The New York Post is reporting that six companies including Nextel and T-Mobile are going to light up New York City with wireless networks of all hues by mounting antennas on the lamp-posts. These companies will pay about $25 million a year to the city for a right to put antennas on 18,000 lamp posts, the Post reports. Apart from the two phone companies, ClearLinx Network Corp., Crown Castle Solutions, Dianet Communications and IDT Business Services, will be creating a wireless cloud over the city streets. Metricom, had attemped this earlier, putting nearly 3000 antennas in placed but went bankrupt. Some of these antennas are going to be used for “hotspots” and other broadband services. Western Queens Gazette reports that the fees for these pole-rentals could range from $10,000 to $100,000 a year depending on the location.

The equipment approved be installed on the poles includes the Andrew/Mikom Mixed/Multi-Media Router, The Vivato Bridge Router, and the LGP Allgon Distributed Antenna System. “New York City is the first city in the United States to roll out mobile phone service on a larger basis,” Agostino Cangemi, DoITT deputy commissioner, Franchise Administration and Planning and general counsel said. The new antennas are expected to eliminate larger base stations completely if they are universally usedThe Cellular Phone Taskforce, an activist group based in Brooklyn, is battling against the unregulated widespread use of cellular transmissions, The New York Post added. Meanwhile dear friend Glenn Fleishman tells us that Grand Haven, Michigan has cut the cord!