Cell Tower to be Built in Pound
Scott Draper/News Channel 11
Published: March 10, 2008
Updated: March 11, 2008
It soon will be easier to get cell phone service in this small Wise County town.Published: March 10, 2008
Updated: March 11, 2008
Alltel Communications representatives and Pound officials held a ground-breaking ceremony Monday for a new cell phone tower. The 200-foot tower will be built next to the Town Hall, where the ceremony was held.
Mayor Sarah Gilliam said the tower will be a good thing for her community.
“It’s just going to add to all the great things we are doing,” she said.
Many in the town of just 1,035 residents pushed for the cell tower by signing a petition, which was sent to U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher’s office. Boucher, an Abingdon Democrat, sent the petition to several cell phone companies and Alltel was the only one to respond, he said.
Boucher said on Monday he sees the cell tower as an important step in the development of rural Southwest Virginia.
“Wise County is rapidly growing. You can look across the county and see a much larger presence of retail enterprise than we had 10 years ago,” the congressman said.
Alltel officials, who will get some federal money to help pay for the tower’s construction, admitted that even if every resident of Pound uses a cell phone, they still wouldn’t make money on the venture. What convinced Alltel to move forward is the growth going on in Wise County, which they said was impressed upon them by Boucher.
“We are seeing technology industry growth around the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, with an industrial park that soon will accommodate an even larger number of technology-based jobs. We are attracting call centers, technical support centers and also data centers to this region, and all of these businesses that are communication-intensive, they need to have cellular telephone service,” Boucher said.
The tower is expected to be activated in June. Boucher said he is working with Alltel to erect two additional towers in Wise County, one in Appalachia and the other in St. Paul.
The new technology also is expected to make communications easier for rescue crews and police in Pound.
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