American Tower Corp. (ATC) today announced changes to its U.S. Tower senior management team. The company said in a press release that Steven Marshall intends to step down from his position as Executive Vice President and President, U.S. Tower Division, effective August 1, 2018. Steve Vondran, who has been with ATC for approximately 18 years, will succeed Marshall in this …
Crown’s Q2 is all good news; ATC and SBA show some weaknesses
The nation’s big three publicly traded tower companies have released second quarter earnings this month and spent time with analysts on their calls, highlighting marked improvement in some areas and offering encouragement of what they believe will be increased revenues as 5G is rolled out. There were also some less than encouraging summaries within their reports, but the Street shrugged them …
Vertical Bridge’s collection chances increase with iHeartMedia bankruptcy court action
Vertical Bridge, one of bankrupt iHeartMedia’s largest unsecured creditors, might have a better chance at securing its past due lease revenues following a filing from iHeartMedia’s unsecured creditors to a Texas bankruptcy judge on Monday that could affect the media giant’s creditors’ Chapter 11 recoveries. The committee of unsecured creditors want to prosecute and settle claims based upon allegations that many …
AT&T takes American Tower to court in widening lease rates rift
In a lawsuit made public on Monday by AT&T Mobility LLC in Delaware Chancery Court, the carrier is alleging that American Towers LLC is not complying with amendments to leasing agreements for many thousands of towers that AT&T co-locates upon. In the complaint, AT&T is requesting the court to enforce what it believes is a binding agreement, that ATC disagrees …
With stark differences after 20 years, another powerful towerco will start trading
American Tower, the first major U.S. towerco to go public on July 8, 1998, will have a 20-year head start on China Tower when the world’s largest tower owner starts trading next month on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but down the road China Tower could become a serious competitor. Other than sharing the same IPO month, an average 5-year lease term and …
Politics and alleged propriety software theft unveiled in lawsuit against American Tower
A small Massachusetts software developer is alleging that through their proprietary analytical tools they identified in proof of concept testing that ATC’s Brazilian subsidiary (ATB) was missing the opportunity to capture millions of dollars’ worth of additional annual cash flow, and according to a complaint filed in Massachusetts U.S. District Court by CellInfo, they said they also found “safety shortcomings, …
Towerco financial support of wireless workers accelerates with a ‘buck a tower’ sponsors
The Tower Family Foundation (TTF), a 501c-3 non-profit, today recognized the updated support of tower owner/vertical solutions provider companies who are donors to the organization’s “$1 Per Tower” fundraising campaign with towercos Cellcom, Performance Development Group, Ltd. and Vogue Towers joining the inaugural list of donor firms participating in the capital campaign. The “$1 Per Tower” effort involves firms who …
ATC misjudges industry pushback and pulls back onerous contractor amendment
In a measure to prevent other towercos from building sites near their structures, and obtain some of their tenants with more favorable lease rates, American Tower Corp. informed their contractors late last month that if they assisted in the construction of a macro tower site within one-half mile of one of their existing towers they would be dropped from their …
Verizon exploring legal action against ATC in using contractors as hostages
American Tower Corp.’s demand letter to contractors stating that if they assist in the building of a macro tower site within one-half mile of one of their existing towers that they will no longer be able to do any work for ATC, and possibly be excluded from working for other carriers on an ATC site, has raised the ire of Verizon …
American Tower to competition’s contractors: Our way or the highway
To lower carrier lease rates, AT&T, Verizon and Tillman Infrastructure last year announced a joint agreement to build hundreds of cell towers, some for new macro builds, others for “build-to-relo”. The major towercos quickly and cavalierly dismissed their efforts as non-hazardous to their business model’s health. But last week American Tower Corp. let it be known that they are concerned and …
‘Un-towerco’ says there will be some pain with a T-Mobile/Sprint merger
If the marriage of Sprint and T-Mobile is approved by regulators, the majority opinion of towerco executives at Connect (X) in Charlotte, N.C. last week was that business would still be robust. Jay Brown, President and CEO of Crown Castle, said during the View From the Top presentation, “It will almost be irrelevant how many carriers we have.” He said …
Bet on the Sprint/T-Mobile mega merger wounding towercos
If the proposed T-Mobile and Sprint merger announced Sunday is approved by federal regulators, both companies said that they expect the marriage creating the nation’s second largest carrier would be sometime in July 2019. However, it’s been identified by the carriers that fully combining the companies is another three to four years, possibly longer. Displaying their lack of fundamental industry …
T-Mobile and Sprint agree to merge creating severe competition for rival AT&T
After years of negotiations, T-Mobile and Sprint announced today that they have finally agreed to tie the knot and will merge in an all-stock transaction of 9.75 Sprint shares for each T-Mobile US share. Based upon Friday’s closing share prices this represents a value of approximately $59 billion for Sprint and approximately $146 billion for the combined company. The new company will …
India tower deal drops American Tower to the world’s third largest towerco
India’s Bharti Infratel Ltd has agreed to merge with Indus Towers, in a deal that creates the world’s second largest telecom tower company, a title that American Tower formerly held. The new company with more than 163,000 towers has an estimated equity value of $14.6 billion Indus Towers’s tower total lags considerably behind the world’s largest tower owner, China Tower …
Bonuses for American Tower execs are a far cry from bread crumbs
When companies started handing out bonuses of $1,000 or more to workers in January as a result of the GOP tax bill, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said they received “crumbs”. Pelosi was not impressed. “In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on …
Smart Fusion Poles to alleviate capacity challenges in California
American Tower Corp. and Philips Lighting have announced that the City of Huntington Beach, CA will provide high capacity mobile connectivity, high quality LED lighting and smart city enablement with the newly developed Smart Fusion Poles. Designed to meet capacity challenges in dense, busy areas in the U.S., the Smart Fusion Pole provides the infrastructure necessary for wireless broadband connectivity in an aesthetically …
American Tower and SBA paint a rosy picture for 2018
American Tower Corp (ATC) and SBA Communications (SBA) informed analysts during their earnings calls this week that higher build levels and increased carrier capex are expected in 2018, supporting above average industry growth. “First, we anticipate that our core U.S. tower market will enjoy strong tenant demand in 2018 and beyond,” said ATC CEO James Taiclet, Jr. yesterday. “Based on …
Aircel’s bankruptcy will cut into American Tower’s revenues
India-based carrier Aircel will file for bankruptcy, according to a report in The Economic Times. The telco, which has a debt of $184 million, has dissolved its board of directors. Aircel, owned by Malaysian company Maxis, has been in debt since its failed merger with Reliance Communications’ wireless business. The merger had failed due to regulatory hurdles and the Supreme Court preventing the sale …
Industry movers and shakers to serve on National Wireless Safety Alliance Board
The National Wireless Safety Alliance (NWSA) announced today that Bernard Borghei, Executive Vice President – Operations and Co-Founder of Vertical Bridge, Doug Dickinson, Western Region Environmental Health & Safety Manager at Ericsson; Bruce Eades, President of USA Telecom Insurance Services; Pat Moore, Field Service Specialist at Stainless; Paul Roberts, Vice President of Compliance for American Tower Corporation; Jose Tarafa, Corporate …
American Tower could take over the Philippines as sole towerco
A new tower siting policy in the Philippines to free telecommunications companies from costly capital expenditures in constructing communication towers and eventually reduce the cost of their services is being rolled out by President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Under the controversial “common tower” policy, telecommunications companies will no longer be allowed to build communication towers or cell sites, but instead must …
