If you’ve driven in downtown State College, you may have noticed large black boxes attached to some street lamps in town.

They’re there to improve wireless infrastructure.

12 black boxes are scattered throughout the borough – nine downtown and three in the outlying area. 

Crowne Castle installed them and said customers will see better mobile coverage, improved call quality and fewer dropped calls.

“They’re basically small nodes that allow to super energize the signal that’s there,” Amy Kerner, Borough Engineer, said. “With so many people wanting to use it, this just enhances the amount of people who can capture data and use their plans.”

The borough entered a five year agreement with Crowne Castle to install the equipment.

“There is a fee that we are charging them for rental. That seems to come up in terms of what is the borough getting out of this,” Kerner said. “They are located on our poles, so part of the agreement is they have to pay a service fee to basically be in our right of way and on our poles.”