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Businesses Verizon

Verizon Leases Over 6,300 Wireless Towers To Vertical Bridge For $3.3 Billion (capacitymedia.com) 26

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
Vertical Bridge has acquired the rights to lease and operate over 6,000 wireless towers from Verizon for $3.3 billion as part of a 10-year agreement, with potential extensions of up to 50 years. Capacity Media reports: "Upon the completion of this transaction, these assets, together with our existing portfolio which includes thousands of young, purpose-built towers, enhance Vertical Bridge's position as a fast, friendly, and flexible colocation partner to the wireless industry," said Ron Bizick, President and CEO of Vertical Bridge. Terms of the deal provide Verizon access to additional space on the towers for future use.

The US carrier said its latest deal with Vertical Bridge supports existing efforts to drive tower-related costs. "As the nation's largest mobility provider, we are well positioned with greater financial flexibility to invest in our business, return value to our shareholders and make the nation's best network even better for customers," said Hans Vestberg, chair and CEO of Verizon. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2024, subject to closing conditions. Earlier this month, Verizon announced a deal to acquire Frontier Communications for $9.6 billion.
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Verizon Leases Over 6,300 Wireless Towers To Vertical Bridge For $3.3 Billion More

Verizon Leases Over 6,300 Wireless Towers To Vertical Bridge For $3.3 Billion

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  • How many are old and need work/replaced? (Score:3)

    by chas.williams ( 6256556 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @06:32AM (#64830721)
    The "young" towers aren't the problem. The old towers that need maintenance are the issue.
    • They would need maintenance regardless of owns them, so the only issue there is pricing them correctly. But sharing the towers with other carriers (by way of this third party, Vertical Bridge) ultimately allows some of those costs to be shared too.

    • The "young" towers aren't the problem. The old towers that need maintenance are the issue.

      All towers require annual inspection, so I was told by folks that managed cell site acquisition & placement for a company I once worked for.

      Supposedly that annual inspection was a FAA requirement because these towers had "marker lights" that aircraft pilots require so that the tower can be spotted in a distance in dim & dark light. Those bulbs have technology to notify when they burn out, but annual inspection is much much more than light bulb inspections since that process involves 1, 2, or even 3

      • I managed building a herd of towers in Argentina back in the day 60 meter self supporting and 100 meter guyed... and you also need to check the tension in the guy wires to ensure they are all balanced. the wires stretch over time, not much, but enough that in a couple of years you could have problems creep up on you. At completion i would climb each and every tower for the view, er, uh, I mean to ensure everything was correct.

        I usually ended up finding tool buckets (the canvas buckets the tower crews used

  • I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but it was a brilliant idea to announce this the day after you have a huge network outage. Of course Verizon claims only 50,000 people had problems. But it still made national news.

    • Maybe this was the cause of the outage, they were transferring the utility services from VZ to VB and the transfer didn't go smoothly lol.

    • I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but it was a brilliant idea to announce this the day after you have a huge network outage. Of course Verizon claims only 50,000 people had problems. But it still made national news.

      That was my first thought, then I thought it through before hopping on a keyboard.

      Changing ownership is a paperwork thing. Signs might change at these sites but that does not affect tower operations one dang bit.

      Each 'radio site' on a tower has it's own antennas up high on the tower; it's own cabling up & down the tower legs; it's own base station on the ground next to the tower; and each of those base stations ought to have it's own 'backhaul' connection to it's backbone network.

      There are some 'mega to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      And its stock still went up!

  • That's great, until Jessie Eisenberg loses his cool and goes after them with a chainsaw [youtu.be].
  • Do you think the agreement states that Verizon's service has to ACTUALLY WORK? I bet they didn't put it in there. I'd reject it, given recent events.
    • The terms are likely the same as all of our hosting and colo contracts. Compensation for time down, not lost income, and 24 hours/best effort to resolve.

      Verizon (and most consumer oriented ISPs) is actually way more reasonable. You can literally tell them what you think is fair within reason and they will credit it to your bill. There appears to be a TON of profit margin in the bill.
  • I don't see this ending well, throwing control of their towers to a skinflint investment house means they will be shedding people, expertise, and quality.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by omnichad ( 1198475 )

      This is just a landlord hiring a property management company. Normally a great way to shift blame for mistakes, while reaping all the financial benefits. Except they're also going to be a tenant on their own towers.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KlomDark ( 6370 )
        Landlord with highly technical responsibilities. That's always a joke.

      • This is just a landlord hiring a property management company. Normally a great way to shift blame for mistakes, while reaping all the financial benefits. Except they're also going to be a tenant on their own towers.

        Agreed.

        Tower site acquisition, construction, and day-to-day management is definitely not a "core business function" in that company.

        I have met some of the folks that do that job, in one of my previous "lives" (if you know that jargon). It is a very small, very specialized group whose knowledge & expertise is very different from the rest of that company.

        • When I managed getting towers built, back in the day, there were two companies we always would get quotes from (damn me if I can't remember their names) one in Texas and one in Kansas, and their teams were hired by everyone, they'd do all that for you and you'd just send them a check and not have to worry about it. then, as another has said, depreciate that tower over xx years while at the same time claiming a loss due to having them do their thing.

  • SOP (Score:3)

    by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @10:59AM (#64831253)

    This is just a very typical real estate arrangement. You sell the property, use that money to lease it back over time and to invest in other things, and write off the payments as a business expense.

    https://www.fool.com/terms/s/s... [fool.com]

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