In the Florida House of Representatives, a bill is being pushed through to significantly limit the control that a local municipality can exert over small cell installations. The bill also limits the fees that a city may charge for access to municipal poles.
In committee hearings, Rep. Nicholas Duran (D-Miami) said that the “City of Miami actually is the second worst city in connectivity—digital divide—in our state and in this country in many respects, so for me, this is a question of how can we break down this digital divide.” While the goal of decreasing the digital divide is certainly an admirable one, one has to question how likely it is that small cells will be deployed in areas that don't already have sufficient wireless coverage. Certainly, increasing capacity in underserved areas is beneficial. However, the bill doesn't encourage or regulate where small cells are deployed, letting the industry decide on its own where they should go. One has to question whether this specific bill will remedy the issues related to the digital divide, especially when considering how the wireless companies tend to deploy infrastructure in the areas where they profit most, not where lower income and disadvantaged people reside. For an example of this, see this article about how AT&T deploys fiber differently to rich and poor areas.
Simultaneously, Miami/Dade, the combined City/County government in which Rep. Duran resides issued an RFI for the management of City/County owned properties. This specific RFI has been debated for years. Various requests and meetings have been put forth to the wireless industry over that time frame with the City/County choosing not to move forward for various reasons. We previously attended a meeting at Miami/Dade ourselves.
Obviously, this is a tradeoff that Rep. Duran and others could have legitimately decided was worth taking. We aren't trying to criticize him or anyone else for making that choice- just trying to point out how complex the issues related to small cells and densification are for state legislators. While the wireless industry has been successful at simplifying them to "you are voting against technological advancement", the issues aren't remotely that simple and there will be far-reaching but inherently local impacts for years to come.