,” Lilly said.
“I think it’s just really gone down the drain. It used to be normal and pretty good, and now it’s just horrendous. I can have five bars and no service,” said Claudia Stauber, who lives in Morristown near the Morrisville-Stowe State Airport.
“It’s been really bad. I guess not so bad yet that I can’t make any calls, but a lot of the calls don’t work right, or especially when it comes to texting, sometimes it won’t go through, especially photos. If we only have one bar driving through Vermont, it’s not surprising calls drop. But if you have full bars and nothing works,” it doesn’t make sense, Stauber said.
“Cell service in Vermont has always been a bit funny because of the peaks and valleys we have here in our state,” said Dante Guerra, who lives in Stowe, but when the town fills up with tourists during the winter and busy summer weekends, including the two recent lacrosse tournaments, he said he notices a marked decrease in his ability to use his cellphone.
Guerra said the Fourth of July was a tough day for cell service this year, too.
“More tourist(s), less cell service,” Guerra summed it up.
“It was especially problematic last weekend, with so many people in town. It seems to be that it’s when it’s busy in town that it’s more of a challenge,” said Stowe’s legislative representative, Heidi Scheuermann. “We have challenges all over the place, obviously, in certain areas in Stowe, but it seems as though it’s the capacity that we’re running into problems with when it’s crowded.”
“I get that there are a ton of people in town, and if that’s going to be the trend with Stowe, then we need to do something about it to grow with it,” Lilly said.
But not all solutions are created equal, it seems, to Stowe residents.
5G service, the next generation of cell service that promises downloads at up to 10 gigabits per second, more reliable accessibility and more crowd capacity, is on its way around the United States, according to cell providers that serve Vermont, including Verizon Wireless and AT&T, and it may solve connectivity issues in rural areas or those that experience large crowd volume.
According to Verizon Wireless, by 2035, 5G will enable $12.3 trillion of global economic output and support 22 million jobs worldwide.
Cell towers, health risks
But some Stowe residents are concerned about the long-term impacts of 5G service.
They’re not the only ones. The residents of Mill Valley, Calif., voted almost a year ago to block the construction of small-cell 5G towers in residential areas over community concerns about the possibility of the technology causing cancer.
“I think that is really disconcerting also. This is something we cannot allow to just have implemented for the sake of the (connectivity) of things when we don’t know what it will do to our bodies,” Stauber said.
5G is a ways off from making its Vermont debut, though.
According to Kyle Landis-Marinello, general counsel for the Vermont Public Utility Commission, which oversees approvals for proposed cell towers, says by May 1, 15 applications had been received that mentioned the technology.
“They usually use the phrase ‘Making way for 5G service,’ ” Landis-Marinello said.
“These projects are pre-cursors to 5G, they’re not actually 5G service. Nobody’s really applying for 5G yet, not in Vermont. They may do so in the future, we don’t know,” said Gregg Farber, a hearing officer for the commission.
Ben Truman, public health communication officer for the Vermont Department of Health, said his department hasn’t weighed in yet on the potential health impacts of 5G service, but it has a report due to the Vermont Legislature in January on possible health consequences from exposure to the radio frequency fields produced by wireless tech, including cellphone service.
Scheuermann, who serves on the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development, said she hasn’t heard anything at the legislative level about encouraging wireless companies to roll out 5G in Vermont.
“We just don’t have any jurisdiction over it. That’s the challenge, and we have to try to work with these companies to see where these expansions are happening and hope that they know where it’s needed and where we want to have it,” Scheuermann said.
“We consistently look for ways to improve the experience for our customers throughout Northern Vermont. We will continue working with the Stowe community to find a solution that best meets the needs of our customers here,” said Karen Twomey, a representative for AT&T.
Twomey said she couldn’t speak to the 5G plan for Vermont.
Representatives from Verizon Wireless were not available for comment by press time regarding improving service in Stowe during busy weekends or the company’s plans to roll out 5G service in Vermont.
