Sprint wants to dress up cell tower, town says no

As the number of wireless customers grows, carriers must add cell towers to fill in gaps in coverage and dead spots. More often that not, there's a heated debate between local residents and the wireless carrier regarding where to place the cell sites and how to make them as visually unobtrusiveas possible. In the small town of Philomont, Virginia, residents have turned down Sprint's offer to build and disguise a local cell site as a 106-foot barn silo. The cell tower was described as "visually obscene" by one of the local residents, suggesting the company instead share a 100-foot flagpole already used by Verizon. Naturally, Sprint's not so keen on the idea, pouting and screaming that it doesn't like to share (actually, they had some excuse about not having access to the best spots on the flagpole because they're already in use) -- but any way you slice it, take note that rural Virginians value their silo-free skyline over extra bars of reception.