Wells Fargo Hosts Wireless Supply Chain Symposium

Today, the Jennifer Fritzsche, senior analyst at Wells Fargo, and her team are hosting executives and industry experts at their Wireless Supply Chain Symposium. Among the many questions that will be asked at the forum, two, in particular, will provide great feedback about the tower world: (1) is the tower industry changing its stripes? (2) are small cells finally gaining stream? “The traditional tower model, that which was focused solely on macro towers, is changing. Changing with the times, in our view! Tower companies have embraced the small-cell theme in different ways, with CCI leading the pack through its 2012 purchase of NextG.” Small cells have gained recognition while the wireless carriers work to densify their network, and this technology now accounts for 7% of CCI’s revenue and gross margin. “While small cells are certainly the new buzzword, we continue to be very bullish on the revenue growth opportunity for macro cell sites. While we believe this will come more in the form of amendment -related revenue (as carriers add more arrays to their current cell sites), we expect cell splitting (or more new cell sites) to continue to grow at a healthy clip, especially as we see the broadcast spectrum auctioned off in 2016,” Fritzsche wrote. After the incentive auction in 2016, and the carriers finally gain access to the spectrum (CTIA noted it could be awhile), a great number of macro sites will be needed. Part of the conference will explore all of these issues with Mike Kavanagh, president DAS small-cell sales for CCI.