THE best ideas are often the simplest—and a new patent designed to
quell the spread of cellphone and digital TV masts could be one of them. Instead
of building unsightly new cellphone towers, says British electricity utility
Norweb, why not put the antennas on electricity pylons?
Rising demand for mobile phones means that cellphone network operators are
building more antennas. Rival networks don’t like sharing transmitter sites
because each wants to offer better coverage than its competitors. To complicate
matters further, a “third generation” of digital cellphones will soon be added
to the existing four networks, and the government’s…
