It also would consolidate some of the telecommunications equipment that mars certain parts of the park, such as the mass of antennas that crowns Bunsen Peak, a popular hiking destination near Mammoth Hot Springs.
"Yellowstone is not one place," said Tom Ollitt, the park official who oversaw the plan. "It's three to four different experiences. The developed areas have a different experience than anywhere else in Yellowstone."
Park officials say they drew up the proposal after being approached in 2004 by cellular companies who wanted to build 27 towers and provide full coverage throughout the park. They acknowledge that cell signals aimed at developed sites can spill into nearby forests and lakes, but say they hope signs advising visitors to be courteous will cut noise pollution.
Other national parks have weighed how best to accommodate cellphone users without destroying the scenery. Activists hired a consultant to advise the park service on how to conceal a cellphone tower erected at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in Virginia.
The few national parks or recreation areas that have drawn up telecommunications plans say that, like Yellowstone, they hope to limit structures to sites that are already paved.
Three cellular towers rise above developed areas at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and the park's plan calls for restricting any others to marinas or visitor centers. At Golden Gate National Recreation Area, officials say policy is to minimize cell signals in the park's rural areas while accommodating cellphone providers and tenants in facilities in San Francisco.
Cellphone towers were first allowed on federal land by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Although the House Commerce Committee, which drew up the law, said that places such as Yellowstone would not be appropriate sites for cell towers, the act indicated that towers should only be rejected if they would conflict with the use of the land.
Yellowstone has long relied upon mounted antennas to support its microwave-based telephone system. Radio towers provide communications for rangers' devices and signals for commercial stations in neighboring towns. The first cell tower, built in 1999, rose 100 feet on a hillside south of Old Faithful. In response to complaints, the park lopped 20 feet off the tower in 2005. The new plan calls for moving it and concealing it in a stand of trees. There are five towers in the park.
