Tower giants American Tower and Crown
Castle could be the latest victims of Sprint’s six straight years of
lousy revenues if the carrier goes through with a plan to move to
government-owned towers as reported Friday afternoon. San
Francisco-based Re/code reported Sprint’s latest “radical
overall” plans for its cellular network have been finalized and call for
the nation’s fourth-largest carrier to move its radio equipment off
towers owned by American Tower and Crown Castle to government-owned
structures. The savings could be as much as $1 billion, reported
Re/code, as tower costs are a significant portion of the carrier’s
capital expenses. Sprint also pays about $1
billion annually to AT&T and Verizon to carry its customers’
wireless calls from towers to landlines, known as “backhaul” and seeks
to reduce those payments. The new plan, reports Re/code, would instead
use microwave technology for this purpose, an approach previously used
by Clearwire, which Sprint acquired in 2012.
But the mere notion that a
government-owned tower could be less expensive raised eyebrows from one
Georgia-based tower owner. He told Inside Towers,
“I’m not sure that’s true government towers have cheaper rent. The
county here, in an effort to keep tenants off their tower, starts at
$5,000 for a single bay translator.” Continue Reading
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