By this time next summer, it may be possible to watch the sunset from the Aquinnah cliffs and talk - uninterrupted - on a cell phone.

That is the hope anyway of Jeffrey Burgoyne, Aquinnah town administrator, who along with selectmen from Chilmark and West Tisbury, has been working for the past two years to launch a project to install a partially underground system to make uniform cell phone service available in the up-Island towns.

Cell phone service is currently available in most areas in West Tisbury, but is not available in most areas of Chilmark and Aquinnah.

And as word gets around about the plan to build what is known as a distributed antennae system in the three up-Island towns, cell phone providers have begun to line up like expectant children at the door of an ice cream store.

This week Mr. Burgoyne heard from GCPS, the fifth company to express interest in the distributed antennae system, a wireless communication system that uses a base station to connect fiber optic cables with a series of antennas placed on utility poles. Representatives from GCPS also attended a Chilmark selectmen's meeting on Tuesday night.

"We are pleasantly swamped with offers from cell phone companies," Chilmark selectman J.B. Riggs Parker said.

Crown Castle, Powerwave, NextG and National Grid Wireless are also interested.

Two years ago, Aquinnah voters adopted a series of zoning bylaw amendments after a court dispute with Cingular Wireless over its plan to install a cellular antennae inside the steeple of the Gay Head Community Baptist Church. The issue forced the tiny rural town in the westernmost reaches of the Island to confront the future when it comes to cell towers. "Aquinnah was faced with the likely situation of a number of companies coming and putting up cell towers," Mr. Burgoyne said. The town decided to pursue technology that would both meet the needs of the town and preserve its visual aesthetics.

The distributed antennaee system meets those needs, Mr. Burgoyne said. In many cases, the antennaee, which are three feet high, can be placed on top of existing utility poles. "One would have to be looking for them to spot them," Mr. Burgoyne said. He also said with distributed antennae, height is not necessarily an advantage. There are many areas up-Island where roads are covered with canopies of trees. In these locations, antennae placed below the canopy would carry a signal better than a higher antennae placed above the trees. The ideal height for a pole in the distributed antennae system is between 30 and 40 feet, Mr. Burgoyne said. The average telephone pole is 40 feet high. "It is a nifty way to provide a signal without the anguish of destroying the landscape," he said.

The interest in a distributed antennae system comes at a time of rapidly advancing cell phone technology. "With more options comes the capacity to deliver more services," Mr. Burgoyne said.

Mr. Parker said if demand increases after the system is built, it will be easy to expand by simply adding more antennaee, which are far less intrusive visually than towers. "With towers, if usage increases, you have to add another tower," Mr. Parker said. Mr. Burgoyne agreed. "Clearly it's the answer in the long term, as opposed to more and more towers," he said.

The technology will come at a cost to the towns - although precise numbers are not known yet. Aquinnah voters have already approved a location for the base station at the town landfill. A base station, where all the cables in the system converge, is about the same size as and looks like a self-storage unit, Mr. Burgoyne said. Including all of the materials and a power generator, a base station could cost roughly $125,000, he said, not including the cost of shipping. A system that covered all three towns would involve roughly 30 random access nodes, boxes for each antennae to tap into the cables. The cost of one node ranges from $75,000 to $80,000.

As envisioned by Mr. Burgoyne, the first pole would be at the Aquinnah Lighthouse. From there, poles would run along State Road and into Chilmark, through Beetlebung Corner and down South Road into West Tisbury. All the poles would connect to the Aquinnah base station; a signal from the station can extend up to ten linear miles. Once in West Tisbury, Mr. Burgoyne would hope to piggyback onto existing infrastructure, such as a wireless facility at the airport or a cell tower that sits on private property in West Tisbury.

Mr. Burgoyne said after two years, Aquinnah is nearly finished with the planning portion of the project.

He said a company will be chosen, he hopes in the fall, through a request for proposals and unanimous agreement among Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury.

Mr. Parker said the three towns will need to enter into an inter-municipal agreement for the project.

The company that wins the contract will be responsible for contacting cell phone carriers to rent space on the base station for their signal to reach customers.

On Tuesday night in Chilmark, GCPS spokesman Mark Russell presented his company's plan. He said 12 to 16 antennae would be placed in Aquinnah and new poles would have to go up, contradicting the part of the plan that calls for no new structures.

Town residents and selectmen were concerned at the protect of new poles. "It's an issue of public safety versus scenic preservation," said resident James Gollin. "It's not an easy issue."

Mr. Parker said nothing will be decided quickly. But he said now is the time to investigate. "Opportunity is knocking," Mr. Parker said later.

Mr. Burgoyne agreed. "The time is now," he said.