On 5G, Each Community's Needs May Differ, Local Officials Told

Because communities' needs vary, so, too, will rollout of 5G, municipal telecom officials were told Wednesday. "If you’ve seen one county, you’ve seen one county. If something works in one county, it doesn’t mean it will work in another," said National Association of Counties Associate Legislative Director Arthur Scott at the NATOA conference in Tampa. It's "hard to apply a cookie cutter formula" to carriers and 5G, he said. "When we start having fees for local governments, we’re not just trying to" hurt industry, "we’re trying to leverage the investment the local government has made in the infrastructure," he said of such application fees. Scott recommended to communities that they partner "with their telecom providers to establish a working model" on the wireless standard. "This is not just one small cell, this is many, many cells in many, many places through a community," he said. "This is going to require significant upkeep" by the locality, he continued. "Those fees that are associated with small-cell applications are critically important."