About a half-dozen churches in Baltimore County lease to cell carriers, assessment officials said.
Church towers provide good opportunities to transmit wireless signals because of their height, said Larry Taylor, director of sales for AT&T in Maryland….
At the Episcopal Church of the Messiah on Harford Road in Northeast Baltimore, cell equipment is not hidden inside a steeple but mounted on top of the tower, between crosses.
In an era of declining church attendance, money from the leases with AT&T and Clearwire helps the church keep a presence in the Hamilton neighborhood, said the Rev. Timothy Grayson, the church’s rector. “That need and that benefit trumps any considerations about detracting from the aesthetic look of the church tower.”
Motorola was renting space on the National Cathedral for pager antennae back in the 1980s.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the towers
from whence cometh my signal
My signal cometh even from the antennae
Which hath covered heaven and earth