Good news for rural landowners: more cell sites

Sprint adds 15 rural carriers to its Rural Roaming Network, an initiative that originally launched during the first half of 2014 with 12 regional wireless providers.  Currently, Sprint has expanded its LTE footprint across 565,000 square miles in 27 states.  Sprint is also involved in a Small Market Alliance with NetAmerica, which will provide rural carriers with access to Sprint’s Spark Network using 800 Mhz and 1.9 GHz spectrum through reciprocal roaming agreements.  In fact, Sprint’s Chairman, Masayoshi Son has offered financial assistance to regional carriers who seek to build-out their rural LTE coverage during this year’s CCA event.  Of interest is the fact that 83% of the U.S. population resides in suburban or rural areas, which are almost exclusively served by tower-based macro sites.  All in all, this is good news for rural landowners who are currently party to cellular leases (as well as those who are not but would like to be), since we expect to see significant cell-site builds and collocation opportunities in rural markets as demand continues to skyrocket.