True Corp Cell Phone Tower Voted Out of Krabi Village

[Jacob Maslow]

A cell phone tower has been voted out of a Krabi Village. Villagers grew concerned over the True Corp cell phone tower that is still being constructed. Under a vote, the measure passed 93 to 26 in favor of the tower’s removal.

True Corp has been very understanding and states that they will comply with the resident’s decisions immediately.

Villagers first issued a complaint with the Office of National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission in Phuket. The complaint stated that there was no consultation with residents before the tower was constructed. Concerns over radiation and radiofrequency-related issues were voiced. Villagers state that the tower was just 20 meters from many homes and can cause illness.

According to the World Health Organization, there has been little evidence that cell towers increase the risk or cause illness or cancer. The American Cancer Society also found no correlation between cell towers and an increase in cancer.

Residents state that even without an increased health-risk, the tower was in violation of NBTC regulations. Under the regulations, residents should have been allowed to discuss the tower’s construction with True Corp.

Following the complaint, the tower’s construction was stopped and the tower will be removed, according to a previous statement by True Corp.

-- 2015-04-14

[canuckamuck]

After the vote the villagers got drunk and loaded 52 kids in back of a pickup and threw water at each other while swerving down the highway.

[jerojero]

Democracy in action?

[nidieunimaitre]

I love those villagers.

Surely, they are no longer using their smart phones, and have gone back to good old Thai traditions?

[kbelyeu]

and these same villagers won't complain about crappy cell service.

Kurt

[casualbiker]

I love those villagers.

Surely, they are no longer using their smart phones, and have gone back to good old Thai traditions?

If it was only 20 metres from the houses they probably wouldn't benefit from the signal anyway!

[streetlite]

I live in a small Village with my house built on a 1/4 Rai of land. There is a 1/2 Rai empty lot directly next to my home and is owned by a neighbor across the road. I tried to buy it from him to the point of offering 100,000 THB (he paid 11,000 about 10 years ago). He refused my offer saying he wanted to keep the land for one of his children to make their home on when they got married. There are no buffers between my house and his land.

Over the years he has used this property to make charcoal in large amounts. Huge logs covered in rice hulls, numerous tin vents, burning for weeks at a time and creating black smoke and soot blowing directly into and onto my house. I had no recourse to this since it was deemed that he had every right to produce an income from the charcoal and, since I am the only Farang in the Village, I had no say. During the non burning times of the year he would continually dump fallen trees onto the property for later burning. These turned into rotting lumber over time and the sight was disgusting to look at. My front view from my house looks directly at his home across the road and my back view is a beautiful mountain of green trees. I built my walls to block the empty lot but everything still seeped through the windows and doors. No one in the Village was concerned because it did not directly affect them.

Overt the years he stopped burning (had too much charcoal?, not enough wood resources?, too much work for profit?) and converted the pot into a tapioca field. OK, good for me until I was forced to stay inside when he sprayed the field on a weekly basis with pesticides and whatever else they use for this crop. Still better than the black soot.

Here is the connection to this topic. About a month ago, after he plowed a reaped the tapioca crop, he filled in the lot with fresh dirt, smoothed it out with his tractor, and appeared to be preparing to build on the lot. In a couple of days I noticed two tall staked outside my back porch approximately 10 meters from my house. The tops were painted orange so they looked like survey stakes. I was a little concerned with the location he chose to build his house because it interfered with my view of the forest and mountain. Oh well, better than soot and spray chemicals. I asked my wife what type of house were they planning to build.

Oh, they aren't building a house. They rented the space to True Move to build a cell tower. I went ballistic. I've always been a good neighbor in my Village, always donating to the Wat, the School, and any event where they ask for donations, I work with the kids who express a desire to improve their English ( I am a retired Teacher), etc. But this revelation made my blood boil and I marched directly over to the neighbor, voiced raised, expressing my displeasure with his intentions. I am an old man and he could have kicked my a** on the spot but sometimes you just don't give a damn. My wife reeled me in and said that is not the way to deal with the situation. There is nothing we can do because he owns the land.

Here's how True Move operates. Apparently one day they drove thought the Village with those loud speaker trucks asking if anyone with a parcel of land would be interested in renting to them for 40,000 THB a year. They wanted to construct a cell tower. I personally never heard the truck, never saw the truck and never heard a whisper around the Village that the truck came through. I'm supposing that no one was interest, even though there is tons of open land for crops around the Village. But the "neighbor" must have heard it and since he was making less than 40,000 a year on his charcoal and tapioca endeavor he got in touch with True Move to make the deal. That became the first time that I heard about this "rumor", but the wife assured me that it was years in the making. I reacted at the time but only with the wife telling her it was a bad decision. I told her we had to start trying to defeat this move. She said it was years away. Two weeks later I see the staked in the back yard. NOT years away. I told her we must speak up to every one around us about the negative effects of this cell tower. Even though I don't have proof, I told her and anyone who would listen about the energy fields causing cancer in the children living in the Village plus generation to come. It would not even give better cell service to anyone living directly in its' path. I was genuinely upset to the point where I secretly planned to undermine the whole thing and most likely wind up in prison for my efforts.

My wife, in the Thai way, approached the neighbor about the situation (that how I discovered all the details). She asked him what assurance did we have against this tower toppling over onto out house, my mother-in-laws house and my sister-in-laws house? She said she wanted some insurance in case case that happened, otherwise she was prepared to create the stink that should have been created in the first place before the stakes were in place. We also noted over the course of the next few nights, that a truck was visiting the neighbors house and it turns out that it was True Move making their plans with him under cover of darkness. I know this sounds a bit covert but it's true. My wife realized what was happening so we sat outside one night until the "truck" appeared. My wife went over with her quiet demand to know the details ( I just wanted to go hit them with baseball bats). Anyway, she asked the neighbor and True for the assurances as before. The "True" guy assured her that they were fully insured against accidents but would not show her any documents. She also pressed the neighbor about an insurance policy against any calamities. Nothing.

