Make your company’s concerns count As wireless contractors are acutely aware, contractor firms in the industry have experienced trends that have seen payment terms go from 30 days to 60 days, and now are settling in at 90 to 120 days, placing an undue financial burden on contractor companies. It’s not whether these terms could potentially compromise safety and hinder …
Puech picked to succeed Hess in American Tower executive leadership change
American Tower Corp. today announced changes to its senior management team. William H. Hess intends to step down from his position as Executive Vice President, International Operations and President, Latin America and EMEA, effective October 1, 2018. Olivier Puech, who has been with American Tower for approximately five years, will succeed Hess in the role of Executive Vice President and …
Hurricane Florence’s ‘ground zero’ cell tower starts to be battered by storm’s outer rain bands
There was no collective sigh of relief from wireless infrastructure technicians and management as Hurricane Florence was downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 2 storm early this morning. Instead, news that the storm has widened and may stay over the coast of the Carolinas for a longer period of time, causing extensive flooding and cell site fuel resupply …
Firefighters secure the safety of 20 towers in Holy Fire flareup
When the Holy Fire in the Santa Ana mountains in California was contained on Sunday, tower owners gave out a collective sigh of relief. However, yesterday morning the Cleveland National Forest reported new activity around 10 a.m. as flames were heading towards Santiago Peak, home to approximately 20 communication towers. However, crews battled the unexpected flareup using air tankers and …
Verizon’s ‘Bubba’ remark angering community is first in dozens of Fast-Forward Friday articles
Fast-Forward Friday is Wireless Estimator’s latest news offering that provides an overview of relevant industry news stories presented during the week by other media that were not covered by our staff, along with a link to the article to go upstream and read it in its entirety. After all, the articles’ authors did all the heavy lifting, and capsuling their content and …
Nation takes a deep dive into contractor obstacles threatening 5G with industry supported survey
Wireless contractors have recently raised the distinct possibility that due to what they identify as ‘onerous’ payment terms and other issues created by carriers and tower owners, the industry could see a shakeout, and all of the recent successful legislative moves to speed up the implementation of 5G in America could be stymied as cash flow problems keep contractors from …
Vondran given reins after Marshall’s nine-year successful reign as American Tower’s U.S. tower chief
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 …
