The southwestern portion of the City of Lakewood, a suburb of Denver, CO, was experiencing extremely poor wireless coverage. Residents complained of little or no cell coverage in their home, which was inconvenient and posed safety concerns for those who rely primarily on wireless services. The topology of the area and zoning regulations made it challenging for individual wireless companies to construct towers to help improve coverage in the area. The planning and development boards opposed the construction of typical free standing monopoles or ill-disguised cell tower pine trees with equipment housed in ground level shelters, as those would have a significant visual impact in this largely residential area.

NewPath used small antennas attached to customized light posts that match the others in the neighborhood to achieve aesthetics that were acceptable to the neighborhood.

The City of Lakewood found that NewPath could offer a less intrusive solution through a distributed antenna system architecture. With NewPath, each individual wireless company's equipment is housed off-site at a hub on a commercial property. Then, specially designed light poles were used to hold the transmitter panels and to house fiber optic cable and a small amount of equipment within the pole or in underground vaults. The transmitter panels connect back to the service provider equipment in the hub location via the fiber optic cable, so no ground space was required within the neighborhood area. The light poles were designed to look nearly identical to the others already present in the neighborhood, including standing at the same height and producing the same lighting intensity.

NewPath was granted a special use permit by the planning commission for 12 pole locations. When nine locations were up and operational, the planning commission held a hearing on the expansion of the project and a second phase of deployments. Citizens attended that meeting and gave resounding support to NewPath and their efforts to improve cell coverage while maintaining neighborhood aesthetics. They advocated for the severe need for improved cell service, and were very complementary of the project's look, particularly since the sites are located on local, residential streets throughout their own neighborhoods.

"At both the neighborhood meeting and Planning Commission hearing, citizens attended in resounding support of the [NewPath Networks] project, advocating the great need for improved cell service and complimentary of the project's aesthetics, particularly for being on local, residential streets." Gail Spencer City of Lakewood Community Planning and Development

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