puzzler

I just moved from the Oakland Hills to Berkely (near Martin Luther King & Dwight). No LTE at all around this neighborhood. Also, today I didn't see any LTE along Shattuck from Allston (downtown) to Ashby. I did some looking around on the Berkeley Planning web site (thanks for the idea lilotimz) and found the listing for current zoning applications: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications_Log.aspx I found applications to upgrade two Sprint sites to LTE. These are existing sites, not new sites. 1) 1725 Eastshore Hwy, Berkeley - on the roof of Kaiser Labs buidling, along side Hwy 580/80. Submitted for Design Review & Use Permits on 2-20-13. Design Review: Permit # 13-30000014 Application for Use: Permit #: 13-20000023 This is a 116 page doc and has extermely detailed plans and equipment and engineering drawings for every aspect of the upgrade. There are detailed coverage maps as well. Also included are required independent impact reports for noise, RF and other factors. 2) 1760 Solano Ave - on the Solano Professional Building. Design Review submitted on 2-6-13. Permit #: 13-30000010 Modification permits submitted on 5-8-13 Permit #: 13-70000004. Strangely, they seem to have mistakenly inlcuded photos of the 1725 Eastshore Hwy site, instead pf the Soalno Professional Buidling. This also includes correspondence from the city requesting extensive engineering and environemental reports. BTW, the permit states that the cost of the upgrade is $35,000. These docs provide insight into the permitting process. I think Berkeley's requirementsfor the reports, etc., while quite extensive, are likley standard in many local governments: the question is how long Berkeley might drag out the approval process compared to other cities. I couldn't find anything indicating the current status of these permits but I didn't have time to look around very much. A few closing comments/opinions: The 1725 Eastshore site upgrade will mostly benefit vehicles on the adjacent freeway and business in that area, which has very few residential dwellings. The 1760 Solano Ave site includes residential coverage as well as businesses along Solano Ave, but reach of the coverage is limited to a relatively small area of N. Berkeley and Albany. IOW, the upgrade to these two sites alone aren't going do much for the large areas of the city that still do not have LTE or 3G NV upgrades. Hopefully, there are other Berkeley site upgrades that have already been approved and are simply waiting to be physically implemented. If not, the current lack of permit applications to upgrade other Berkeley sites may indicate that most of the residential areas of Berkeley are in for a quite a wait for LTE. I think an obvious lingering question is why Sprint has apparenty waited so long to submit applications for the site upgrade permits. Assuming that there are many other sites in Berkeley that Sprint intends to upgrade, why not at least start the permitting process as soon as possible? I'm not coming to any conclusions here or trying to slam Sprint. Perhaps there are very reasonable answers to the questions. And it's possible that the listings that I found on the Berkeley city web site are incomplete and there are other permits well along in the process. Though for sure, I'd LOVE to be wrong, in the mean time, it's possible that large areas of Berkeley on the Sensorly map are unlikely to turn purple for quite a while.