BERNE — A new cell site on the sheriff’s tower in Berne brings enhanced connectivity for first responders and civilian AT&T subscribers in the town, both of whom can now use 4G LTE and a government spectrum reserved for first responders called Band 14, which AT&T allows all its clients to use when available. 

The cell site went up in August as part of a series of new AT&T sites that have been installed around New York State, Senior Network Consulting Engineer Greeley Ford told The Enterprise.

“It was turned up at the end of August and it serves the hamlet of Berne,” Ford said, “.... including the Berne Public Library, the Berne town court, the transfer station, Berne-Knox-Westerlo [schools], and the Berne Public Library ... I would pretty much say it serves the greater Berne area.”

The organizations Ford listed are not necessarily AT&T customers.

Although the tower’s new components are funded entirely with private money, AT&T’s director of external affairs, Kristin Duffy, praised Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple for installation of the tower.

It was part of a system to improve communication for first responders, with towers that were controversial in Rensselaerville and Berne. While almost all Berne residents were in support of improved emergency communications, many objected to the site — atop  U’hai mountain. Approved, 3 to 1, by the Berne Planning Board in July 2016, the tower was built on land owned by and leased from Jody Jansen.

“There’s a lot of areas that were spotty out that way which were a public-safety concern,” Duffy said, “so being able to have better coverage for first responders were extremely important to the sheriff ... There’s a lot that goes into the siting of the cell tower so his office was helpful in determining [siting].”

AT&T runs the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet, a government emergency communications network that provides first responders access to Band 14, which is shorthand for an allocation of 20 megahertz inside of the 700 megahertz frequency band. Signals from that band can penetrate walls and cover a greater area than frequencies of higher bands with less infrastructure.

Commercial entities use the 700 MHz band but after the terrorists’ attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when network congestion impeded rescue efforts, the federal government sought to give first responders their own frequencies, which it accomplished in 2012 with the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Recovery Act.

The new cell tower allows first responders in the Berne area to access those government-allocated frequencies, but AT&T customers will also be able to use it as long as it’s available.

Because the cell site aids first responders, it was not subject to a site-plan review by the Berne Planning Board, a stipulation that Apple had requested the Albany County Legislature make when considering the siting of the tower, a decision that The Enterprise editorialized on in April 2016.