AT&T signed a deal with wireless infrastructure owner and developer CitySwitch to build new cell towers to-suit. Tower builds are expected to begin later this year and CitySwitch will lease completed sites to AT&T. The Atlanta-based company calls itself a “premier provider of railroad right-of-way wireless infrastructure network development, acquisition and management.”
This is the third agreement the carrier recently announced and it provides another supplier in the tower space working outside the traditional tower leasing model, AT&T tells Inside Towers. The Crown Castle deal earlier this month and Tillman Infrastructure deal in 2017 show AT&T wants a change.
“The traditional model isn’t cost-effective or sustainable,” says AT&T EVP Global Connections and Supply Chain, Susan Johnson. “This deal is another step in continuing to diversify our suppliers based on site needs, increasing competition in the provision of tower space and exploring new avenues to cut costs.” The agreement also provides the carrier the ability to move equipment from existing towers to the new site builds.
The financial details weren’t released. However, “With competitive rent pricing and flexible network deployment and site touches, the CitySwitch agreement provides a cost-effective structure to help speed our network deployment of 5G as well as our national FirstNet build,” a carrier spokesman tells Inside Towers. Mobile data traffic on AT&T’s national wireless network increased more than 360,000 percent from 2007-2017 – and new macros sites are an important part of its plan to expand network capacity.
April 25, 2018
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