Yellowstone National Park officials, criticized for marring the landscape near Old Faithful geyser with a cellular phone tower, are quietly preparing a plan to cover any expansion of wireless towers, antennas and TV and radio services in the popular park.

The officials met last year with telecommunications companies that currently operate inside Yellowstone or want to do so, asking their suggestions, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Wireless companies that attended the meeting told The Associated Press that park officials asked them to identify potential sites for future wireless towers or antennas that would have the least impact on parkgoers.

The park has been pressured by companies seeking an edge to serve its 2.8 million annual visitors. Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said last week the park is developing “an environmental assessment for wireless communications.”

He said there has been no decision yet to expand existing wireless services and that current planning is designed simply to set the stage for such decisions in the future. “The goal is to give us an appropriate framework and a plan on which we can make solid decisions,” he said.

The environmental group blames cell phones for a “death of solitude,” with tourists gabbing on the phone in some of the nation’s most revered nature spots. It alleges the park’s meeting with industry on March 31, 2005, was illegal because there was no public notification.

“Yellowstone belongs to the American people who ought to have some say before it is transformed into a giant cybercafe,” PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said.

Lane Baker, deputy chief ranger at Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., reaches for her cell phone in this March 22, 2004, file photo. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Yellowstone National Park is preparing a plan that could expand wireless towers and antennas as well as TV and radio service in the sprawling geothermal park.

Nash, the Yellowstone spokesman, said the public will get a chance to weigh in next month during a comment period before officials draft the plan and again when the draft circulates in late summer. A final decision is expected by year’s end.

The released documents indicate the 2005 meeting participants, including Verizon Wireless, Qwest and five other communications companies, discussed several tower locations beyond the five that now provide limited park coverage.

The Yellowstone plan will look at two-way radio, cellular communications, wireless Internet and research devices, Nash said.

There is one basic condition: If Yellowstone adds any new cell towers, they will be in “existing, disturbed, developed areas,” where most people congregate and roads and power already exist, he said.

“The questions about backcountry and solitude are valuable and those are the kinds of things this plan will certainly delve into,” he said.

Tourists don’t always agree on the desirability of nonstop phone access, said Marysue Costello, executive director of the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce.

“There are those who think this is where you come and get away from everything. On the other hand, it is now the expectation of a majority of people. People come in here and are surprised that they can’t get cell coverage.”