Fixed Wireless Business

American Tower

One of the ILECs of the wireless industry, American Tower has infrastructure that many companies want to exploit. It is also carrying a massive debt load. So why is it turning WISPs away at the door?

by Gerry Blackwell [August 12, 2003]

When ISP-Planet decided it would be a good idea to present a profile of wireless tower leasing company American Tower, we knew it might not be a smooth ride—and we were right. The company has a reputation for not talking to the press, and for not talking to potential ISP customers if they're small businesses

But as a nationwide firm providing prime antenna sites, originally for cellular operators and now for WISPs as well, American Tower is a potentially important service provider to this industry. WISPs need to know what makes the company tick.

When we approached the company directly, its response was peculiar, to say the least: It didn't respond. Voice mails and e-mails to a marketing communications representative elicited zero response. When we finally, by chance, reached this person by phone, she seemed less than enthusiastic and explained that, "American Tower doesn't generally do media interviews."

When a company is approached by an industry publication that is widely read by customers and prospects, the company is generally very eager to tell its story—however vulnerable it may feel at the time. For a marketing person, it's a no-brainer: You want to get your message out. That American Tower apparently did not seemed odd.

The representative did nevertheless promise to approach the company's vice president of marketing on our behalf about being interviewed. That was the last we heard from her—or anyone else at American Tower..

Customers not welcome here
In the absence of input from our main subject, we went to the ISP-Lists' ISP-Wireless forum and asked for feedback from customers. We got immediate feedback, but much of it was not from customers. It was from WISPs who had tried to become customers but ended up being very frustrated.

One of the first responses was typical: "Tried to become a customer," wrote Kevin. "Was quoted almost a thousand a month per antenna. Decided I didn't want to do business with crazy people..."

Shane Vaughan wrote, "Actually I'm not sure which bothered me more—the insane monthly pricing or the B.S. engineering fees and all the fluff that it took just for the privilege of doing business with them."

These were oft repeated refrains, especially the complaints about unwarranted up-front engineering fees. But amidst the angry, dismissive comments was an interestingly different one from Christopher Wolff, chief information officer at Broadband Laboratories, a Tucson, Ariz. hosting, access, and co-location services company that uses wireless extensively.

Dissenting opinion
Wolff wrote that he had negotiated a $350-a-month deal with American Tower on behalf of one of his clients, with no up-front engineering fee. "All cell tower leasing companies request some kind of x-thousand-dollar setup fee but waive it as quickly as you can tell them it's ridiculous," he wrote.

(This is useful information, but is not, unfortunately, always the case. Dale Meredith, technical manager, at utahWISP Inc., an American Tower customer headquartered in Syracuse, Utah, is involved in a running battle with the company over a $1,500 "structural survey" that American Tower claims to have done but has not yet presented to utahWISP and cannot justify. We'll come back to utahWISP's experience.)

Wolff also expressed the opinion that American Tower's monthly fees are not out of line with other tower companies. "The prices are all pretty comparable," he told us in a telephone interview. "You expect to pay $1,500 to $2,000 a month, unless it's a very minimal requirement—one small omni-directional antenna, say. Then you might be looking at $300 to $400. But $1,500 to $2,000 is more typical."

Go to page two: Unpleasant logic >