Can you hear me yet?

HARDYSTON-Soon Verizon cellular phone customers won't be dropping calls when on State Route 23 or 515 or in the lakeside neighborhoods. The planning board agreed unanimously to approve Verizon's proposal to extend the Nextel tower located at 12 World Drive to 160 feet, and to install five equipment cabinets, 12 antennas, four receptors and four preceptors on top of the existing tower. The new equipment will bring Verizon into compliance with federal E-911 service, which will enable the police to find a caller within a 5.1-meter area, even when the caller doesn't know where he is. E-911 service routes calls to the local police department. Verizon's strategy in Sussex County is to co-locate its equipment with that of other installations, said Verizon consultant Russell Warnet, an architect experienced in designing telecommunications facilities. "The World Drive site is perfectly suited to co-location," Warnet said. "Because the site already is approved for the use, we won't have to be concerned about doing another environmental study," he continued. Verizon engineers noticed a major service gap on Route 515. The area is difficult to cover because of high rock outcroppings, valleys and heavy foliage. To identify the locations where additional coverage might be required, Verizon technicians drove around the entire area logging the performance of the existing system. Warnet told the board that Verizon operates at a low frequency. "The FCC controls the radio frequencies, and mandates that we comply with emissions standards," he said. "The antenna will not interfere with other carriers or other electronics. The facility will be monitored remotely from a station in Bedminster."