Are you meeting your resident’s cell phone service needs?

People assume that in "Class A" markets they won’t have an issue with cell phone service at their projects; however, that simply isn't the case.  Each project is different and there is no "one size fits all" way to protect yourself.  Discovering what service providers are impacted and to what extent is an important first step in understanding your situation. 

Cell phone service can be influenced by many factors such as building materials and distance away from the servicing cell sites.  Each service provider has it owns sites, capacity plan, and coverage capabilities.  It is important to consider carefully, your situation, especially the baseline level of service, which is often hard to discern without a more detailed assessment. 

For example, according to the developer, at a project I recently visited, they had good outdoor service pre-construction.  They built a four-story wood frame structure with a brick façade and low e glass to find out during the early leasing phases that significant parts of their project did not have adequate cell phone service coverage.  What they did not consider was their baseline level of service, the impact of building materials, site topography and the changes that their project would have on the existing cell service provider network resources.

While there are no easy or perfect solutions, new innovations and advances are coming out all the time.  It is an evolving space that used to emphasize outdoor voice-based services and is now transitioning to higher bandwidth indoor-focused system.  If there is a problem, deciding what to do requires good information, expertise as well as a solid plan to navigate your way through what is often a multi-tiered coordination and execution process.