By TALENE YOTNOTSIAN
Cingular Wireless LLC plans to spend $43 million building towers for wireless phone service throughout Orange County as part of an $800 million California spending push this year.
The company, an Atlanta-based venture of AT & T; Inc. and BellSouth Corp., plans to shell out $12 million adding 45 wireless tower sites to the county, said Martha Ventura, executive director of network operations of Cingular Wireless.
The rest of the money is set to go toward adding capacity to Cingular’s wireless network here, including for sending data at high speeds, Ventura said.
The plan marks another year of big spending in OC for Cingular, according to spokesman Art Navarro. The company is spending almost as much here as it is for the whole state of Michigan, he said.
Next year, Cingular hopes to add 75 towers in OC, according to Ventura.
OC is in the middle of a three-year spending plan by Cingular, Ventura said. What the company plans to spend beyond 2007 depends on demand, she said.
Putting up a tower can take 18 months to two years because of the approvals required, Ventura said. Once approvals are received, putting up a tower only takes about three months, she said.
Cingular builds the towers itself and uses contractors, Navarro said.
The towers can take the shape of faux palm or pine trees, Ventura said.
“These are called stealth sites,” she said. “We have cell sites on clock towers, built into church steeples, as mono poles which basically look like a flag pole.”
Verizon: $600M
The spending is part of a horse race with the wireless arm of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., the county’s other major wireless service provider and No. 2 nationally after Cingular.
Verizon Wireless spent more than $600 million in California last year, according to spokesman Ken Muche. He declined to give a breakdown for OC.
“It’s not all about the cell site, it’s about the technology,” Muche said. “Sometimes sites are not as strong so you have to build more. The reality is you are switching out old technology for new technology.”
After years of heavier spending in OC and Los Angeles, Cingular is spending more money on the Inland Empire this year, according to the company.
Spending here and in the Inland Empire is part of $443 million the company plans to spend in Southern California.
Southern California and the Bay area are Cingular’s largest networks, according to the company. Its entire network spans 49 states.
San Antonio, Texas-based AT & T;, formerly SBC Communications, is set to take over all of Cingular Wireless with its proposed buy of BellSouth.
