ST. LOUIS-Privately held wireless tower owner AAT Communications Corp. announced it has closed its latest two acquisitions and has re-vamped its branding and marketing strategies.
The company acquired 78 towers from Lake Charles, La.-based US Unwired Inc. and all assets, including 226 towers and 170 managed sites, from Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Signal One L.L.C. AAT has also hired certain members of the Signal One team, including Pat Tant who was senior vice president of sales and marketing at Signal One.
Including build-to-suit projects slated for this year, AAT now owns approximately 1,800 towers and has more than 6,000 managed rooftop and tower sites. The company said it is continuing to pursue acquisitions and believes it is on track to achieve its goal of owning at least 2,000 towers, which it established in May 2002.
“At the time, the tower sector was suffering from the same busted expectations plaguing the larger telecom industry, and AAT had only 200-plus owned towers to its name,” said Paul Estes, AAT’s chief operating officer. “In short, our 2,000 owned-tower goal called for a nearly ten-fold increase of towers in two years in a down market. You can understand why our optimism raised a few eyebrows. But we’ve always considered ourselves contrarians, and we’ve always believed markets are never as robust or as dire as the pundits might suggest.”
In re-vamping its marketing efforts, the company has developed brand guidelines and updated its logo, Web site and tagline. The company will debut its updated exhibition booth and sales materials at this week’s CTIA Wireless 2004 show.
