Driven by changing the business models of the carriers, the technology world is shifting for towercos, according to panelists yesterday at Connectivity Expo in Atlanta. The panel session, titled How New Technologies Impact the Tower Business, was moderated by S&P Global Senior Research Analyst Lynnette Luna.
The days of ubiquitous new technology overlays may be over for the digital infrastructure industry with the completion of the 5G buildout, according to Charlie Kennamer, VP Consulting Services at Sitetracker, and as a result future opex will be targeted more at increasing the bottom line.
“With the quality declining a bit in some areas on the network side, the carriers will be more selective, deploying hardware based on potential churn impact,” Kennamer said. “With fiber deployment and fiber backhaul, I see the carriers focusing on opex cost reduction, instead of driving new technology to the network.”
Chiaren Cushing, VP and Head of Business Development at Crown Castle, spoke of the need for tower companies to enter into partnerships, beyond the carriers, with new entrants into the digital infrastructure space, including artificial intelligence/machine learning, metaverse, and electric vehicles.
“We are seeing a lot more connections, and a lot more ecosystem players in the space who need both adjacencies and mobile network and ground space, either close to the tower or at the tower,” Cushing said. “We are seeing new entrants such as cloud players and others, whether they are IoT platforms or satellite base stations or electric vehicle charging stations.”
As a result of working with new entrants into the space, towercos are able to smooth out their revenue intake and diversify their customers, she added.
To prepare for those new entrants, tower companies are taking advantage of new digitization technology to organize their assets, according to Bob Glosson, Executive Vice President and COO at Vertical Bridge. “You need to understand what’s on your tower asset,” he said. “You need to understand what your ground space looks like, because they’re all going to want the same requirements.”
After a large-scale build out like 5G, it is natural for the carriers to reduce the expenses and increase the volume, according to Sean Shahini, CEO at Inorsa. The tower industry needs to access its data and automate a lot of the process, so it can be more cost efficient. “Our business is a subscription business,” Shahini said. “The faster you can build, the better for the revenue, and taking advantage of the data to accelerate is really important.”
If a company can build small cells, fiber, and towers, Shahini questioned whether they should consider building other things with their knowledge of structure and permitting.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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