The long-awaited cell tower atop Rice Hill was hoisted into place Thursday, June 18 by a 120-ton crane. Above, the first of three arrays is positioned and bolted into place at the 170-foot mark. Before cell service is available, CMP has to install and wire eight poles and each of the cell carriers will have to attach their antennas. While there is no estimate of when a local signal will be available, officials predict "soon." The construction phase of the project should be finished by July 8, weather permitting.

Cell tower project photos

The long-awaited Rice Hill cell tower went up June 18 although officials can't predict when a cell signal will be available.

Blaine Hopkins of Global Tower Partners predicted his company’s work would soon be done.

“I would guess by the Fourth of July that we would have the site pretty well wrapped up and the DEP compliance issues taken care of,” Hopkins said, adding a note of optimism about coverage.

“When this tower goes online, watch your service where you are. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” he said. “I’m going to guess that it’s going to be darned near 100% of the town. Original estimates were for 85% coverage.

“The engineers are always extremely conservative,” Hopkins said, noting that US Cellular will “light up” first.

“They are moving ahead aggressively. Verizon Wireless is the primary carrier on the tower but Verizon customers will be roaming off US Cell in the early going,” he said, noting that “We’re expecting more carriers before the year’s out.”

GTP will soon start narrowing the access road to the DEP-ordered 10-foot width for paving.

“The whole DEP thing has cost me well over $100,000,” Hopkins said, adding that his company would have done a good job regardless, “because we can’t have the road washing out every time it rains.”

Project manager Steve Wood said the tower raising went smoothly. He leaves to manage a tower project in North Carolina soon. Later this summer, he will be in Tennessee and Arizona for tower projects. While 180 feet may seem tall in Waterford, he has worked on much higher towers. An engineer with three decades of tower building experience, Wood supervised the take-down of a 400-foot tower in Florida, which was replaced with a 500-foot tower.

(source: Mutiny Brook Times)