Why does Nebraska not have cell coverage?

Why not choose a carrier that works in your home state?

Est. reading time: 3 minutes

Interesting that the “Solid Signal Blog” is trying to sell readers on AT&T as an alternative to T-Mobile and its 5G deficiencies in Nebraska - when a check of AT&T’s 5G coverage map shows an absence of 5G coverage not only in Nebraska and Iowa (with the exception of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area) but in a wide corridor up and down the midsection of the country.

Not that I’m a huge fan of T-Mobile (I spent several years of my life on the phone yesterday with Betty from Belarus*, trying to arrange a simple return of their old Internet gateway), but jumping from T-Mobile to AT&T would be like exchanging leprosy for the plague.

*she actually identified herself as “Ashley”, which must be a popular name these days in Belarus, Croatia or wherever.

That’s interesting but doesn’t really explain why Nebraska seemingly specifically doesn’t have widespread 5G coverage. The blog says that Sprint didn’t do well in rural areas, yet the rest of the Plains States have coverage in wide swaths that are just as rural.

West Virginia and Vermont are not terribly well-covered either, but they’re small enough that the overlap from the surrounding states catches much of their area anyway.

From my time with T-Mobile tech support years back, a large part of the issue is, as expected, money. Building towers and supporting them is expensive. If you have an area with lower population and lower service levels, is it better to invest in them, or in improving your ability to service in high population, high demand areas like cities?

Another thing about the maps (all carriers) is that in some areas, the towers are owned by local providers, who lease service as partners to major carriers. In those areas, the speed and bandwidth is determined by the contact with said owner and may be subject to considerable limitations.

Lastly, 5G specific, is that most (not all) of the 5G technologies being applied have very, very short range, which requires towers, well, everywhere (although normally smaller scale) - which has already become an issue for Omaha -

People who live close to the tower near 55th and Poppleton say they were blindsided when workers started construction back in the summer.

[ T-Mobile is actually an outlier here, as it’s 5G plans is mostly mid-range with slower speeds than the millimeter wave super-performers, but range more equivalent to 4G/LTE ]

TL;DR - it’s because there aren’t enough consumers in the rural areas making enough of a fuss to justify the costs in building/maintaining the infrastructure. Not exactly a new story.

West Virginia and Vermont are not terribly well-covered either

I grew up in WV, and looking at the map it looks like the areas that aren’t covered are the more mountainous areas where very few people live. The major population areas along the Ohio River, both panhandles, and the center where the state capital is located (Charleston) all have coverage. The areas that don’t have coverage have populations that are in the single digit per square mile range. Those areas are also difficult to get to, with no decent roads in or out, and the mountainous terrain is far from ideal for radio transmission and reception.

There’s a reason they located a large radio telescope observatory in Green Bank, WV. It was a low population area with no radio noise before the government did anything. Now it’s a national government regulated “no radio” zone, with no cell phone and no wi-fi (and much to the annoyance of the locals it has become a haven for the paranoid technophobes). You’re not going to ever get cell phone coverage anywhere near Green Bank.

From the article:

“state law gives wireless companies the right to occupy the city’s right away”

There should be a statue of limitations on that.

I’m not arguing for or against the law, just wanted to show part of the issue involved, given it’s FQ not IMHO. There have been a lot of arguments about 5G issues in heavy urban areas, as the mm-wave stuff is going to need to be nearly block by block and occasional issues of needing very targeted locations.

Which is one of the reasons you see articles about putting the antennas all over street lights as a compromise. But all of these apply to the urban issue - for the OP, it’s about why build towers that don’t pay for themselves unless there are non-monetary reasons to do so (legislation, government incentives, etc).

I’m not arguing for or against the law, just wanted to show part of the issue involved, given it’s FQ not IMHO.

Cities have right of ways, not right aways.

Cities have right of ways , not right aways .

Isn’t that rights of way?

Isn’t that rights of way?

Either way, it is clearly what the article wanted to say. Here is the whole sentence for context:

City officials can’t do much about where cell towers are located and state law gives wireless companies the right to occupy the city’s right away.

“state law gives wireless companies the right to occupy the city’s right away”

OR the article meant to say
“state law gives wireless companies the right to occupy the cities right away”

It’s hard enough to make my own language clear with autocorrect, sloppy typing, and occasional swype errors when using a touch-screen, and now I need to be responsible for poor language in journalism? Oy vey.

OK, Nebraska is mostly rural, got it. But Oklahoma, Kansas, and both Dakotas are also mostly rural. That still doesn’t answer why Nebraska is different from all of them.

That still doesn’t answer why Nebraska is different from all of them.

Yeah, that’s the crux of this question.

I appreciate, and have learned from, various answers, but Nebraska is just SUCH an outlier. There MUST be some cause, some reason, for its status to be so different.

Now I’m wondering about deep, dark political machinations, though why? Who would care enough to create this difference on purpose?

This article mentions high fees for installing equipment on utility poles, but the quoted $2,000 is only in Lincoln and it doesn’t appear to be a statewide thing. It does say “high fees cities charge” but doesn’t further elaborate. It does seem like there’s probably some sort of regulatory or price hurdle, but then it should apply to all carriers and not just T-Mobile.

State Senator Curt Friesen of Henderson proposed Legislative Bill 184 to expedite the deployment of 5G for Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, according to the Omaha World-Herald. The bill will make the approval process and installation for small cell...

Est. reading time: 2 minutes

I wonder if Nebraska’s previous problems with cell phone towers (Chinese equipment suspected of spying on missile silos) have anything to do with their current lack of 5G coverage. Maybe no one one wants to use the old towers, requiring some of the infrastructure to be rebuilt from the ground up?

President Donald Trump recently banned a specific Chinese telecommunications and cellphone company from doing business in the U.S.

It may also be related to money allocated over the years for cell coverage and then rural broadband access being wasted. Nebraska Public Service Commissioner Crystal Rhoades is mentioned in the following article as saying “there was a lack of accountability over how the money was spent, allowing big firms to use their USF funds for administration and other expenses, rather than for rolling out broadband for rural residents, which generates less profit.”
“The dirty secret isn’t that we don’t have enough money, it’s we don’t have enough oversight,” Rhoades said. “It’s been all carrot and no stick.”

Rural broadband can be expensive and difficult to provide, but massive amounts of money have been directed to that effort. So why isn't high-speed internet more available in rural Nebraska?

Discussion on Reddit of Nebraska’s lack of 5G coverage mentions that Viaero owns many/most of the towers, and that is the company with the Huawei hardware linked to Chinese espionage efforts.

The US government says Chinese tech giant Huawei is a national security threat, yet some wireless carriers use Huawei gear on cell towers close to US military bases, including nuclear missiles silos, raising alarm among security experts.

Viaero Wireless is going to replace their Huawei Chinese spyware components with Ericsson equipment. Maybe 5G in Nebraska will improve after that.

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Ericsson is providing new gear for regional U.S. telecom provider Viaero Wireless as the company swaps out and upgrades its LTE existing equipment. | Ericsson is providing new gear for regional U.S. telecom provider Viaero Wireless as the company...