5G Internet installation process begins in Colorado Springs

The Colorado Springs City Council began learning Monday how service providers plan to upgrade Wi-Fi Internet capability to 5G.

Council members heard from city staff in a work session about the process. The council said it is responsible for seeing that providers are sensitive to public concerns about installation, that equipment isn’t too unsightly, and that it blends in with the surrounding landscape.

However, the council also learned that because service providers are essentially public utilities, local governments have little authority over them.

Some providers have already applied to install 5G and have started the process by installing equipment in three downtown locations to enhance the existing 4G network.

Those providers have honored the city’s request to install equipment on existing light poles instead of on new infrastructure, but some council members wonder how long that cooperation will last.

“We had a provider go into a couple of neighborhoods and install their own poles instead of using the light poles that already existed,” said Councilman Don Knight. “The poles were unsightly and were placed outside a homeowner’s window in one instance. We need to have some sort of recourse for citizens who don’t want that.”

Joshua Pace, of the city’s Office of Innovation and Sustainability, said actual 5G installation could begin this fall but most work likely will take place next year.

Pace said 5G will provide a significant upgrade to 4G.

“There are three benefits,” he said. “Much faster download speed, a shorter time for one device to communicate with another device, and a tenfold increase in devices per square kilometer.”

While there has been some public concern about health impacts from wireless transmissions with each upgrade, Pace said the city sees no significant health risks from 5G.

But some council members debated the point.

“I know some people want to discount the studies that are out there,” said City Council President Richard Skorman. “But we can’t do that. These studies have been made in other cities, in other states, and in other countries. We need to find out which studies are valid and which aren’t. And I’d like to have some recourse available to people who don’t want any of the equipment near them.”

Councilmen Bill Murray and Andy Pico were among those minimizing the health threat.

“We risk putting ourselves in a touchy situation,” Murray said. “If someone doesn’t want 5G next to their house, that’s fine. But when you leave your house, you’re entering places where 5G exists. Either none of it is dangerous or all of it is dangerous.”

“We’ve been swimming in a sea of low microwave wireless transmissions for years, ever since cellphones came out,” Pico said.

Skorman said the council will seek public input, possibly through a town hall meeting, before voting on any 5G regulations.

Also during the work session, the council heard the results of a climate change study, conducted by Colorado College, on how global warming and climate change will affect the city in the near future.

According to the study, the city is in a trend of warmer, wetter weather that will result in more serious droughts, wildfires, and floods.

The study recommends, among other measures, that the city plant more trees, specifically in areas that have warmer average temperatures, and around parking lots and other areas with little or no vegetation.

Some council members questioned some data in the study and questioned whether more trees can efficiently be watered, but overall the council welcomed the study results and recommendations.

In other matters, the council announced that its Tuesday regular meeting will start five hours earlier, at 8 a.m., to give some members time to attend an event for local leaders at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. In addition, there will be no public comment segment for the meeting.

The council also revealed that starting next month, its regular work sessions and meetings will start three hours earlier, at 10 a.m.

“We’ve had some very long meetings lately,” Skorman said. “If we get an earlier start, we’ll be in a better frame of mind to make decisions if a meeting goes long.”