The wife was now becoming as furious as I but she internalized hers. The next day she started calling the Village heads and anyone else that would listen asking why this issue wasn't discussed prior to even starting negotiations with True. They weren't even aware of it. The wife started to talk to the neighbors telling them horror stories that I couldn't prove but in my heart "believed".

Three days later I noticed the stakes had been removed, the field plowed and replanted. A few weeks of chemical spray is better than a lifetime of electrical fields, I guess.

Sorry for the long post but in the end the score remains: Farang 1 True Tower 0

True Corp Tower sucks.

[canuckamuck]

I live in a small Village with my house built on a 1/4 Rai of land. There is a 1/2 Rai empty lot directly next to my home and is owned by a neighbor across the road. I tried to buy it from him to the point of offering 100,000 THB (he paid 11,000 about 10 years ago). He refused my offer saying he wanted to keep the land for one of his children to make their home on when they got married. There are no buffers between my house and his land.

Over the years he has used this property to make charcoal in large amounts. Huge logs covered in rice hulls, numerous tin vents, burning for weeks at a time and creating black smoke and soot blowing directly into and onto my house. I had no recourse to this since it was deemed that he had every right to produce an income from the charcoal and, since I am the only Farang in the Village, I had no say. During the non burning times of the year he would continually dump fallen trees onto the property for later burning. These turned into rotting lumber over time and the sight was disgusting to look at. My front view from my house looks directly at his home across the road and my back view is a beautiful mountain of green trees. I built my walls to block the empty lot but everything still seeped through the windows and doors. No one in the Village was concerned because it did not directly affect them.

Overt the years he stopped burning (had too much charcoal?, not enough wood resources?, too much work for profit?) and converted the pot into a tapioca field. OK, good for me until I was forced to stay inside when he sprayed the field on a weekly basis with pesticides and whatever else they use for this crop. Still better than the black soot.

Here is the connection to this topic. About a month ago, after he plowed a reaped the tapioca crop, he filled in the lot with fresh dirt, smoothed it out with his tractor, and appeared to be preparing to build on the lot. In a couple of days I noticed two tall staked outside my back porch approximately 10 meters from my house. The tops were painted orange so they looked like survey stakes. I was a little concerned with the location he chose to build his house because it interfered with my view of the forest and mountain. Oh well, better than soot and spray chemicals. I asked my wife what type of house were they planning to build.

Oh, they aren't building a house. They rented the space to True Move to build a cell tower. I went ballistic. I've always been a good neighbor in my Village, always donating to the Wat, the School, and any event where they ask for donations, I work with the kids who express a desire to improve their English ( I am a retired Teacher), etc. But this revelation made my blood boil and I marched directly over to the neighbor, voiced raised, expressing my displeasure with his intentions. I am an old man and he could have kicked my a** on the spot but sometimes you just don't give a damn. My wife reeled me in and said that is not the way to deal with the situation. There is nothing we can do because he owns the land.

Here's how True Move operates. Apparently one day they drove thought the Village with those loud speaker trucks asking if anyone with a parcel of land would be interested in renting to them for 40,000 THB a year. They wanted to construct a cell tower. I personally never heard the truck, never saw the truck and never heard a whisper around the Village that the truck came through. I'm supposing that no one was interest, even though there is tons of open land for crops around the Village. But the "neighbor" must have heard it and since he was making less than 40,000 a year on his charcoal and tapioca endeavor he got in touch with True Move to make the deal. That became the first time that I heard about this "rumor", but the wife assured me that it was years in the making. I reacted at the time but only with the wife telling her it was a bad decision. I told her we had to start trying to defeat this move. She said it was years away. Two weeks later I see the staked in the back yard. NOT years away. I told her we must speak up to every one around us about the negative effects of this cell tower. Even though I don't have proof, I told her and anyone who would listen about the energy fields causing cancer in the children living in the Village plus generation to come. It would not even give better cell service to anyone living directly in its' path. I was genuinely upset to the point where I secretly planned to undermine the whole thing and most likely wind up in prison for my efforts.

My wife, in the Thai way, approached the neighbor about the situation (that how I discovered all the details). She asked him what assurance did we have against this tower toppling over onto out house, my mother-in-laws house and my sister-in-laws house? She said she wanted some insurance in case case that happened, otherwise she was prepared to create the stink that should have been created in the first place before the stakes were in place. We also noted over the course of the next few nights, that a truck was visiting the neighbors house and it turns out that it was True Move making their plans with him under cover of darkness. I know this sounds a bit covert but it's true. My wife realized what was happening so we sat outside one night until the "truck" appeared. My wife went over with her quiet demand to know the details ( I just wanted to go hit them with baseball bats). Anyway, she asked the neighbor and True for the assurances as before. The "True" guy assured her that they were fully insured against accidents but would not show her any documents. She also pressed the neighbor about an insurance policy against any calamities. Nothing.

The wife was now becoming as furious as I but she internalized hers. The next day she started calling the Village heads and anyone else that would listen asking why this issue wasn't discussed prior to even starting negotiations with True. They weren't even aware of it. The wife started to talk to the neighbors telling them horror stories that I couldn't prove but in my heart "believed".

Three days later I noticed the stakes had been removed, the field plowed and replanted. A few weeks of chemical spray is better than a lifetime of electrical fields, I guess.

Sorry for the long post but in the end the score remains: Farang 1 True Tower 0

True Corp Tower sucks.

Ah but the game is still in the first quarter. Now you will have to await the reprisals from the neighbor.