ESBSSA

[usa4]

What constitutes a cellular telephone service building for the essential service building seismic saftey act?
Is it a building with a cell tower on it like many tall buildings have or something else?

[brantfetter]

I don't have the definitive answer, however, when I've worked on cell site installations, the small prefab buildings and towers were typically considered a specific class of structure from a pure code standpoint. When we installed antenna on existing structures other than cell towers, the code view of purpose was restricted very narrowly to the equipment and not the building, in terms of communication services. I have the feeling that CA most likely views the protection of such infrastructure assets in this fashion since they want to make sure that cell sites that look like a little storage shed might be ignored from a seismic standpoint when it is actually a critical structure. Plus, if you think about it, assigning a new more stringent seismic category to a whole existing building based on the installation of antennas would be incredibly burdensome, and difficult to apply.

[Coach]

All cell towers and their service buildings aren't ESBs.

http://ca.regstoday.com/law/hsc/ca.regs ... PTER2.aspx