New legislation, proposed by Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos and inspired by a fight over a new cell phone tower in Bernal Heights, may make it more difficult to place a call in some neighborhoods of S.F. as more and more people buy smart phones and try to play Words with Friends simultaneously on the bus at 5:30 p.m. As noted by Matt Baume over at NBC Bay Area, "As a result [of this proposed legislation], more parts of the City may become like AT&T in the Upper Haight: impossible to place a call unless you walk several blocks north or south."
S.F. already has regulations limiting cell phone towers on aesthetic grounds, but the new legislation appears to have been backed by worries over cellular radiation, which Baume points out is actually lessened with more towers, and less straining for signal (is this true?). In any event, this could pose a problem for AT&T and that alleged citywide upgrade, but it might also mean future headaches (but not brain cancer!) for non-iphone people too.