Lamar has 12 cell towers and officials want them utilized before new ones are permitted

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Thursday, December 4. 2014

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By Kay S. Pedrotti

Do you take for granted your ability to make cell phone calls in Barnesville and Lamar County? Think about what makes that happen and you may want to thank your local governing bodies.

There are 12 cell towers here, three in the city and nine in the county, all serving multiple providers with Verizon coverage being predominant. Company officials have told local 911 dispatchers, who may get calls about tower lights not burning, that their network is mapped and computerized to enable them to locate lights-out immediately anywhere in the world.

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#1 Annette Glenn on 12/04/14 at 06:47 PM

Interesting, and not something that I think of much. I know that when I moved here my TRAC phone would not work. Only Verizon.

#2 No Thanks on 12/05/14 at 01:55 PM

I find it interesting to see the Obamaphone pushers in their mobile kiosks (often setup in local parking lots) eager to sign people up for their "free" phones with free texting and data. These carriers' devices offered for free are not mainstream carriers and use networks and/or technologies not available in the very area they are promoting them. (Unless one actually climbs a tower and snags a signal from inside I285). Yet the mainstream carriers eagerly collect our money in the form of a tax that funds this Obama phone program. And yes, I am familiar the telecom act of 1996 and the purpose of that act which essentially was meant to ensure that even the most rural areas of America and the poorest of the population have access to internet and basic phone telecom services. This act has been bastardized to make people believe they are entitled to smart phones with data plans and, although there is supposed to be a cap on usage, many studies have shown these very able bodied leaches have in their possession as many as 20 "free" phones. Perhaps this is how certain elements are given the call to violent protests. There is certainly have a database and a captive audience. To those who actually pay for telecom services take a look at your bill and see how much you unwittingly subsidize this foolishness each month.

#3 Tom Rauch on 12/08/14 at 05:23 AM

There is no such thing as an Obamaphone. You are talking about a Reganphone if landline or a Bushphone if cellular.

The lifeline low income landline phone program was started in 1985 (during Regan).

The program was expanded in 2005 (during Bush) to include cell phones.

The program is not funded by taxes. It is FCC administered and funded by telcom companies with a universal service fee.

The majority of efforts to reduce fraud, which mainly consisted of one household receiving multiple subsidies, started around 2010.

See

http://www.fcc.gov/lifeline

#4 No Thanks on 12/08/14 at 08:49 AM

The USF is funded by a surcharge or tax assessed on on the bills of those who actually pay for telecom services. Just because it is collected by telecom companies doesn't mean it is funded by them; that's just a liberal twist put on fact. Who funds the FCC? I don't recall seeing kiosks in convenience store parking lots when Bush was president. There is a difference between a basic cellphone and broadband-consuming smart phones. The term Obamaphone is one I first heard from the mouth of one taking advantage of the program. Even the companies providing these phones refer to them as Obamaphones. (See http://www.obamaphone.com)

See
http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/universal-service

#5 Tom Rauch on 12/10/14 at 09:28 AM

You can call the phones anything you want, and you can read and believe any silly non-factual website you want, but the Tracphone program was approved by the FCC when GW Bush was president. It was approved by FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin, a Bush appointee.

That's just a clear indisputable public fact.

The program actually has roots back to 1913, but the largest increases in this program came under Regan and Bush the second. Part of the increase was do to a response to Katrina problems.

Obama had nothing to do with it. He inherited it.

#6 No Thanks on 12/11/14 at 12:47 PM

The only indisputable fact is that those who pay for telecom services are taxed to pay for one of the most widely abused government-subsidized programs in effect today. It has proliferated and is out of control under the now two-term Obama administration. We are taxed under the ruse that the telecoms are paying for this USF when the law allows them to recoup that very money from their subscribers. You can't put a coherent liberal spin on that. I am so sick of hearing "Obama inherited it". I'm just curious.... if you walk into a restroom with a soiled toilet do you flush it or just whine about it and say you inherited it.

