Update on Collapsed Cellular Monopole at Village Club

Residents, 

As I shared with you last evening, the 110’ tall monopole at the Village Club (near tennis and 4^th hole), which serves the Club, Harbor Acres, Forest Drive areas, and that portion of Middle Neck Road, was at risk of structural failure. 

Last night, it snapped, and the top two-thirds fell to the ground, landing on one of the tennis courts.   

The Verizon and T-Mobile services were the affected carriers. 

We’re not sure which cell company (or third-party) owns the tower, as it was installed decades ago, but the replacement will not be at Village cost.   

Through relationships that I have built with some of the cell companies, we were able to get a mobile cell tower brought on site at 6:30 this morning. 

Amazingly, we expect the new mobile cell tower to be operative by the end of today.  Unfortunately, only Verizon service will be restored by the end of today. We have no update on T-Mobile restoration. And ATT was a separate monopole.

Over the coming weeks, it will need upgraded antennas and tweaking to better serve our area.   

Cell service for the rest of today may be materially worse, and until the antennas are upgraded, slightly worse. 

The bad news is that because of the time it takes to redesign a monopole, investigate why this one failed, deal with contractual and regulatory issues, it could take up to two years to replace it with a new permanent monopole. 

Please see picture below.

That is all for now. 

Mayor Peter Forman