What's happening?
Township IT Director William Pham presented some of the issues found by township staff regarding cell service in The Woodlands, which included a lack of adequate cell towers and population density.
"I think everybody realizes we have coverage issues and capacity issues," Pham said. "The Woodlands coverage issues are really either being too far from a tower or small cell ... and capacity issues are too many people in a given area."
Pham said that historically, cell service carriers have not been able to add additional cell towers due to lack of available space within the township to place towers, which Pham said required roughly one acre of land per tower.
"Over the years, we have had carriers come and ask for permission to put towers on our property, and unfortunately, due to the land use agreements that we have with the developer, we've had to reject those," Pham said.
The approach
Board chair Brad Bailey said township staff needed to work with developers such as Howard Hughes to put land use agreements in place for cell towers, suggesting a potential lease agreement between the township and cell carriers to incentivize additional service in the area.
"The Woodlands is one of the number one communities to live in America, we can't keep a call from dropping," Bailey said.
Pham said they did keep track of cell service issues through a heat map, meaning trouble areas such as Alden Bridge Sports Park have already been identified by the cell service carriers.
"Everything that William said was a challenge is a challenge, we're not saying it's insurmountable," Township President and CEO Monique Sharp said. "What we wanted to do tonight is [get] the direction from the board that the majority of the board wants to pursue this. ... We just need the authorization because it will require resources, cash resources, to do that."
What else?
The board also approved a contract with Entergy Texas to replace electric transmission lines in the Village of Indian Springs, according to township documents. The project would replace power transmission lines "in an attempt to prevent failure of existing infrastructure," according to Entergy.
