It’s the season for City of Seattle feedback gathering. Next up, the Seattle Department of Transportation wants your input on how a small but important element of your telecom environment fits onto the streets of Capitol Hill and across the city.

Feedback on the city’s Small Wireless Facility (SWF) design standards are hoped help to reduce “visual impacts to the streets and sidewalks that form the public right-of-way” — especially as 5G technology rolls out across the city:

Most often installed on poles in the public right-of-way, SWF are antennas and related equipment that are smaller than traditional cell towers and extend wireless network coverage. With more people using smart phones and relying on mobile connectivity, wireless providers will need to increase the capacity of their networks and will want to install more SWF throughout Seattle.

The city’s new proposed design standards would apply to devices installed on both metal and wood poles in Seattle’s right-of-way including telephone poles and streetlights.

Unlike cell towers, the small wireless facilities look like small antenna boxes installed on existing infrastructure like utility poles. Fiber connections can allow the devices to quickly handle huge amounts of data.

Seattle SWF draft design standards would establish maximum dimensions for any device installed on poles and set a maximum height increase for replacement poles.

The design standards don’t include whatever fees providers are paying to have the hardware installed on the city’s poles. Seattle plans to charge providers $1,947 per pole attachment, per year, Geekwire reports.

The full design standards proposal is here (PDF).

Comments may be submitted online or by e-mail at telecom.wireless@seattle.gov through November 27th at 5 PM.

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