There are three recent events that have happened related to cell service in the southern part of Westlake Village.
First, over the past couple of weeks, the T-Mobile site above Three Springs has gone live and providing signal to T-Mobile customers in the area. The site’s activation was delayed when T-Mobile’s contractor hired a deputy inspector for Ventura County rather than Los Angeles County. The contractor has since resolved that error with the County and the site was signed off for building completion clearing the way for it to be activated and begin servicing customers.
Second, Verizon went before the Westlake Village City Council to request a cell antenna on top of the Landing. While we cannot easily verify, we believe that Verizon once had an antenna on top of the Landing, but in at least the past few years, there hasn’t been one. There are several other carriers at that location already. The Federal Telecommunications act put into place when President Clinton was in office mandates that cities must approve antennas like this if the applicant proves a significant gap in coverage. Some cities across the country have attempted to deny applications, but unless there are specific circumstances outside the norm, they ultimately get sued by the carriers under the rules in the Federal law, and lose or settle the case (e.g., Agoura recently denying and then granting T-Mobile’s site at Lindero Canyon Middle School). The maps provided show the difference before and after the antenna at this site. This site will affect all the area around the lake, First Neighborhood, Oak Forest and more, as well as the entry portion of Three Springs.
Third, AT&T is in negotiations with the Las Virgenes Metropolitan Water District for a tree antenna at the LVMWD facility above Three Springs. Unlike T-Mobile, which needs relatively little network connectivity for the site given the small number of T-Mobile customers in Three Springs, AT&T (with 57% market share in Three Springs) is designing their site to have a fiber connection to handle current and 4G technologies. The water district has said that in their experience, these negotiations “can take 6-12 months” to complete before construction can commence (AT&T started negotiating with the water district in December or January).