Can you object to a tower or refuse a smart meter?

Question

Can I block a cell tower near my home, or refuse a smart meter?

Answer

In the United States, Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act bars state and local authorities from denying a wireless facility on the basis of RF emissions where it complies with FCC limits, so objections have to run on planning grounds — siting, height, appearance, procedure — rather than health. Smart-meter opt-outs are set by state and utility, not federal rule: many U.S. utilities offer a non-communicating or manually-read meter, often for a fee, and availability elsewhere varies by country. Practical route: check the FCC ASR record for the structure, read your utility's tariff for an opt-out provision, and engage the planning process on procedural grounds.

Related records

• Macro cell tower (LTE / 5G sector antenna)

  Sector antennas radiate on the order of 1000 W EIRP per sector on the main beam, which is aimed above and away from the tower base — ground-level exposure directly beneath a tower is usually lower than at a few hundred metres away.

  Sources & emitters

• Smart electricity meter (RF mesh)

  Mesh smart meters transmit in short bursts at up to 1 W EIRP in the 900 MHz band, so peak readings at 1 m are high while time-averaged exposure is low because the duty cycle is well under 1%.

  Sources & emitters

• Identifying a nearby tower from public records

  How to establish what is actually on a mast — height, azimuth, licensee — from the FCC Antenna Structure Registration and licence databases before estimating exposure.

  Measurement protocols

Sources

1. fcc-rf-safety Radio Frequency Safety — Federal Communications Commission. government, link checked 2026-08-12.
2. fcc-asr Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) public access database downloads — Federal Communications Commission. government, link checked 2026-08-12.