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Mobile phone towers and churches

arthwollipot

Limerick Purist
arthwollipot
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Feb 11, 2005
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The Church of England has ruled that mobile phone towers cannot be put in church steeples because they may be able to be used to transmit pornography.

Sorry, Your Eminences, but I have bad news for you. The printing press - first used in Europe to print bibles - can also be used to facilitate the movement of pornography. In fact I would go so far as to say that without the technology of printing, the pornography industry would not exist. Before printing, if you wanted to look at people having sex, you actually had to look at people having sex. Which is and was possible, I'll grant you - but it requires either elaborate precautions so as not to get caught, or considerable open-mindedness on the part of the participants.

What's more, it appears to have escaped the Church's notice that ordinary telephone wires - which have been spotted on church property for some time - can also be used to transmit pornography. So let's get rid of all the normal land-line telephones out of all the Church property too, eh?

The Church makes some really dumb decisions sometimes, doesn't it?
 
but this is a stupid decision based on a stupid premise...

Oh wait, sorry - carry on.
 
That seems like a really silly thing to do. The individual churches would be losing thousands of pounds a year (at least according to the article) and in the end it would do little to nothing in terms of prevention of porn transmissions, since those relay towers would be built elsewhere anyways.
 
Uncle Vanya said:
That seems like a really silly thing to do. The individual churches would be losing thousands of pounds a year (at least according to the article) and in the end it would do little to nothing in terms of prevention of porn transmissions, since those relay towers would be built elsewhere anyways.
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That may be so, but it would not be transmitted from their church by that particular method. I think that is the point.
 
sinclairmcevoy said:
That may be so, but it would not be transmitted from their church by that particular method. I think that is the point.
Click to expand...

Well, along those lines, along with pornography not being transmitted, 911 calls (or whatever it is in Britain) would also not be transmitted.

I think they forget that most off the communication that these towers would be transmitting is along the lines of "Hey... how are you?... I'm good... How's your sister?... Oh my God, how did it fit in there?" or something equally inane. Worrying about the small portion of cell phone communication dedicated to pornography is just plain silly.
 
Uncle Vanya said:
That seems like a really silly thing to do. The individual churches would be losing thousands of pounds a year (at least according to the article) and in the end it would do little to nothing in terms of prevention of porn transmissions, since those relay towers would be built elsewhere anyways.
Click to expand...

That really is a stupid decision. My mom's church had a cell phone tower put inside the steeple on the church. It was a church with an aging congregation and probably wouldn't have been able to survive much longer without the income from the cell tower.
 
I didn't know they put cell tower inside church steeples... makes sense, though, especially here in the united states... there are churches everywhere!
 
It's also really annoying, because it means more obvious and obtrusive placement for masts in historic towns. Silly christians.
 
I work in the industry (no, not the church industry, sillies!) and it's a reasonably common practice, especially in areas with restrictive zoning laws. It's mutually beneficial, and I've never seen a church be anything but glad for the revenue, not to mention sometimes also getting a new steeple out of the deal if the existing one isn't structurally sufficient. Perhaps they should have just negotiated the contract to receive a list of phone numbers of the godless perverts so they could contact them and try to save them!
 
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Usually restrictive broadcast tower zoning laws are used for the purpose of forcing cell phone companies to pay 3x to 4x the going rate for tower rental to the local police/fire department or have a hole in their coverage keeping the "ugly" towers from messing up the skyline.

Think it's not about that? Test of theory: imagine how welcome would be a law forcing local municipalities to charge no more than the average for such things for 100 miles in any direction. QED
 
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Oh, that's part of the equation, certainly. It's quite common for telecom towers to be erected on police, fire or other local government properties in those [and other] situations. Their existing towers are generally old and/or structurally inadequate to accomodate the proposed telecom equipment, so they get a spiffy new tower and all their equipment transferred to the new one - all on the tower company or carrier's dime, of course. And a nice [typically annual] rent check in the mail for at least the next 25 years.

However, having helped represent carriers at more than a few zoning meetings, I can also say a lot of it is borne of the resistance of local residents who object to having towers nearby. The old "not in my backyard" thing, especially in more affluent towns and cities or parts thereof. Not to mention the RF emissions woo I've heard spouted at these things, but that's another story! Naturally, the local government officials want to be responsive to their constituents' concerns. Votes matter and all that. :)

I can understand the NIMBY thing to an extent. You don't want a tower in your area for whatever reason, you're entitled to say so. Fine. But don't complain later because you don't have mobile service everywhere you want it. Of course, they always would. :rolleyes:

Anyway, back on topic: Silly CoE, let the churches take the money! Baby Jesus needs a new pair of shoes!
 
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The local polis have their transmitter antenna in the steeple of my mother's church.
I doubt more than 2 members of the congregation (and me) know it's there.
 
I didn't see it noted in the article, but I wonder what they are going to do about existing cell sites at churches. "Grandfather" them in? Pay the mobile and/or tower companies the remainder due in the lease contracts and have the equipment deactivated/removed? If so, who will pay for that? The CoE? The government, i.e., the fine, taxpaying citizens of England? I'm sure the CoE or Parliament has no concern about such costs, I'm just curious.
 
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There are mobile repeaters all over Canberra - mostly on top of the light poles in the middle of roundabouts. I don't consider them ugly, or an eyesore. I'd prefer to have wind turbines up there, but whatever.
 
Gee this is a real dilemma.

Maybe they should wait until the church goes under and is converted to a microbrewery. Then the call tower could be installed to help defray the cost of fine locally made beer.
 
Anyway, the issue is not about NIMBY, or about how ugly mobile phone towers are. The decision was made because mobile phones have the potential to transmit pornography. It's a stupid decision and a stupid reason to make the decision.
 
arthwollipot said:
Anyway, the issue is not about NIMBY, or about how ugly mobile phone towers are. The decision was made because mobile phones have the potential to transmit pornography
Click to expand...

...and the notion there's a big, bad skydaddy getting mad at them for allowing you to look at nekkid pictures, though why he's getting mad when he knew it would happen, I don't know.
 
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