The Growing Visual Impact of Wireless Antennas in the Urban Landscape: Strategies for Coexistence

Abstract

A few decades ago, antennas were almost unnoticed in the urban and suburban landscape, except for home television receive antennas. At that time, such areas had a few AM, FM, and television broadcast antennas that were sometimes collocated (although less so in the United States) and served wide areas. The low-capacity land mobile radio systems that existed then also used antennas sited on relatively few high towers or building sites, covering large areas but with little total capacity compared to today’s cellular systems.