Last month, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the City of Rancho Palos Verdes supporting the city's contention that it had the right to review the aesthetics of proposed cell phone transmission towers within the city limits.

 Typical cell phone tower with no provision for aesthetics

In the court's opinion, they stated "The experience of traveling along a picturesque street is different from the experience of traveling through the shadows of a WCF [wireless communications facility], and we see nothing exceptional in the city's determination that the former is less discomforting, less troubling, less annoying and less distressing than the latter," the panel observed in the ruling. "After all, travel is often as much about the journey as it is about the destination."

Sprint had argued that the city's rejection of two wireless construction projects on aesthetic grounds violated the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which bars municipalities from action that constitutes "a prohibition on the provision of wireless service."

 Example of cell phone tower designed to blend in

The appeals court panel disagreed, pointing to the company's own assertion that it already serves some 4,000 customers in the affluent city. Sprint had refused to make the changes to the proposed towers that the city had recommended to make it more compatable with the neighborhood.