T-Mobile USA’s network upgrade plans continue to roll along as the carrier late last week reached an agreement with tower owner SBA Communications to extend lease agreements on approximately 2,800 cell sites. The seven-year extensions also allow for upgrade the towers with radio equipment related to the carrier’s upgrade plans.
SBA sais the extensions will generate approximately $5 million in site rental revenues and approximately $1 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the second half of this year.
The agreement with SBA followed a deal announced in late July with Crown Castle extending current leases on 7,300 Crown Castle sites for 10 years and granting T-Mobile rights to upgrade certain towers to go along with the carrier’s network upgrade plan. Crown Castle noted the agreement will result in an increase in site revenue beginning during the current third quarter. T-Mobile USA currently runs its network across some 37,000 cell sites.
T-Mobile USA announced earlier this year a $4 billion network evolution that will see the carrier move its current HSPA+ operations to its 1.9 GHz spectrum holdings and install LTE services across its 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum bands. The carrier claimed that it had 400 sites upgraded with LTE equipment at the end of June, on its way to having 2,500 cell sites LTE-enabled by the end of July and up to 20,000 sites upgraded by the end of the year.
T-Mobile USA is also generating buzz across the tower space with rumors that it’s close to announcing a deal to sell its approximately 7,000 carrier-owned tower sites. Estimates have put the potential sale of those towers at up to $3 billion, with reports that American Tower and Crown Castle as leading candidates for a potential acquisition.
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