US Supreme Court rules in favour of T-Mobile in tower dispute

The US Supreme Court yesterday ruled that officials in Atlanta failed to take the necessary efforts to explain to a unit of telecommunications company T-Mobile USA Inc why the town denied it an application to build a new cellphone tower, Reuters reported.

The court decided in a 6-3 ruling that local governments were required by the federal Telecommunications Act to provide a timely written explanation for rejecting a request.

In a statement welcoming the decision, T-Mobile said local governments needed to "explain their reasons when they deny a permit application to build or modify a cell site and provide those reasons to the applicant contemporaneously with the denial decision."

In the 2010 incident, Roswell's council held a two-hour meeting. In the letter the town sent to T-Mobile South LLC notifying its decision, it did not explain the reason. The town said further information would be provided in the minutes of the meeting.

According to justice Sonia Sotomayor a written explanation must be available in a timely fashion, although it did not need to be included in the initial denial letter.

The local government of Roswell, Atlanta, violated the law because, although the decision was explained in the minutes of the meeting, these were not made available until 26 days after the denial.

T-Mobile South LLC had originally filed the case in 2010.

According to Joseph Palmore, former deputy general counsel at the Federal Communications Commission, the decision was a win for the deployment of wireless infrastructure.

He added that by requiring local governments to provide written reasons for their zoning denials, today's decision made it easier for those denials to be reviewed in court. That kind of judicial review was an important check against unreasonable roadblocks to critically needed wireless infrastructure, he said.

According to T-Mobile, the court win was one more example of its fight for fairness and transparency in providing mobile wireless services to consumers.

''Mobile customers demand better voice and data services – and now local governments must explain their reasons when they deny a permit application to build or modify a cell site and provide those reasons to the applicant contemporaneously with the denial decision,'' the company said in a statement.