East End towns say they are ready to fix spotty cell coverage and dead zones in sweeping plan

In Southold, residents have uninterrupted vistas of open fields and tree-lined roads with few cell towers in sight. 

That's intentional, one way the North Fork's bucolic charm is safeguarded for year-round residents and tourists alike. But the setup also explains why cellphones can fail to catch a signal on the East End, of particular concern when a 911 call drops. The issue has become more urgent as data demands and seasonal population spikes continue to put strain on the region's infrastructure. 

The pushback to large cell towers, once dominant in the community, is softening. As residents become increasingly reliant on wireless service, officials across the five East End towns are now grappling with how to encourage new infrastructure, all while preserving a pastoral aesthetic.

Local officials are tackling the problem in several ways. Whether it's erecting a new 125-foot tower or lining roads with discreet, shorter ones, the goal is the same: eliminating dead zones and coverage gaps that have defined the region. 

“The bottom line is, we need effective service and consistent service — and we don't have that,” said Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski, who can’t count on his cellphone working inside Town Hall.

On the East End, an increase in visitors and part-time residents during the summer can result in slow download speeds and dropped calls. Adding new towers is one way to improve cellular speed and capacity, according to CityScape, a wireless communications firm that crafted a plan for Southold. 

The company is also working to advise the Town of Shelter Island and the villages of North Haven and Sag Harbor, which along with Southold will share the cost of the $106,105 agreement. The company plans to assess the strength of service across each community and take inventory of existing wireless structures. The plan also recommends ways in which towns and villages can encourage new towers. 

Solutions under review

In a survey of 773 people distributed by the Town of Southold, 69% of respondents described cell service in their home as “poor." Nearly 20% said their service was “inconsistent,” while 84% said they relied on Wi-Fi to boost cell service in their homes.

The addition of larger towers can easily expand coverage to a wider area, though East End residents have historically balked at the concept. In 2014, public opposition led Southold officials to abandon a plan to allow a large cell tower behind Town Hall.

But public sentiment may have shifted in the decade since, Southold Peconic Civic Association President Maggie Merrill said in an interview.

“I think that every resident, every business owner understands the necessity for the towers,” she said.

Southold is considering an increase to the maximum allowable height of cell towers. In that town, towers can reach 80 feet in business zones and 45 feet in residential or agricultural areas, as long as they are set back from homes and screened from view with trees or dense vegetation.

The town’s planning board can approve special exceptions for towers that exceed zoning caps so long as there's a public need for them.

The plan recommends that new towers be designed so they're largely hidden from public view. A majority of Southold residents surveyed said they prefer cell towers that have some sort of visible obstruction. For example, concealment poles are disguised to look more like flagpoles and street lamps and less like cell towers.

Shelter Island Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams said it's a challenge for first responders, who rely on radio equipment, to communicate during emergencies. Cell towers often host the responders' radio equipment. 

"If our firemen or ambulance people can't get communications in and out when they're in certain areas, that obviously is a bad thing,” Brach-Williams said. 

In North Haven, there are no cell towers in the village, Mayor Chris Fiore said. Some residents might be able to catch a signal from towers in Sag Harbor or Shelter Island, but they mostly rely on their home Wi-Fi to make calls, he added.

“The big problem is that once you step out of your home, you get nothing,” he said.

The Wi-Fi is inconsistent and gets worse when the South Fork’s broadband services are stretched thin by an influx of summer residents, he added.

“So God forbid you need a 911 call … older people have medical devices that require telephone connections and digital connections to the hospital or the doctor — they can't get them because of the poor service that we have, both in-home at peak times and outdoors, because we have no cell towers outside,” Fiore said.

CityScape recommended that North Haven allow a 160-foot tower, but Fiore said that proposal would likely meet resistance from residents. Utility poles in the village are limited to 35 feet.

“Nobody wants one that they can see or that's near their backyard,” he said.

Instead, village officials are exploring one of the plan’s alternatives: installing small cell nodes on about a dozen 40-foot utility poles across the village.

A regional solution?

The Town of East Hampton has embraced the small towers approach. The town board approved an agreement with Crown Castle, a wireless infrastructure company, to build 189 nodes mounted on new, short utility poles to improve coverage across town. The majority of these wireless nodes are planned for Springs and East Hampton — where there is poor cellular coverage, according to Patrick Derenze, the town's spokesman. 

Initially, the nodes will support T-Mobile service, but they will be able to host up to three additional carriers. Crown Castle’s goal is to have 129 nodes operational by the end of this year, with the remaining 60 scheduled to be built in 2026 and 2027, Derenze said.

East Hampton updated zoning standards for wireless facilities in 2022 and adopted its own communications plan, which CityScape wrote, in 2024. The town also adopted a streamlined permitting process for small towers that removed the need for a lengthy public review.

But some East End officials don’t see small towers as the most practical approach.

After a review process that took more than a year, a 125-foot cell tower is headed to the Village of Southampton. New Jersey-based Diamond Communications will soon start construction on the tower at the Windmill Lane Firehouse. It’s the village’s second large tower and will help visitors, residents and first responders with their spotty coverage, especially during the summer tourism crush, Mayor Bill Manger said.

“We did an extensive review of the village and looked at all village-owned properties, and which one was the best situated for getting the biggest area of the village covered,” Manger said.

The top of the tower will be reserved for the emergency service communications systems; and major telecommunications carriers are expected to rent space on the tower to strengthen their coverage, Manger said. The company will pay the village roughly $500,000 to site the tower there, in addition to rent on the property, Manger said.

“We’re hoping that by next summer, it's going to be a much more enhanced system,” he said.