Opinion: Stories of small cell application agreements failure between carriers and cities are too often part of the wireless lobby efforts (in the media) to maintain profit margins.

This type of fluff pieces provide no actual statistical data on how most cities treat applications for small cells instead relies upon anecdotal examples from isolated cities. There is no statistical information about how many municipalities “are acting as if they’re 100-foot towers”. No study or other reference proving this oft-stated dictum from the carriers and […]

What’s Happened So Far in Wireless in 2017?

As we look back over the first half of 2017, there has been much non-activity on the merger front. Many people (myself included) expected greater merger and acquisition activity but other than a few fiber related transactions, nothing material has transpired. Sprint and T-Mobile are still separate companies, and DISH has not merged with or […]

AT&T Wins FirstNet but TowerCos are the Real Winners

FirstNet Award to AT&T Confirmed: Checks Confirm Amendment Activity before Official Announcement Tickers: T, AMT, CCI, SBAC Tags: Ken Schmidt, Wireless Infrastructure In Examining FirstNet Assumptions 12/9/2016, we reviewed the likelihood that AT&T would win the FirstNet RFP and the impact on TowerCos, Equipment OEMs, and FiberCos. As the time, the FirstNet award was stalled […]

Verizon Small Cell for Comparison

As an addendum to our earlier article about Crown Castle and Mobilitie small cell proposed installations in Orlando, we thought it would be helpful to include a drawing of a Verizon proposed small cell from Massachusetts.   In this case, Verizon is installing a Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) with two small cells to augment […]

Crown Castle (CCI) Small Cell Initiatives and Reporting

So as a clear indication that Wall Street is very focused on small cell initiatives by the public tower companies, Crown Castle started reporting their small cell financials separately from their tower financials in the Q1 2016 quarterly earnings and call.   They must have been receiving a significant number of questions from the analysts because […]

This is Why We Think Crown Castle’s Acquisition of Sunesys is a Smart Move

Crown Castle International (CCI) is currently the #1-ranked cell tower company in the nation, and owns approximately 40,000 cell towers.  CCI receives most of its revenue from subleasing space on Crown cell towers to wireless carriers.   On April 30, 2015, CCI announced that it would acquire Sunesys, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quanta Services, for $1 billion.   Sunesys […]

Biggest Issues for Small Cells: Leases and Backhaul

Alcatel-Lucent has created a database of 600,000 potential small cell sites.  They have coordinated with building owners, tower companies, cable companies, outdoor advertising providers, systems integrators, and managed services providers to list locations where the landowner, building owner, or tower owner are interested in leasing space for small cells and where there is fiber optic […]