By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO— A citizen got a chuckle from the local selectmen before beginning a discussion that has been on and off the table for decades: Cell phone reception in Casco Village. 

“I notice that you didn’t start the meeting off by telling people to turn their cell phones off because cell phones don’t really work here,” said Jim Arsham.

Again and again, the roadblock that keeps communication companies from putting up a cell tower is: there are not enough businesses and there is not enough population to warrant the costs of the cell tower installation.

A secondary issue that cannot change is the terrain. The Village is in a bowl-shaped area.

Still, Arsham believes that cell phone service is a public safety issue, and it is worth pursuing.

On Sept. 1, he spoke at the Casco Board of Selectmen meeting. Several weeks ago, Arsham started the process of contacting people at the state level. The advice he got from two of them was to contact someone in Washington, D.C. That is when Arsham made the phone call to Dave Maxwell. That conversation yielded two options as well as a promise to reconnect again, Arsham said.

“I found a person in the Office of Information Technology. He has been there a long time. He was kind, informative and wants to be helpful,” Arsham said.

Maxwell recommended two possibilities: A tower placed high enough to serve the area outside of the Village or a DAS design module, he said.

The Distributed Antennae System (DAS) design module, has been in use since the mid-1980’s. It is a network of relatively small antennas that serve as repeaters. It can be placed indoors or outdoors. The modules are about 36 inches tall, he said.

“These modules cover a wider area. It may be possible to convince one of the communication companies to put up some in the Village,” Arsham said.

Selectman Holly Hancock said the smaller cell tower has been explored. 

“I signed a contract with an individual who was looking,” she said.

Cell phone company representatives said the Village wasn’t a good candidate for a cell tower because there isn’t enough businesses or enough residents living here year-round.

“We wanted to put a cell tower in the church steeple or atop this building,” she said, referring to the Casco Community Center. 

“There is not enough population in the Village to make it financially feasible,” she repeated.

Arsham continued. 

“It is a safety issue. We can all manage without a cell phone. If you cannot call your home from the store to see what kind of ice cream everyone wants, that is a convenience issue. The problem is safety. If someone has a heart attack or stroke while playing tennis, they cannot” get cell phone reception to call an ambulance, Arsham said.

He said if a catastrophe happened in the village, the lack of cell phone service might make it less manageable.

For example, if an unfortunate event happened during Casco Days, and a car came crashing through the barrier into the crowd — some sort of chain of events that caused multiple injuries, cell phone service would make it easier to notify the fire and rescue department and for people to contact family members, he said.

“Public safety, first and foremost. Convenience is second,” Arsham concluded.

He said that he would keep the board abreast of any developments after talking again to Maxwell with the U.S. Office of Information Technology.