Questionable Negotiating Tactics of Cell Tower Contracts
February 26th, 2010 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »A client of ours recently commented to me that he agreed to terms that were lower than we recommended because he was tired of negotiating with the tower company. They had contacted him to extend his lease and even though there were 15 years remaining were pestering him on a weekly basis. Think about this- this particular tower company (a public tower company) agent felt that it was appropriate to contact a landowner about extending his lease weekly even though there were over 180 weeks remaining before the lease was set to expire. They were so desperate to extend their lease that they needed to call over and over far in advance. These high pressure sales techniques were set up specifically to have this effect.
Before you get the wrong impression that I am trying to single out a particular tower company or lease optimization firm- I want to point out that this tower company isn’t alone. The lease optimization firms use similar tactics regularly. The lease buyout companies also rely upon constant calls as a tool to wear down the landowner and make them agree to terms that they wouldn’t absent the constant pressure. The constant suggestion is that if you don’t do something now- our offer will decrease. Fact: With rare exception, the offers almost never decrease.
Who is the worst- the lease buyout firms for sure. Some of the lease optimization firms call you over and over- not leaving a message but waiting until you pick up. And if you don’t pick up, they use another number that you might not recognize until they get you. One lease optimization firm told a client’s secretary that if she didn’t get her boss on the phone, that he would sue her personally. (I called the wireless carrier who retained this firm to let them know of this pathetic tactic. They promised to resolve it so that would never occur again.)
When did their business objectives become more important than common decency? The simple answer is never. If you are getting pestered and don’t feel that you have the answers to make an informed decision, please contact us. There are very few situations where you have to make an immediate decision and we will certainly let you know if yours is one of them. Otherwise, take your time, do your research. We will be here when you feel that you need help.
July 25th, 2009 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Stealth tower????
February 13th, 2009 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Worst stealth tower I have seen. Looks nothing like a tree- well perhaps the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. This particular company was cheap and it shows.
Wireless Capital Shutting Their Doors?
September 26th, 2008 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »One of WCP’s agents told us yesterday that WCP is closing its doors and will not be funding any of the deals for which it has signed letters of intent. He mentioned that he was told this on a conference call where he was let go earlier this week. WCP blamed the issue on the financial markets.
Allegedly, WCP will release individuals who have signed letters of intent from their deal if the landowner calls WCP and requests to be released.
If you have entered into a deal with WCP and would like to check out other options, please contact us.
"Elf Tower Video"
April 28th, 2008 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »A video about cell towers- or as the maker of the video calls them “elf towers”. This video speaks for itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNBKk-remxU&feature=related
Marketing of Cell Tower and Rooftop Sites
December 15th, 2007 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »Landowners who have a tower lease or a rooftop lease for a cell site are being contacted regularly by companies that allege that they can “Market” the cell tower or cell site for future use by other wireless carriers thereby increasing the revenue on the site. Many landowners we talk to are intrigued by the possibility of getting additional rent from additional cell site users.
We believe that these offers are rarely good ones for the landowner. If you have been approached by a company offering to “market” your land or rooftop, more than likely they just want to purchase your lease or get a fee for listing your property on a list. And after they purchase the lease or list the property, it is possible that you never hear from them until you are contacted directly by a wireless carrier who wants to lease your property or rooftop. At this point, regardless of the fact that the marketing company had nothing to do with getting an additional tenant on your roof or tower, instead of getting 100% of the revenue for your property, you get 50%.
We strongly recommend that if anyone suggests to you that they can acquire additional leases for you- that you ask them how many leases they have found for other landowners like you. Some companies represent that they have acquired millions of dollars in future revenue for their clients. Ask them directly how many leases they have acquired on behalf of their clients and how many clients they have. Ask how many people in their organization directly market their cell sites to the carriers. How many local representatives do they have in your city whose sole responsibility it is to call on the wireless companies? How many people do they have in the entire company whose sole responsibility it is to market cell sites to the wireless carriers?
If you have a tower that is owned by another company, ask them how they are going to be more effective at marketing your location than the tower company that owns the tower who has 50-100 people whose only job it is to keep in touch with the carriers to add more tenants to the tower.
If you come across any of the myriad of websites for represent that you can pay them a listing fee for marketing your site for wireless- ask the same questions.
Steel in the Air does not market cell sites- nor would we ever even try to. We could easily convince a few hundred of the 20,000 visitors to our website every month to shell out $100 to list their property with us- but we don’t. We used to do property evaluations- and had a significant amount of interest in the service. We stopped because we could not stomach taking money from landowners who would never see anything in return for our services other than a pretty map.
If you want to increase your chances of getting other tenants on your rooftop or on the tower on your property- there are some things you can do for free. First see our page on how to get a cell tower on your property. There are links to the carrier websites where you can submit your information. Secondly, be patient. This industry is based around location, location, location- if your site is in the right location, the carriers will use it. If not- they won’t. No amount of marketing will convince a carrier that your site is right for them when it isn’t. And lastly, please don’t contact Steel in the Air. We simply can’t and won’t help you market your site.
Wireless Carrier Expenditures Estimated 2007-2010
July 12th, 2007 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »Just an interesting note from a Crown Castle presentation to a Lehman Brothers conference:
Wireless capital expenditures for the years from 2007-2010 are expected to remain relatively flat at $28 Billion in 2007, $27 Billion in 2008, $27 Billion in 2009, and $27 Billion again in 2010.
