The changing face of mobile tower provision: an analysis of recent deals
Résumé
Over the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of tower deals within the mobile telecommunications industry. These deals, which involve a change in ownership of the towers, range in size from the sale of a few hundred towers in Jamaica to the IPO of China Tower with its 1.9 million sites, reflect one factor in particular. Mobile operators, faced with the need to invest in their networks to widen their coverage and improve quality, no longer view towers as performing a core role in the provision of their services. Rather than owning their tower infrastructure, mobile operators are entering into long-term sale and leaseback arrangements with specialist tower companies and are using the capital raised from the deals to better effect elsewhere. [...]