By Clarence Fanto, the Eagle correspondent
LENOX — Tanglewood patrons and nearby citizens should see stepped forward mobile provider at some stage in this summer time’s live performance season.
The Select Board these days accepted a suggestion by using Verizon Wireless to install a small antenna near the web page to beautify coverage within the location.
And whilst most of the advantages may be felt within the Tanglewood place, an organization legitimate said it will improve service some other place on the town by easing the needs on the existing towers in Lenox and West Stockbridge.
“[The antenna] will no longer most effective gain customers of Tanglewood, but the network as an entire for their enjoyment, for his or her public protection and for anything, their wi-fi desires might be,” said Jay Latorre, senior radio frequency engineer for Verizon.
Verizon has best one cell tower serving a good deal of the town, from a site on Pittsfield Road (Route 7/20) behind Lenox Fit, however, a tower at the Lenox Mountain ridgeline isolating West Stockbridge and Richmond reach a few clients in the far western segment.
Latorre said that in Tanglewood’s summer season live performance season, signal electricity is “slow and greatly reduced” due to the fact so many Verizon clients are using their phones at the same time. The trouble can be specifically bad in the course of the maximum famous occasions, like James Taylor’s traditional Fourth of July concerts that entice as much as 18,000 humans.
Latorre said the inflow of human beings “significantly restrains” signals, potentially compromising public protection inclusive of emergency calls to local police or fire departments.
“If you can not connect the use of your wireless smartphone, it really is a simply scary feeling,” he said. “More and greater emergency calls originate from mobile phones in place of traditional landlines.”
During the hearing, Latorre circulated a signal insurance map showing gaps east of the Route 7/20 skip, where alerts can best be received outdoors in many places, specially Lenox Dale.
“The insurance map shows the want for an extra carrier in Lenox,” he recounted, noting that there is a capability task for a bigger sign-generating facility downtown.
Although Latorre did now not discover it, town officers indicated that the viable website might be atop the state-owned Curtis senior housing complicated on Main Street.
“Everybody in the room has the same opinion we want a better cellular provider,” Selectman Edward Lane stated. “There are dead spots all round metropolis.”