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Cell Site Equipment - Room for Sprint? (Formally: Radio towers)


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I've seen quite a few towers that may have ATT/Verizon on them, but no Sprint.  They seem already populated with all the equipment but why can't sprint find room to place there own equipment? Can someone explain?

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I've seen quite a few towers that may have ATT/Verizon on them, but no Sprint. They seem already populated with all the equipment but why can't sprint find room to place there own equipment? Can someone explain?

Because Sprint is on another site for that area or has decided not to cover that area.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

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I am wondering if sprint would consider taking over the leases for old Cricket sites in markets where at&t already has a lease on a site or adjacent site.  I know that there is at least one site here in butler that has 2 towers (almost right next to each other) and 3 distinct carrier pannels, but neither sprint or t-mobile have coverage coming from those towers.  This area used to be a cricket market, so I assume (I know its not good to assume) that the 3rd spot is an old cricket location.  If that is the case, would sprint be able to purchase the leasing rights to select towers, thereby filling in holes and increasing coverage... or will AT&T continue to pay for both just to screw sprint or t-mobile out of better coverage?

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I am wondering if sprint would consider taking over the leases for old Cricket sites in markets where at&t already has a lease on a site or adjacent site.  I know that there is at least one site here in butler that has 2 towers (almost right next to each other) and 3 distinct carrier pannels, but neither sprint or t-mobile have coverage coming from those towers.  This area used to be a cricket market, so I assume (I know its not good to assume) that the 3rd spot is an old cricket location.  If that is the case, would sprint be able to purchase the leasing rights to select towers, thereby filling in holes and increasing coverage... or will AT&T continue to pay for both just to screw sprint or t-mobile out of better coverage?

Depends on who owns the cell site. Most cell providers these days (even at&t/verizon) don't own their cell sites or are in the process of selling off. These companies like Crown Castle go around a buy cell sites from the providers an lease back the cell sites. Most of sprint/T-mobile sites have been sold of like this while at&t/verizon are in the process of selling most of theirs off as well. So it looks like its going to be up to whoever own each specific cell site will determine who can add to the tower. I think this a good thing that is occurring in the industry because the companies that own the cell towers are more inclined to add a secondary/tertiary/quarternary carrier on their cell sites so they can make additional revenue on the extra lease.

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Depends on who owns the cell site. Most cell providers these days (even at&t/verizon) don't own their cell sites or are in the process of selling off. These companies like Crown Castle go around a buy cell sites from the providers an lease back the cell sites. Most of sprint/T-mobile sites have been sold of like this while at&t/verizon are in the process of selling most of theirs off as well. So it looks like its going to be up to whoever own each specific cell site will determine who can add to the tower. I think this a good thing that is occurring in the industry because the companies that own the cell towers are more inclined to add a secondary/tertiary/quarternary carrier on their cell sites so they can make additional revenue on the extra lease.

 

I completely agree and know what you are saying about tower leasing companies, but since at&t bought LEAP they inherited some overlapping leases on the same towers (or at least in close proximity) to their existing infrastructure.  I would assume that since they shut down the CDMA network and re-launched Cricket as a GSM MVNO, that they re-used the spectrum and just added it to their existing towers 99% of the time. This might mean that AT&T has to continue to pay for double leases, which they probably would like to get rid of.  AT&T and sprint could make a deal that was mutually beneficial to both companies if they were to let sprint purchase the rights to the existing leases (even if it is less than they are worth, it would get it off At&t's books).  They might even have the old CDMA panels still installed and sprint could do GMO's until they can get the full build done.  It would probably be only a few hundred sites total, and might not be worth looking into as they might just lease space from a tower leasing company... but I am for sprint doing anything to bolster their service, and I think that it would be worth looking into. 

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I completely agree and know what you are saying about tower leasing companies, but since at&t bought LEAP they inherited some overlapping leases on the same towers (or at least in close proximity) to their existing infrastructure.  I would assume that since they shut down the CDMA network and re-launched Cricket as a GSM MVNO, that they re-used the spectrum and just added it to their existing towers 99% of the time. This might mean that AT&T has to continue to pay for double leases, which they probably would like to get rid of.  AT&T and sprint could make a deal that was mutually beneficial to both companies if they were to let sprint purchase the rights to the existing leases (even if it is less than they are worth, it would get it off At&t's books).  They might even have the old CDMA panels still installed and sprint could do GMO's until they can get the full build done.  It would probably be only a few hundred sites total, and might not be worth looking into as they might just lease space from a tower leasing company... but I am for sprint doing anything to bolster their service, and I think that it would be worth looking into. 

