Ken Schmidt on LinkedIn: Verizon Cell Tower Lease (2024)

Is the Rivalry Intensifying Among Major Tower Companies?Carriers are relocating from one public tower company tower to another. Other tower companies are trying to sign marketing agreements with their competitor's landlords. What's going on?

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The "answer" from the wireless industry in the US is that spectrum sharing won't happen here. The argument against sharing is that carriers have too much lobbying presence with the FCC and Congress, and they don't want to share spectrum or give up competitive advantage. Personally, I am not too sure. The MNOs are pushing sharing and subleasing language in their leases and master leases. The business case for sharing, especially in rural areas, makes a lot of sense, especially in the US, where 97% of its land mass is considered rural. Ericcson's increasing share of the OEM market and OpenRAN may make sharing easier.

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The graphic doesn't include future expectations for telecom Capex- but this statement summarizes their findings: "Our forecasts indicate that capital intensity (capex/revenue) will fall from around 20% now to 12–14% by the end of the decade. Capex will fall basically because customers do not need more than the 1Gbit/s fiber and unlimited 5G that the current networks are easily capable of delivering, and growth in measurable demand slows every year." I have been asking myself the same question- have we reached peak telecom? For consumers, possibly. For enterprises - no.

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The potential acquisition of U.S. Cellular by T-Mobile and Verizon could significantly impact the telecommunications landscape, especially affecting cell tower landowners and tower companies. Stakeholders should stay informed and proactive to navigate the potential changes effectively. #telecom #celltower #towerlease #Tmobile #Verizon

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It's easy to see how a city and area residents wouldn't want one of these light pole cell site designs and rejected the proposed installation at a Carlsbad city park. But this proposed site is in one of the designated "preferred" areas for wireless siting in the code. Nonetheless, the City rejected the application on appeal. I am guessing that it didn't help that Verizon followed up shortly thereafter with their own separate application and the City was faced with multiple similar sites at the park. To me, it begs the following questions:1. Could AT&T have proposed something less obtrusive than these three options? 2. Wondering if the Parks department negotiated the lease without fully thinking about what the end result would look like? 3. What's the point of having "preferred" locations under the City wireless policy if the City isn't going to honor it? 4. How much money and time did AT&T waste pursuing this? https://lnkd.in/gje8EkVR

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This is not a surprising result of this litigation, although it leaves the door open to Vertical Bridge modifying its complaint. (I doubt they will.)

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BREAKING NEWS: It's official: T-Mobile will acquire most of US Cellular. The important points: > $4.4 billion > Includes > Wireless operations > 30% of spectrum (600MHz, 2.5GHz, 700 MHz, AWS, PCS) >Does not include towers > TMO to sign MLA for 15 years on a minimum 2,015 towers > TMO will remain on 600 US Cellular towers > USC will now be able to sell the tower company > USC to sell remainder of spectrum (possibly to VZW or other parties)> No mention of how they expect to get DOJ and FCC approval for the transaction. It is hard not to see this as anti-competitive, notably announced on the same day that TMO raised rates for older subscriber plans. It seems like a good resolution for USC and TDS, if approved.

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Here are my top takeaways from this year’s event:1. Lack of Clarity on 5G Deployment/Capex.2. Spectrum Availability.3. Private Tower Valuations.... and more.

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