This affects you if you rely on cell phones to connect with your family, friends, or work. It affects you if you use your cell phone during emergencies or just to look up directions or local businesses. This is your opportunity to maintain wireless service for you and your neighbors.
All Helotes and Sonoma Ranch area residents benefit from the current Verizon Wireless service, even non-Verizon Wireless customers. If another wireless carrier’s network fails, the Verizon Wireless network is available to all users for emergency calls and text messages.
First responders leverage the Verizon Wireless Network for vital communications across a broad range of emergency situations from patient treatment coordination between ambulance EMTs and hospital emergency rooms, to protecting officers in the field by providing vital off-radio channels for police work.
At home, the Verizon Wireless Network is leveraged for more than staying connected with friends and family or entertainment online. The Network may support home security monitoring, connectivity for home health monitoring devices, or even tracking a lost pet.
Ninety percent (90%) of US households use wireless service. With this increase in demand from users at home and those who work from home comes the need for more facilities to meet the customer needs. Citizens need access to 911 and reverse 911 and wireless may be their only connection. (CTIA, June 2015)
If you value your current wireless service in the Helotes and the Sonoma Ranch area and you support Verizon Wireless’s proposed wireless network replacement structure, we need to hear from you. To show your support and let your voice be heard, take a moment to send an email that we can share with city officials and the HOA Board for the proposed location. You can click to select any of the sample messages or create your own.
Will Verizon provide notice to residents?
Per San Antonio zoning process, Verizon must provide notice to property owners within 300’ of the proposed wireless facility.
Are wireless facilities safe?
The Federal Communications Commission, in consultation with multiple federal agencies, sets federal government safety standards regarding wireless facilities. Those standards have wide safety margins and are designed to protect everyone, including children, and were established after close examination of research that scientists in the US and around the world conducted for decades. The research continues to this day, and agencies continue to monitor it.
Scientists have studied potential health effects of RF emissions from cell phones for decades. Based on all the research, federal agencies have concluded that equipment that complies with the safety standards poses no known health risks. And advisers to the World Health Organization have specifically concluded that the same goes for 5G equipment. In fact, the RF safety standards adopted by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are even more conservative than the levels adopted by some international standards bodies.
FCC: The FCC provides information about the safety of RF emissions from cellular base stations on its website at: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html.
FDA: The Food and Drug Administration’s Cell phone website
EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s overview of cell phone safety: Cell phone safety