#7 Tom Rauch on 12/13/14 at 08:54 PM

I'm not putting a spin on anything, you are.
You are parroting nonsense.

Politicians of all parties have been shafting us for years. We might have a shot at correcting things if we are factual, but we won't ever fix anything if we continue to swallow the polarizing lies that either party puts out.

Obama has done enough things wrong to give many examples, and so has Regan and Bush. So has Clinton. Clinging to lies, however, does noting to fix any problem.

The Obamaphone, if you really don't like it so much, was rooted in Reagan and the expansion was by Bush's FCC Chairman while Bush was in office in response to Katrina.

You made a bad choice, because none of this falls on Obama.

#7.1 No Thanks on 12/15/14 at 10:26 AM

No I haven't made a bad choice. I don't parrot nonsense. I pay my bills and do not expect the government to provide me with luxuries at anyone else's expense. Apparently this strikes a nerve with you. You have no factual basis and I beg to differ that this does fall on Obama as he is the sitting King. He could stop the converted ice cream trucks from setting up shop in liquor store parking lots to dole out "free phones" which have been branded Obamaphones by everyone on the street to reporters on CNN. You cite Bush's response to Katrina for the proliferation of free phones? In what universe would providing the residents of New Orleans free phones have helped? 911 centers were essentially ineffective. Perhaps a phone with was self-deploying life raft would have saved those which failed to head the warnings to evacuate because the few cell sites which remained operational were appropriated to law enforcement and emergency use only.

In the grand scheme of things this is a drop in the bucket compared to the lies and corruption carried out everyday in our government. The Obamaphone, which you so correctly pointed out that I don't like, is just an example; I was merely pointing out one that we can actually see on a daily basis in little ole Barnesville Georgia. But it seems that has become our problem to not speak out. For when we do, we have someone come to the the defense of a defenseless issue and back it up with a convoluted explanation of how an act from the the 1930's has led us to the conversation at hand.

The big issue is that we are at the mercy of Godless powers that be who have in just a few short years damaged this great nation by trampling the Constitution and creating a racial divide not seen in more than 50 years. There is something fundamentally (yeah I said it) wrong with a presidential administration and the nation's chief law enforcement officer under that administration to make up laws sans Congress thereby indicting the very Constitution of the United States of America. There have been abuses of power since human beings have had power. In the U.S., the misdeeds of all the former commander's in chief collectively do not add up to the disregard for the Constitution and the will of the the American people to the current one.

#8 Tom Rauch on 12/15/14 at 10:12 PM

Just to be fair, I give it to the Democrats who do the same stupid nonsense and parrot political exaggerations and lies.

The only result of these tall tale Internet wisdoms like the "Obamaphone" nonsense is polarizing people so we can't work on the real problems. The Democrats have their own circulated nonsense, so tall tales are not just a Republican problem.

Our great nation, in case you haven't noticed, has been slowly damaged by both parties. The great hero of the Democrats, Bill Clinton, did just as much damage as Reagan.

Now the wonderful Republicans, with the aid of Democrats, have started to turn Wall Street loose again. After just about ruining our economy, and after we finally started to reign them in, a few well placed dollars has the same people who stole pensions on the road to the same regulations.

So much for learning a lesson. We publicly whine about $15 phones that have been subsidized in different ways since 1913, handed out as cell based subsidies since Reagan, and accelerated by Bush's FCC chairman while the same crooks who stole our pensions a few years ago have both parties turning them back loose.

Mark my words, watch the wheels fall back off as all the campaign money floods back in to the crooks in Washington.

#8.1 Robert Heiney on 12/16/14 at 08:36 AM

Tom - as much as I agree with you that the Republicans and Democrats are running the nation into the dirt along with their corporate and bankster partners; I fail to understand what that has to do with the handing out of free cell phones, which I think was "No Thanks" point.

What difference does it make which thug president initiated the hand-outs?

Let's concentrate on what you so rightly define as a problem - and fix it without regard to which government criminal enterprise is behind it.

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