Tower leasing and ownership can be a risky endeavor, but it can also deliver hefty profits for those who know how to properly allocate their resources and build strong relationships with carriers.
On this week’s Cell Tower News show, host Joey Jackson gets insights from Alex Gellman, co-founder and CEO of Vertical Bridge ways to maximize profits for tower owners, what to look for in a tower site, advice for leasing to a carrier and predictions for the market in 2016 and beyond.
Vertical Bridge wireless communications infrastructure ownership and leasing company that Gellman started with co-founder Marc Ganzi that began when the two invested in rooftop towers during the MetroPCS expansion. Since then, Vertical Bridge has become a leading tower leasing company, working with all the major U.S. carriers.
“Our job is to deliver sites to the wireless carriers, any radio operator who wants to use wireless antenna technology,” Gellman explained. “We deliver that real estate and that real estate can come in a bunch of different forms. One form would be a tower that we own, but other forms can include a rooftop where we don’t own the building but we sublease the rooftop. It could include billboards. It could include water tanks, all different kinds of structures and it can be all kinds of different towers from a stealth pole to a 1,500 foot radio tower.”
Gellman also talks about the company’s recent acquisition of Wisconsin-based tower company, Nsight Mobile Holdings. “They’re an independent telephone company based in Wisconsin and they’ve run a very successful wireless business…up in that region so these are towers they built for themselves, for their wireless division, so they’re built with a lot of capacity, great location…They were able to get towers built that nobody else could and so we’ve had relationships with them for a long time,” he said of the acquisition.
Other topics discussed are maintenance responsibilities and co-location.
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