tylakewalker

Expecting Big Things from Wireless Infrastructure Stocks

Don't get me wrong. I am bullish on the tower companies. I just don't see SBA Communications as a better pick than Crown Castle or American Tower. Crown Castle also does consulting. I don't think it does them much good.
disclosure; long Crown

Expecting Big Things from Wireless Infrastructure Stocks

"The rest of their revenue comes from consulting and construction services, where they are hired by wireless carriers. This sort of consulting business could be a boon to the company with such aggressive expansion from the carriers."

Nope. Wireless consulting is a very low margin business. You are lucky if you make any money. Tower companies only do consulting to push the carriers on to their own towers. The rent income is where the money is not the consulting fees.

JP Morgan Initiates Coverage on Wireless Tower Companies

I like this business.
I believe demand for tower space will grow as end customers continue with a couple of key trends.
1) ditching the land line and making all calls wireless
2) expanding the role of the wireless phone into web browsing, file downloading and other applications that will increase the need for greater data capacity. carriers will have to add infill sites, add antennas to existing sites.

An infrastructure trend worth mentioning. Some carriers, most notably, Clearwire, are ditching the leased T1 lines and using microwave dishes for data backhaul. That is revenue lost by the local phone company and gained by the tower landlord.
The shift of resources continues to flow into wireless telecom and wireless internet. Just look at the FCC's taking of bandwidth from television broadcasting to wireless telecom.
long cci

Crown Castle and the Tower Operators: The Foundation for Next-Gen Wireless

CCI processes applications quicker than AMT. The carriers want their sites on air as quick as possible. AMT customer service is decent and used to be the best but has slowly gotten worse and fallen behind CCI. When you have a search ring and you can choose between collocating on AMT or CCI I'm going to recommend my client chooses the CCI tower. I don't think AMT is a bad company, I just think CCI is better from a customer service standpoint. They are easier to work with, return calls quicker, more efficient process, etc,. Sometimes you can't get AMT to return a call. CCI has aggressively expanded AND improved their customer service at the same time. I am impressed by that. I admit This is only one aspect of the company but I wanted to add my two cents because of my past experience working with both companies.

Crown Castle and the Tower Operators: The Foundation for Next-Gen Wireless

CCI processes applications quicker than AMT. The carriers want their sites on air as quick as possible. AMT customer service is decent and used to be the best but has slowly gotten worse and fallen behind CCI. When you have a search ring and you can choose between collocating on AMT or CCI I'm going to recommend my client chooses the CCI tower. I don't think AMT is a bad company, I just think CCI is better from a customer service standpoint. They are easier to work with, return calls quicker, more efficient process, etc,. Sometimes you can't get AMT to return a call. CCI has aggressively expanded AND improved their customer service at the same time. I am impressed by that. I admit This is only one aspect of the company but I wanted to add my two cents because of my past experience working with both companies.

Crown Castle and the Tower Operators: The Foundation for Next-Gen Wireless

Joe,
Nice article

Nathan,
I think most of the risk would be borne by the company generating the signal (carrier) or the antenna manufacturer not the owner of the steel (tower company) Additionally, I would imagine the lawsuits would generally target the deeper pockets (carriers). Furthermore, radio stations have been generating much more powerful wireless signals for much longer and to my knowledge they have not been successfully sued for damages resulting from RF radiation.

All,
The biggest risk with CCI is the eventual bankruptcy of Sprint Nextel. All of those global signal towers acquired were once upon a time owned by Sprint. So it follows that Sprint antennas will be located on almost all of the former Global Signal towers. When Sprint Nextel goes belly up all of that lease revenue goes away. You can't enforce a lease on a bankrupt lessee.

I have professional experience negotiating and placing antennas on all of the tower companies facilities for all of the carriers and Crown Castle is the best tower company. After I quit working on developing wireless infrastructure I made one investment in wireless telecom and that was a long position in CCI.