The Ultimate Towers Checklist: 5 Considerations When Choosing Your Cellular Tower Partner

In an era where seamless connectivity is paramount, cellular towers are essential. From LTE to 5G, macro towers serve as the backbone of mobile communication networks, keeping our smartphones, tablets and IoT devices connected. Selecting the right tower operator is just as important as the physical infrastructure itself.

A dependable tower partner not only contributes to the expansion and densification of wireless carrier networks, but also plays a pivotal role in navigating the complexities of evolving technologies, ensuring that infrastructure is capable of meeting ever-growing data demands in the 5G era.

Here are five key considerations when choosing a towers connectivity partner.

1. Capital costs

Cost is often the first consideration when working with a new partner. Tower operators that have master leasing agreements with wireless operators make it easier to colocate on shared tower infrastructure and allows wireless operators to more rapidly and cost effectively deploy their networks by minimizing upfront capital costs. By developing shared vertical infrastructure, multiple entities can utilize a single physical tower or location to host their equipment and antennas. This collaborative approach allows different operators to share the same infrastructure and can reduce the need for redundant tower construction while also minimizing the visual and environmental impact.

2. Speed to deployment

It’s important to choose a partner that has strong relationships with various community stakeholders and local municipalities. It is also imperative they understand the future land development of the location, including zoning requirements, entitlements, power, fiber, site access and environmental assessments while also taking into consideration topography and climate for engineering purposes. This can significantly increase speed to deployment.

By developing shared vertical tower infrastructure, tower operators simplify carrier network deployment by working with companies that have established partnerships with Tier 1 carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile and existing landowner agreements to deploy cellular coverage quickly and efficiently.

3. Sites and land rights

A variety of real estate assets — whether its buildings, venues, rooftops, military installations, or land parcels — can create an ancillary revenue stream from telecommunications infrastructure. Conventional construction of towers is often linked to demanding siting and environmental requirements imposing significant financial, time, and resource burdens on stakeholders. Landowners can get more from their property by partnering with an operator that has wireless rights at locations across the United States, facilitating streamlined network deployments while helping to resolve coverage gaps and capacity concerns.

4. Supports multiple carriers

It is important to choose a tower partner that is a neutral host, meaning they work with all cellular carriers and technology providers. Neutral host providers are essential in fostering collaboration among wireless carriers by allowing landowners to maximize the value of their real estate with long term tenants and colocations while also reducing wireless carrier costs and accelerating network deployment.

5. Ease of contracting

Partnering with a tower and real estate operator that has established master agreements with wireless operators, federal agencies, and other wireless network providers simplifies the contractual process and can reduce the network deployment cycle time from years to, in some cases, months.

WHY CHOOSE BOINGO AS YOUR CONNECTIVITY PARTNER?

For more than 20 years, Boingo has partnered with real estate owners, developers, venues, federal government agencies and wireless operators to improve cellular coverage and capacity with its portfolio of cell towers, distributed antenna system (DAS), rooftop, and small cells solutions. Boingo designs, installs and manages networks on a variety of real estate assets around the world, including airports, stadiums, military installations, commercial real estate properties and hospitals.

Contact towers@boingo.com to learn how you can achieve broad wireless coverage with Boingo’s 5G small cells and communication towers.