Better Reception on Campus for AT&T Users

By Katherine Chow

Over the summer, Santa Clara began a project in collaboration with AT&T to install a tower on top of Swig Residence to improve cellular phone reception and transmission.

Swig Residence is one of the tallest buildings in the Santa Clara County. AT&T approached Santa Clara University with hopes to add a tower to the Swig building to "provide excellent platforms for communications equipment" said Director of Facilities, Jeffrey Charles.

 "AT&T contacted the University with a proposal to install additional communications equipment on Swig Residence with the sole purpose of improving cell phone signal transmission and reception," added Charles.

 Since the university leases space through a third party, AT&T conveniently requested leasing. Final decisions allowed installation of the tower to be implemented in the summer of 2012. The funding for this project is unknown to the university since AT&T is covering all the costs for the project.

Although construction for installation began in July, the project is still being completed. AT&T is hoping to activate the tower late this month.

Students who moved in on Sept. 15 and 16 have noticed the construction that has been taking place. Sophomore Keely Graskamp, community facilitator for 7th floor Swig, said she heard some rumors floating around campus over the past few weeks.

"We heard construction has been taking longer than they thought and the only concerning thing was the director of housing said they're running tests to make sure there isn't any radiation output with all the towers around us."

Charles confirmed the rumors that the project was taking longer than expected. The university is waiting for the cellular company to present them with a revised completion date.

Although the addition of a tower may seem harmless, some students are worried about the possible health risks it may pose.

"It is concerning that there's potential for the radiation output," Graskamp said.

Despite the concern, most AT&T users should be able to benefit from the added towers.

Senior Howard Limburg, also an AT&T customer, said, "I didn't have terrible service, but more towers should equal more consistent coverage."

Some other benefits of having the tower on top of Swig include, "implementing 4G technology to improve speed and capacity for voice and data," Charles added.

The AT&T tower joins the KSCU towers on top of Swig Residence, both using Swig as a platform for stronger and more accessible reception on the tallest building in Santa Clara.

Contact Katherine Chow at KLChow@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4849.