Cingular is busy with cell tower leases

My consulting company, Steel in the Air, provides lease negotiation assistance for landowners who have been approached by a wireless company like Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile, or Verizon to assist then in negotiating their cell tower ground lease.

Last year was an interesting one- the early part of the year it seemed as though TMobile was the most active carrier as determined by the number of clients who were dealing with Tmobile. Towards the middle of the year when TMobile announced that they were halting development due to the loss of the Cingular spectrum sharing agreement in NY and CA, Verizon seemed to pick up the pace.

Then in the end of the year and the beginning of this year, over 60% of the landowners who contact us are dealing with Cingular. There is still some activity on Nextel and Verizon’s behalf, but Sprint and TMobile seem to be inactive. Some of my clients who were dealing with TMobile earlier this year have contacted me and informed me that TMobile has informed them that they are ready to pick up where they left off.

Remember this is purely anecdotal evidence- and is based solely on the clients who contact me.

(Post note: after writing this, I spoke with a stock analyst who informed me that the equipment vendors did not meet their projected Q3 and Q4 2004 numbers, in part due to significant declines in equipment orders from Cingular and AT&T. So my anecdotal evidence may not be representative.)