What may not be as obvious in these estimates which Crown credits to Goldman Sachs research is that there will likely be a fluctuation in where this deployment capital comes from. Historically, the lion’s share has come from the Big 4- AT&T Mobility, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, and T-Mobile. That will still continue, but with larger contributions from MetroPCS and Leap Wireless as they expand their networks into new areas with the Advanced Wireless Services spectrum they acquired in 2006.
Simultaneously, mobile penetration is expected to grow from 2006 to 2010 from 72% of the population to 87% of the population. Estimated annual wireless minutes of use (MOU) for the Big 4 wireless carriers jump from 1,797 BILLION minutes to 3,658 Billion minutes in 2010. In essence, while the number of subscribers will only increase 21% during that time, the number of minutes we use will increase by over 103%. (Crown cites TIA Pulse Online and CTIA)
MetroPCS set to build over 1000 sites in New York
June 27th, 2007 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Now that MetroPCS has acquired spectrum under the Advanced Wireless Services auction and spent over $363,000,000 to acquire the 10 mHz NYC C block license (shown in dark red) which covers 27,000,000 people and acquired an additional 10 mHz of spectrum with the Northeast D block license (shown in light red) for $552,000,000 which covers the entire northeast and includes over 50,000,000 people, they have plans to start building out the network. See MetroPCS auction bids in this PDF from the FCC. (Map -copyright 2007- Steel in the Air, Inc.)
As MetroPCS is new to the NYC area, they are essentially building an entire network from the ground up. That means that many New York City rooftop owners will be contacted by MetroPCS leasing representatives (called site acquisition agents) to lease their rooftops/billboards/towers/property. We have heard that the initial build plans for MetroPCS in the New York metropolitan area will be around 1000 to 1300 cell sites. Each of those will need a cell site lease- whether a rooftop cell site lease or a cell tower lease.
If you are contacted by MetroPCS for the use of your property- Steel in the Air, Inc can assist you with evaluating the MetroPCS cell site lease proposal. We can ascertain whether they have numerous options and we can assist you with making sure that you get a fair market value for the site. We can be retained on a hourly consulting basis or on a commission basis based upon the value of the increase in your lease that we help you procure.
If you are looking for legal assistance with evaluating the MetroPCS lease- our sister company, Cell Tower Attorney can help you review the proposed lease and protect your interests in the negotiations. Please see our page on the MetroPCS cell site lease agreement. We are licensed in New York state.
Cell Site Lease Buyout Firm Backs Out of Purchases of Sprint-Nextel Leases
June 26th, 2007 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »If you have been approached to sell a cell site lease for Nextel or Sprint, and you have other cell site leases that you wish to sell- be careful about the contract you enter to sell the leases.
It has come to our attention that one of the largest lease purchase companies has entered into agreements to purchase multiple leases from a client of ours including a Nextel cell site lease and a Sprint cell site lease and is now backing out of purchasing one of those leases due to potential perceived risk from termination because of the Sprint/Nextel merger. I question how they weren’t aware of this risk prior to signing the agreements to purchase the leases. I can assure you that the client would not have agreed to sell absent their committment to purchase both.
In essence, they are purchasing the cell site leases that have little or no risk- and keeping those that don’t. The landowner gives up the most valuable cell site leases (those with nominal risk of termination)- and gets to keep the ones with the most risk.
This is a pretty one sided deal. If you are dealing with a similar offer to buy multiple leases-we suggest either selling all the leases or none. And get it in writing that during the due diligence period- they can only decide to buy them all or not.
If you have further questions about this topic- please see our webpage on selling cell site leases.
AT&T Mistakenly Reduces Cell Phone Tower Lease Rent
June 24th, 2007 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »AT&T (previously Cingular), through a lease optimization firm (either BlackDot or Md7), contacts a landowner with a cell phone tower lease with AT&T and requests that the owner reduce their rent. The landowner tells AT&T that they won’t reduce the rent and does not agree to the proposed amendment to the cell phone tower lease. AT&T reduces the rent checks anyway.
The landowner calls AT&T via their landowner hotline and gets no response. The landowner sends a letter to AT&T- no response. The landowner retains an attorney and files suit for breach of lease- and AT&T finally responds through outside counsel alleging that it was a mistake. That this particular tower is very important to them and that they don’t want to lose it.
Was it a mistake that the landowner did not get called back? Was it a mistake when AT&T failed to respond to the letter? In this case, it appears that the mistake was not a mistake until the landowner filed a lawsuit and AT&T was faced with possible termination of their cell phone tower lease. We have received calls/emails from AT&T or Cingular landowners who called the 1-800 landowner hotline which suggested that they leave a message to receive a return call- but never received one.
We don’t know if AT&T chose not to answer the hotline or return calls because they received too many calls and could not handle them or if they simply felt that it would undermine the effectiveness of the lease optimization project if landowners could actually talk to AT&T reps directly. Perhaps AT&T was simply too involved in its merger mania of late to concentrate on these issues. (for a hilarious history of the regulation and deregulation of AT&T – see http://consumerist.com/consumer/colbert/stephen-colbert-explains-the-cingularattbellsouth-merger-229357.php?mail2=true) It is entirely possible that the landowners who contacted us were not representative and that other landowners did in fact reach AT&T. We have not heard of this particular mistake of reducing rent without an amendment occuring on other cell phone tower sites.
We have been contacted and retained by some landowner who had their cell phone tower lease terminated by AT&T/Cingular, only to be contacted again by Cingular who alleged that the termination was a mistake. In those situations- it became a mistake when Cingular determined that if they bundled their terminated cell phone towers together and included even the empty ones- that someone was bound to buy them. (See our last post for more details on that.)