Global Tower Parters Appears to have purchased AT&T Decommissioned Cell Towers
June 13th, 2007 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »One of our clients received a letter from AT&T Mobility, LLC regarding the AT&T cell tower that stated that Global Towers, LLC – (Global Tower Partners or GTP) had acquired the tower in a transaction dated May 04, 2007.
We had heard previously that AT&T Mobility was offering the cell towers that they intended to decommission (between 400 to 700 actual towers) to the tower companies. These towers are typically towers where AT&T and Cingular had duplication in their network and no longer needed both sites. This was clearly the case here as this was a Cingular tower that was adjacent to a AT&T cell site mounted on a Sprint tower. Please note that the actual number of cell sites that AT&T/Cingular will terminate is definitely greater than 400-700- these were only the towers.
This portfolio is allegedly cashflow negative- meaning that it brings in less than the expense of operating the sites. AT&T Mobility wisely felt that they could sell these sites rather than decommission them. As there has not been an announcement by Global Towers of this purchase, we don’t know whether they purchased a portion of the towers or all of the towers. Depending upon the geographic distribution of the towers- this could be a good acquisition for Global Tower Partners. Only time (and actual lease up or lack thereof) will tell.
Blackdot Finds Religion
December 8th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »A church client of mine has been working with agents from Md7 and from Blackdot who have both represented that they are assigned the churches whom are being pitched to reduce their lease rate for existing cell site leases.
The Md7 agent referenced his religious background as support for why the deal he was negotiating with my client was a good deal.
My client paraphrased the most recent discussion with Blackdot’s agent who stated that he gets all the churches because his boss knows that he “has a passion for Christ.”
Clearly, I can’t speak to whether either individual is religious or actually believes that they are doing the right thing by negotiating lease reductions from churches that have no risk of losing their lease. I hope that they aren’t simply trying to use religious connection as a means of “connecting” to the lessors. If they are- I hope their God is a forgiving one.
November 6th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
From RCR News- the largest tower companies in the US. Please note that the list is fairly incomplete and just shows those that have contacted RCR News.
American Tower Corp. 22,288
Crown Castle International Corp. 12,910
Global Signal Inc. 11,000
SBA Communications Corp. 5,500
Global Tower Partners 2,357
Clear Channel Vertical Real Estate 1,378
National Grid Wireless 450
TowerCo L.L.C. 360
Subcarrier Communications, Inc. 280
Optasite Inc. 268
Roberts Tower Company, LLC 186
Southeast Towers L.L.C. 175
Communication Enhancement L.L.C. 140
Day Wireless Systems 110
Dobson Cellular Systems Inc. 91
Liberty Towers 83
Wichita Towers LLC. 64
Lattice Communications L.L.C. 48
Towers of Texas Inc. 37
Skyway Towers LLC. 30
Central States Tower L.L.C. 28
Chesapeak-Ridan LLC 20
ClearShot Communications 20
City Switch L.L.C. 7
CitySwitch to Build Towers on Railroad Easements without need for Local Zoning Approval
November 6th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »A new startup called CitySwitch, LLC that is funded largely by Norfolk Southern is prepared to offer what they believe are unique opportunities to wireless carriers for buildout of towers. CitySwitch works with railroad companies to place towers on railroad easements.
An article in RCR News has Cityswitch stating that “We can build in a lot of places that others can’t”. They might want to ask Unisite (acquired by ATC) about the US Post Office deal they did where they believed that they also were exempt from local zoning regulations for placement of towers only to find out that most post offices did not have legitimate reasons for building 200′ cell towers for their own communication uses. This is similar to statements by CitySwitch that because their land “is controlled by the federal government, (Cityswitch) can build pretty much as it sees fit, provided that the towers be used to some extent for railroad purposes.” CitySwitch might inquire with Sprint who is currently in litigation for using electric company easements to place sites without getting the underlying landowner’s permission. At issue in that situation is whether the underlying easement permitted development of a cell tower which was not used primarily for electric company purposes.
Both of these examples failed because the tower company or carrier felt they could build where they wanted to without input from local landowners.
Ironically, AAT Communications previously had the rights to lease Norfolk Southern towers to the wireless carriers and found such minimal lease up that it was not worth their time. Having personally submitted an collocation application to AAT for one site owned by Norfolk Southern, I found that while AAT was responsive, that they could not get any response from Norfolk Southern in a timely fashion on anything. It appears from CitySwitch’s article that there are only five full time employees at CitySwitch and that Norfolk Southern’s construction contractor will handle its building needs. If CitySwitch wants to be a serious player in this industry, they will need to get Norfolk Southern to respond a lot quicker than they did when I last worked with them.