Good point, but i thought i heard that at&t agreed in the merger conditions to keep operating the cricket network for at lest 12-18 months? If so, it looks like at&t won't be touching crickets towers for a while. What they have done already is started utilizing unused spectrum from cricket where cricket didn't have it already deployed. In addition, i believe they are refarming the network by removing chunks of cricket spectrum and moving to at&t as people transfer from cricket CDMA to at&t/cricket mvno. 

 

Anyways who knows what at&t will do with cricket's towers once they finally shutdown the network, but it sure would be great to have sprint take over. I wonder why sprint never tried to acquire cricket/US cellular/ cellular south. They all have some decent spectrum assets and customers. Maybe they should start now before they all get snatched by the big boys.

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We don't know if they never tried, we just know they could never at least get a negotiation into the formal announcement stage.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

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We don't know if they never tried, we just know they could never at least get a negotiation into the formal announcement stage.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

And we know Hesse tried for Metro, but was shot down by the board... I don't think they saw t-mobile doing so much better after they merged.  Anyway, LEAP and Metro were always looked at as too much extra debt for the gain of customers and spectrum, but this is a whole new ballgame now that Son is in charge, and the debt is not as much of an issue if it can set Sprint up to be a force to be reckoned with (and eventually a good return of investment).  I'm sure sprint tried to low ball leap and they were just waiting for At&t to get desperate enough for spectrum. 

 

Speaking of spectrum Robert, do you think At&t (or anyone else for that matter) would be willing to sell sprint any PCS spectrum in areas where they are thin?  IDK exactly what LEAP owned and if it was all necessary for At&t's plans, but that is another thing we could look at if sprint could buy 5Mhz in markets where they are thin, and re-farm another 5Mhz so that they can deploy a second PCS LTE carrier.  Just a thought.

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Speaking of spectrum Robert, do you think At&t (or anyone else for that matter) would be willing to sell sprint any PCS spectrum in areas where they are thin?  IDK exactly what LEAP owned and if it was all necessary for At&t's plans, but that is another thing we could look at if sprint could buy 5Mhz in markets where they are thin, and re-farm another 5Mhz so that they can deploy a second PCS LTE carrier.  Just a thought.

 

It's a great idea for Sprint.  But with the way AT&T is run (protectively and anti-competitively), I don't see AT&T ever selling any spectrum to Sprint.  They would only sell spectrum if they needed the money, or they could work out some sort of trade that gets them something they prefer.  So I don't see this as likely.  AT&T would rather sit on the spectrum and not use it than to sell to Sprint and help them compete better.

 

Maybe if Sprint purchased USCC, there could be some room for negotiating with AT&T on spectrum swaps.  But even I would want to keep most of those acquisitions.  USCC does have some 10x10 AWS-A block that could be worth swapping for some key PCS.  I'm just not seeing a lot to dicker over, though.

 

Robert

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Maybe if Sprint purchased USCC, there could be some room for negotiating with AT&T on spectrum swaps.  But even I would want to keep most of those acquisitions.  USCC does have some 10x10 AWS-A block that could be worth swapping for some key PCS.  I'm just not seeing a lot to dicker over, though.

 

Robert

 

That would be nice if that where the case. I was a bit surprised they didn't get any PCS when they sold their WCS holdings to AT&T.

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That would be nice if that where the case. I was a bit surprised they didn't get any PCS when they sold their WCS holdings to AT&T.

I didn't know they finally sold their WCS... I would have thought they would have asked for a swap or been able to use it as a negotiating piece later, as I think they were the last missing piece for At&t to have a solid 15x15Mhz nationwide.

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I didn't know they finally sold their WCS... I would have thought they would have asked for a swap or been able to use it as a negotiating piece later, as I think they were the last missing piece for At&t to have a solid 15x15Mhz nationwide.

I bet Sprint asked for a swap of PCS. AT&T does not want to swap spectrum that would make their competitor stronger against them. AT&T probably insisted on cash, and since WCS has no value to Sprint, they took it.

 

Now that AT&T is adding Band 2 like crazy for capacity, they are also not likely wanting to get rid of any PCS for that reason either. AT&T is refarming the farm. They are going to be very stingy with giving up any spectrum 5x5 or larger in any band, except possible rural areas. Where Sprint doesn't need any more spectrum.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

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