BizWeek:

Wireless service providers have long faced a dilemma when it comes to the towers that help transmit calls. Customers want seamless coverage—except they don't want the coverage-boosting cellular towers in their backyards.

Two main concerns typically arise. For starters, towers can be just plain ugly, and residents don't want to see property values dragged down. Then there are questions about possible health risks associated with exposure to radiation emitted from the equipment. The San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) is among the many organizations across the U.S. fighting to keep carriers from placing towers too close to neighborhood schools, hospitals, and playgrounds.
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Now comes Bob Jones, president of Sanswire Networks, who's pushing the idea of "stratellites" that would house cellular antennas in computerized blimps hovering 12 to 13 miles above Earth. According to Jones, the blimps would be a more efficient way to give widespread coverage to customers, while keeping the source hidden.
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Meantime, the carriers have plenty of other ways to conceal antennas. Larson Camouflage in Tucson, Ariz., counts Cingular, Sprint Nextel (S ), and Deutsche Telekom's (DT ) T-Mobile among its clients. Says Larson Camouflage president Andrew Messing, his company works with the carrier and the local site to make sure it seamlessly blends in with the surroundings, whether it's a 200-foot grain silo in Illinois or a church cross in California.

The silo pic embedded above--a place in Upstate New York, which is like Vermont only in, uh...New York--comes from a site I found while looking for stuff on camo-towers.  The company is called Sollenberger Silos Corporation. and they apparently specialize in concrete silos for all sorts of applications, including housing cellular antenna.

I know we have a bunch around Vermont, but can't locate any pics.  Did find this one of a pine tree tower in Barnet, though:

As it says on the New England Cellular Sites:

This is a fairly new cell tower disguised as a pine tree. Although ridiculously obvious and a waste of $$ in my opinion to even try and disguise, it does a good job giving a signal between exits 18 (Barnet) and 17 (Wells River) on I - 91.

Im not sure if there are any other carriers on it, although I know VZW is one of them.

Apparently there are a number of tree and silo towers all along Route 7 up and down the west side of Vermont. Even those seem to encounter resistance in a state whose biggest draw is bucolic splendor.  Going back just a few years:

A proposal to erect a 150-foot communications tower "camouflaged as a pine tree," off Route 14 in Sharon, will be reviewed by the District 3 Environmental Commission next Tuesday, March 18.

The Act 250 hearing on what could be the state’s first tower disguised as a pine tree will commence at 9:15 a.m., at the Sharon Town Offices.

The application, from Nextel Partners of Albany, N.Y. and landowner Nora Newcity, indicates the tower will be a "monopole," as opposed to a metal-lattice-type tower.

According to District 3 Coordinator Julia Schmitz, the proposed site is not far from the southbound rest area, off I-89 in Sharon. Nextel had previously proposed erecting a 135-foot tower, this one designed to look like a very large silo, on the same site. The silo-tower application has been withdrawn, she said.

Until the late-90s, I couldn't get cell reception at my home in Fletcher--a tower had been built on top of Georgia Mountain several miles away in 1997 after a great deal of debate, but it wasn't until a couple years later that I was startled to hear my phone ring as I was driving up to the house.  Now there's discussion of building a wind farm on the same mountain in Milton:

At Monday night's Selectboard meeting, Peter Cross of Cross Consulting Engineers presented the board and about a dozen town residents with information regarding a wind measurement project being planned for the southernmost ridge of Georgia Mountain. The property is owned by Jim Harrison and HW Ventures LC and is part of a parcel of about 700 acres.

Cross emphasized that neither he nor Harrison were required to seek Selectboard approval before undertaking this project, but both were there to provide the town with information up-front. Under Vermont law, the project is required to be reviewed by the town as a statutory party, but not approved.

The 130-foot wind measurement tower that Harrison hopes to erect would be in place for two to three years to determine the economic viability of wind turbines on the mountain, Cross said. Harrison has not yet applied for the installation permit for a temporary tower from the Vermont Public Service Board, but hopes to within a month, Cross said.

If the plan was approved, Cross anticipated the tower would be in place by fall.

In addressing the aesthetic concerns anticipated with the tower, Cross said the "impacts will be minimal."

"It won't be anywhere near as visible as the cell tower. It will look insignificant compared to the cell tower," Cross said, referring to the tower that sits on a segment of Harrison's land.

Cross pointed out that if the data from the tower prove wind turbines are viable, no more than 10 would be erected on the mountain due to space considerations. He also pointed out they are far from making those decisions now. 

It's always a tough balancing act dealing with energy and communication needs while preserving nature's beauty, but somehow we find a way!  Now if only I could get real broadband Internet access where I live, instead of dreadfully overpriced and underperforming satellite--guess I just need to move out of the boonies...