03-25-2026 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STATEMENT OF NETWORK NEED New Communications Tower in Ramsey County, City of Little Canada, Minnesota Paul Anderson, Radio Frequency Engineer Verizon ID: MIN NERO 1. My name is Paul Anderson and I am a radio frequency (RF) engineer for Verizon Wireless (“Verizon”). I have been employed by Verizon since 2018 and have been the RF Engineer for the Minneapolis/Northern Minnesota Market since 2022. 2. The primary duties of an RF engineer include the design and management of Verizon’s wireless communications network in its Great Plains Market, which includes the area in and around Ramsey County, Minnesota. RF Engineers are also responsible for identifying and addressing substantial service and capacity gaps that present themselves in Verizon’s wireless network. These service gaps can be caused by lack of coverage or insufficient system capacity, or both. Service gaps are identified through the use of internal Verizon network monitoring tools and analysis showing the capacity and/or coverage needs in a particular area. 3. There is a significant service capacity gap in Verizon’s wireless communications network in and around Ramsey County (the “Gap Area”). As a result of this significant service capacity gap, Verizon customers using their devices in and around the Gap Area are likely to experience diminished call quality, slow data transmission speeds, and blocked calls. Verizon’s service gap in the Gap Area has been amplified by the sharp increase in data usage by Verizon’s customers. 4. This significant service capacity gap will remain and cannot be resolved unless a communications tower is constructed within the Gap Area. Verizon must remedy this service capacity gap in order to provide high-speed wireless broadband access to the communities in and around the Gap Area, to fill in indoor coverage gaps where wireless services are not reliable, and to provide enhanced E911 services. 5. Verizon identified a search area in which a tower would need to be located in order to resolve the service gap. Before proposing a new communications tower, Verizon first considered whether any existing towers in the search area could be used to resolve the coverage gap in the Gap Area. There were no other structures in the search area on which Verizon could collocate to resolve the service gap in the Gap Area. Although there are existing towers in the general area outside the search ring, none of these towers will allow Verizon to remedy the service gap. The following existing structures have been reviewed and disqualified for colocation as described below: a. City water tank [Location 45.021844, -93.078875]: The City water tank is too far east to address the coverage/capacity concerns that we are targeting with this site. b. Crown Castle Tower [Location 45.032344, -93.102169]: Verizon is already collocated on the tower adjacent to this tower, which means that collocating on this nearby tower would cause overlapping coverage and interference, and would not address the service gap in the Gap Area. 1