A Look into the Tower Future

SNL Kagan recently released their tower projections through 2025. While there was a decline in active sites during 2014 due to the decommissioning of Nextel, Leap Wireless, and MetroPCS sites, SNL Kagan thinks the shrinkage will pass. A number of positive events and trends outweigh the temporary lull of carrier consolidation, including: (1) Consumer demand for mobile data has ramped up like the blade of a hockey stick and will continue to follow that path for several more years; Cisco estimates U.S. mobile data traffic will grow 7x from 2014 to 2019. (2)  The recently concluded AWS-3 auction will generate an uptick in lease amendments and corresponding new equipment roll outs. A similar demand spike will follow the 600MHz incentive auction which is scheduled to start in 2016,” John Fletcher with SNL Kagan explained. Fletcher also noted that now FirstNet has the funding to build out the 700MHz band, they will create a new tenant for approximately 20,000 to 40,000 towers across the nation. “Looking back, the U.S. has experienced a wireless technology upgrade roughly every 10 years since Analog 1G premiered in 1984,” Fletcher wrote. “Prior to and following both 3G and 4G commercial launches, tower and site growth spiked, then plateaued. Our forecast for 5G (we think 5G could emerge in the early 2020’s) mirrors this pattern. While 5G standards have yet to be set, pundits anticipate it will be the first of the wireless technologies to boast throughput rates measured in Gbps.”