The challenges that operators face when trying to densify their outdoor networks are well documented. It is tough to gain access to the right sites without a time-consuming process of individually negotiating for each one, but even the best efforts to achieve a standardized template – let alone a common scale of pricing – have run into many problems (see separate item). The latest opposition from US cities to proposals by the FCC shows the significance of the problem – and the USA has progressed a lot further than most countries in seeking to address the issue, as its operators gear up for major densification programs, which will only intensify with 5G.