Crown Castle Says It’s ‘Squarely’ a Telecom Service Provider Within TCA’s ‘Language’
A key issue before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals during oral argument Wednesday (see 2306070069) was whether Crown Castle has standing as a telecommunications service provider to bring Telecommunications Act allegations against the city of Pasadena, Texas, for prohibiting the deployment of wireless services.
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Crown Castle attorney Russell Post with Beck Redden denied the assertions of city attorney William Helfand with Lewis Brisbois that Crown Castle’s infrastructure fight with Pasadena is “undisputably a case in which Crown Castle was not providing any telecommunications services at all.” Crown Castle provides its services to wireless carriers that directly serve the public, said Post.
In Pasadena, Crown Castle attempted to do more than merely erect poles and mount antennas on top of them on behalf of T-Mobile’s 5G buildout before being denied its applications to do so by the city, said Post. The small-cell nodes and the antennas typically are “the property of the carrier,” he said. “But they are tied to our fiber-optic cable,” he said.
When a user “activates a data session or a call,” it sends a wireless signal to the small-cell node, said Post. “That signal is then transmitted through Crown Castle’s own fiber-optic cable to the hub, from which the signal is then ultimately distributed,” he said. “We are in fact a telecommunications service provider by virtue of our own cable,” he said.
No court “anywhere in the United States -- circuit court, district court -- has ever held that Crown Castle is not a provider of telecommunications services,” said Post. “It would be an unprecedented holding” for the 5th Circuit “to reach that conclusion,” he said. “The FCC recognizes that we’re a provider,” as does the Texas Public Utility Commission, he said: “We fall squarely within the language of the statute.”