Clearly, CitySwitch does have access to some unique properties and true to the article, these lands are typically flat and have telco and do have access to power and telco. If they can resolve previous issues with getting information to the carrier quickly and successfully navigate the issue of building towers under the pretense of “railroad purposes” without upsetting local municipalities, perhaps they can build the 100 towers they are looking for.
Global Signal signs Black Dot on to negotiate reductions in their leases.
October 31st, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »It is incredibly disconcerting to me as a member of the wireless industry to see Black Dot Wireless’s success. They have made a business of convincing landowners who otherwise have no reason to negotiate a reduction in their cell tower lease to agree to such a reduction.
An individual who told me that he interviewed with Black Dot was told by them that they had made $70 million dollars last year and had made $70 million through the first 7 or 8 months of this year. I cannot confirm how much of this was made through convincing landowners to renegotiate otherwise solid leases using scare tactics and high pressure techniques.
Recently, it appears that they have been retained by Global Signal to renegotiate their leases going forward. To my knowledge, Global Signal is the first company to hire an outside firm to utilize these heavy handed techniques to get reductions out of ignorant landowners.
I suspect that Global Signal felt they had nothing to lose as a company by affliating themselves with these sales techniques because they are merging with Crown Castle. Seems fitting that after they went filed Chapter 11 causing many shareholders to lose money that they would target their landowners as well.
If you find yourself being confronted by Black Dot on behalf of Global Signal and need some help figuring out the risk- please see our webpage on the subject.
PLEASE NOTE THAT STEEL IN THE AIR IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH EITHER GLOBAL SIGNAL OR BLACK DOT WIRELESS. Global Signal and Black Dot Wireless are registered trademarks of those companies respectively.
A Quick Message From Here Us Now- Consumers Union
October 23rd, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »Hi there, quick FYI:
Today is the last day to file comments with the FCC on the media ownership rule changes. Consumers Union has had more than 85,000 consumers write in (and over all there are 121,000 comments on the record at the FCC). The public can easily submit comments by going to http://cu.convio.net/FCCcoverups.
Thanks!
Morgan
Consumers Union
Publisher of Consumer Reports
506 West 14th Street, Suite A
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 477-4431 x111
jindmo@consumer.org
www.consumersunion.org
Cingular to take lease reduction negotiations in house?
August 19th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »We heard a unsubstantiated rumor that Cingular is planning on pulling back the AT&T and Cingular cell site lease optimization program contracts back from Black Dot Wireless and MD7 and doing their own lease renegotiation in-house. There has been no formal press release to this effect and if you are still being contacted by MD7 or Blackdot Wireless- then perhaps they have some time to finish up loose ends or there is no truth to this rumor.
If this rumor is real, then we applaud (loudly). Don’t have someone else do your dirty work on a commission basis- and don’t have someone else mislead or use scare tactics to renegotiate YOUR leases with YOUR landowners. Have the *&@#*& to do it yourself.
Verizon Questioned about Forum Shopping for Cell Tower Sites
May 26th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »From the Associated Press: “Two state officials want to know if Verizon Wireless is putting cell towers on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River to avoid Vermont’s rigorous permitting process.” From Verizon: “Vermont has been very good to use (sic) over the last five or six years. We have not lost a local zoning or an Act 250 application in the last five years.”
Having zoned or permitted hundreds of towers over the course of my career, I can assure you that forum shopping (ie- the choosing of one jurisdiction over another due to easier zoning regulations) does in fact occur and it occurs often. Some of the carriers even require that the site acquisition agent includes information about the zoning requirements of any jurisdiction that falls within the “search ring”. There are questions about the time to complete the whole process and the perceived difficulty of each jurisdiction.
The decision of where towers go is not made simply on this distinction- instead a number of factors are weighed- including potential coverage, cost of procurement ect. If all things are equal between two different locations- the one with the easier zoning process will always be chosen first.
Verizon sees wireless margins near 50 pct: CFO – (Reuters)
May 24th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Verizon Wireless posted a 44.5% margin for 2006 first-quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. A Verizon executive apparently wonders if they can get to 50%.
Cingular announced its first quarter margin at 31.9%.
Not too shabby.
Ownership of Towers by the Carriers
May 20th, 2006 by admin Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »From AGL Magazine: the numbers of towers owned directly by the wireless carriers:
Cingular- 7000 (minus 500 or so towers that are being sold)
TMobile- 4500
Sprint/Nextel- 2000
Verizon- unknown
None of the carriers were willing to express they might be selling anytime soon…