Be Afraid of New FASB Accounting Standards, Be Very Afraid

Over the last 14 years, American Tower as a leasor of wireless infrastructure has seen annual total returns of 16.3 percent while the S&P 500 averages a 6.8 percent return, said Fool.com.  So what’s scary about that?

A proposed rule change from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has a chance of impacting balance sheets across the board in the tower industry as it stipulates “a lessee will be required to recognize assets and liabilities for leases with lease terms of more than 12 months.”  The ruling fundamentally negates off-balance sheet financing…. a big reason investors choose companies with operating leases, Fool.com said.  
American Tower’s latest quarterly report recognized pending changes:  

 “In February 2016, the FASB issued new guidance on the accounting for leases. The guidance amends the existing accounting standards for lease accounting, including the requirement that lessees recognize assets and liabilities for leases with terms greater than twelve months in the statement of financial position. Under the new guidance, lessor accounting is largely unchanged.This guidance is effective for fiscal years, and for interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2018. The standard is required to be applied using a modified retrospective approach for all leases existing at, or entered into after, the beginning of the earliest comparative period presented. The Company is evaluating the impact this standard will have on its financial statements,” the ATC report said. Continue Reading

FCC Approves Broadband Privacy in 3-2 Vote, Industry Pushes Back

Media moguls like Comcast and Verizon now have to ask customers’ permission before using or sharing much of their data, the FCC ruled yesterday.  Under the new rules, for example, a broadband provider has to ask permission before it can tell an advertiser exactly what apps the customer is using, what websites they’ve used and where they are. The new rules could make garnering revenue from mobile-housed advertising more difficult.


Although the FCC’s approved measure was a diluted version of the original submission, the telecommunications, advertising and cable industries were critical of the action. The standards are much stricter than those imposed on web-based giants like Google and Facebook, which are regulated only by the FTC, and have the broadband community citing them as unfair to competitors.

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Google Fiber Halts U.S. Fiber Broadband Roll-Out

Google Fiber Halts U.S. Fiber Broadband Roll-Out: While fiber broadband was at one time full steam ahead, the engine has halted at Google. The technology giant announced this week a “slowdown in the development” of its U.S. fiber broadband roll-out, according to telecompaper. The big picture shows the company plans to look at alternate access technologies for areas that were seen as just potential, while still rolling out in cities where deployment efforts have already begun.

Google told telecompaper that it needs to “refine its approach” while staying “ahead of the curve by pushing the boundaries of technology, business, and policy.” Continue Reading

Indoor Wireless Coverage Vital to Business Health

In-building wireless coverage is more important now than ever. In fact, 87 percent of facilities managers and architects consider coverage inside of buildings to be “imperative,” according to a recent study conducted by Coleman Parkes Research and CommScope.

Another study, CommScope noted, was conducted by Nemertes Research and the Small Cell Forum. It found that 94 percent of enterprise IT executives believe in-building mobile performance impacts their business. Currently about 80 percent of wireless usage is indoors, but RAN infrastructure is outdoors, CommScope reported. 

The Nemertes study found that growing business dependence on mobile connectivity was emphasized when 94 percent of respondents said that the quality of in-building cellular coverage had an impact on their business performance – on a scale of one to ten, some 42 percent gave it a rating between eight to ten in terms of seriousness, with the healthcare sector notably prominent in these scores.  Continue Reading

NATE Launches Wireless Industry Network (WIN) Program

The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) today announced the official launch of the Wireless Industry Network (WIN). The WIN program is a coast-to-coast grassroots program designed to promote NATE’s regional, state and local efforts, support existing state and national wireless organizations and facilitate communication between all stakeholders in the wireless industry.
 

WIN consists of a nationwide network of respected Regional Ambassadors and State Liaisons who are devoted to NATE’s mission and are passionate about expanding the Association’s message of safety, quality, standards and education in order to reach the entire industry. WIN encompasses eight regions within the United States: Pacific, Southwest, Rocky Mountain, Great Plains, Great Lakes, Northeast, Atlantic Coast and Southeast and also includes a grassroots structure in Canada as well as a presence in the Bahamas. Continue Reading

AT&T and Verizon Look to Grow Apart From Wireless, No “Next Big Thing”

The two largest carriers in the U.S., AT&T and Verizon have had to look for growth elsewhere while the wireless market is reaching its saturation point according to the Wall Street Journal. With AT&T announcing Saturday that it intends to buy media giant Time Warner for over $80 billion and Verizon’s uncertain future with its recent purchase of Yahoo, at $4.4 billion, the wireless industry is losing its status as one of the ‘darlings’ of the growth sectors.
 
“They need to find a path forward for their core U.S. business that offers something better than inexorable decline,” Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC told the Journal. “The internet, mobile phones and smartphones fueled rapid growth, but for the first time in memory, there is no ‘next big thing’ in telecom.”


Although both AT&T and Verizon have millions of customers actively on their respective networks, texting, streaming, downloading, tweeting and, yes, even calling, now that most Americans have a smartphone, the remaining growth potential is in the content according to the Wall Street Journal.  Smaller carrier rivals, meanwhile are whittling away at their subscriber base.  Continue Reading

Senator Pushes Samsung on Lithium Battery Safety, Possibly Others

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal wants to get to the bottom of the lithium-ion battery issue in the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Samsung stopped selling some 1.9 million of the devices after the batteries in several of the Note 7s caught fire, even when the phone was turned off.
 
Blumenthal’s questions go beyond the specific battery Samsung uses and could extend to other smartphones and other consumer electronic devices that employ lithium-ion batteries. The Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security tells the electronics company in a letter he wants to gather information to “identify what steps need to be taken to ensure all electronic manufacturers can better guarantee the safety of lithium-ion batteries that are so commonly used in consumer products today.”  Continue Reading