The incentive auction going on at the FCC will provide opportunities for the tower industry as will ongoing deployment related to the prior AWS-3 spectrum auction, according to American Tower EVP/CFO Tom Bartlett.
Some deployment is taking place today in the AWS-3 spectrum. “You’re seeing radio heads and fiber being dropped on sites now.” He expects to see more carriers roll out services using that spectrum in 2017 and 2018.
Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Wednesday, the tower executive said many questions remain about FirstNet spectrum. “We know the amount of spectrum in each market is really good spectrum” and there’s a need for the nationwide first responder network.
However, it’s been a long time since the government looked at deployment and some cities may have gone ahead and done their own deployment “We don’t know,” what that will mean, Bartlett said.
It’s also unclear who the successful bidders will be and the process for the awarding the bid has been pushed back to February, he believes. Overall, Bartlett thinks FirstNet will be a “positive event” for infrastructure. Look for FirstNet deployment in 2017-2018, he said.
A bit of auction “chaos” for the customer will benefit American Tower as broadcasters will need more infrastructure to ensure they can continue to transmit programming on their new channels after the repack. This is more likely to result in a 2018-2019 buildout.
As the need for high-speed bandwidth continues to grow, the “networks will have to get denser,” says Bartlett. “The 600 MHz coming to their fold will provide an additional catalyst,” he predicts.
December 9, 2016
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