Crown Castle Announces Certain Contractual Terms Related to AT&T and T-Mobile USA
Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI) today announced certain contractual terms in light of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA. As of December 31, 2010, AT&T and T-Mobile represented 21% and 11%, respectively, of Crown Castle’s consolidated revenues. Further, there are approximately 4,000 Crown Castle towers on which both carriers currently reside. Crown Castle’s revenue from T-Mobile on these 4,000 towers represents approximately 6% of Crown Castle’s consolidated revenues. In addition, there is an average of approximately 12 years and 7 years of current term remaining on all lease agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile, respectively.
As previously disclosed, Crown Castle expects to have during 2011 approximately $460 million of investment capacity, before accessing any external financing, that could be invested in activities related to its core business, including share purchases, acquisitions and new site construction.
Crown Castle owns, operates, and leases towers and other infrastructure for wireless communications. Crown Castle offers significant wireless communications coverage to 92 of the top 100 US markets and to substantially all of the Australian population. Crown Castle owns, operates, and manages over 22,000 and approximately 1,600 wireless communication sites in the US and Australia, respectively. For more information on Crown Castle, please visit www.crowncastle.com.
Africa, Latin America top for cellular tower leasing
As per the new reports released reveals that the high cost of erecting and running cellular communications towers has driven many operators towards leasing arrangements in recent years.
The report states that although 17% of all towers are currently leased the number is expected to rise to almost 25% in 2015.
Though the trend seems to be most pronounced in the US and in India (where it is driven by low ARPUs and high levels of competition), Latin America and Africa have the greater opportunities.
Although they are still embryonic markets, Latin America and Africa offer the greatest potential for growth in cellular tower leasing.
The reports further reveals that leasing markets are being driven forward by competitive pressure to cut operating costs and to keep up with the pace of innovation in services, the model of offloading tower ownership (earning revenue from that), and letting third parties do the management has proven very successful in both India and the US.
It is reported that the Indian tower company Bharti Infratel is eyeing African markets, while American Tower is acquiring assets in South America and in India itself. Other major players include Indus Towers (the world’s largest tower company with about 44,000 sites), and Crown Castle in the US.
Over Four Million North Americans Will Subscribe to Mobile Broadcast Services in 2007, says ABI Research
NEW YORK, BUSINESS WIRE — Mobile broadcasting–as opposed to Click for the lowest price on dmnobieblank<strong>streaming</strong></a>’);” onmouseout=”hideAd();” class=”Hotlink”>streaming “unicast” services–is expected to rapidly become the model of choice for distribution of live Click for the lowest price on dmnobieblank<strong>television</strong></a>’);” onmouseout=”hideAd();” class=”Hotlink”>television and movies to mobile devices in the United States, and by the end of 2007 approximately four million subscribers will receive entertainment and information on their wireless handsets via mobile broadcast technologies such as DVB-H and MediaFLO.
Senior analyst Ken Hyers reports that recent conversations with major carriers confirmed what ABI Research expected: “The presence of as few as five users simultaneously receiving unicast content from a single cellular base station carrier band can seriously degrade data access for those subscribers. This is further confirmation that broadcast is the only way to get mass market uptake of these services. Already, the market is bearing out that broadcast is the essential method for offering these services.”
A recent ABI Research study, “Broadcast and Unicast Mobile TV Services” forecasts that in 2011, mobile TV services will have some 514 million subscribers worldwide. Of that total, the research indicates, 460 million will be subscribers to broadcast services. Broadcast services will have 1.5 million subscribers by the end of 2006. In the US market, most subscribers will be enabled by the wireless carriers’ broadcast network partners, including MediaFLO (a subsidiary of Qualcomm), Aloha’s Hiwire network, and Crown Castle’s Modeo service.
Though ABI Research believes that most of these services will debut at $10/monthly subscription in the US through operators such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, advertising will become an increasingly important source of revenue for mobile Click for the lowest price on dmnobieblank<strong>broadcast video</strong></a>’);” onmouseout=”hideAd();” class=”Hotlink”>broadcast video, and will serve to subsidize high-quality programming.
“Broadcast and Unicast Mobile TV Services” (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/market_research/Mobile_Broadcast_ Video) (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.) explains the market dynamics behind mobile video, including the key industry players, enabling technologies, and business models. Its detailed market segmentation is backed by perceptive analysis, updated with the latest trends, news and vendor partnership announcements.
It forms part of four ABI Research Services–Digital Media Distribution and Management (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Digital_Media_Research_ Service), Mobile Content (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Mobile_Content_Research_ Service), Mobile Devices (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Mobile_Devices_Research_ Service), and Mobile Operators (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Mobile_Operators_Research _Service)–that include research reports and briefs, online databases, forecasts, ABI Insights, the ABI Vendor Matrix and analyst inquiry support. (Due to length, the URLs above may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York, ABI Research maintains global operations supporting annual research programs, intelligence services and market reports in broadband and multimedia, RFID and M2M, wireless connectivity, mobile wireless, transportation, and emerging technologies. For information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.
Source- http://www.broadcastnewsroom.com
