There are more than 200,000 cell towers in the United States and there is a growing demand for cell phone coverage. Here’s the dirty little secret about the amazing cell phone devices that have revolutionized the way people communicate…they all need cell towers to function properly.
Why are more cell towers needed? There are a couple of reasons.
1. More than 70% of the US population owns a cell phone.
2. Today’s cell phones are very different from the cell phones of just a few years ago. You can send emails, listen to music, surf the Internet, all from your mini portable personal communication device. It’s like going from a two-lane highway to a four-lane highway.
3. The cellular industry wants to make your traditional desktop landline phone obsolete and homes and businesses to go completely wireless in the future, hence the need for more cell towers and rooftop wireless sites, MUCH more.
4. There are additional wireless carriers entering the market and they need to mount their antennas somewhere.
I would like to focus on the fourth point, that there is a growing demand due to the entry of cellular operators in the market. In the New York City metro area where I live, you can choose from Verizon Wireless, ATT Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint-Nextel. Cingular became part of ATT and Nextel became part of Sprint. However, I did not see any cell towers collapse due to industry consolidation due to demand for coverage.
Instead, what we’re seeing are two new wireless carriers entering the market. Metro PCS and ClearWire Wireless are actively looking for a site in New York and New Jersey. The problem, however, is that Sprint’s Nextel antennas must remain active in most cases and most cell towers simply can’t support the additional carriers. These wireless companies have to deploy their antennas somewhere, so they need to build new cell towers or deploy them on existing structures or rooftops.
But there’s another dirty little secret in the wireless industry that no one is talking about.
Another issue that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but which I guess eventually will get to the mainstream media, is the fact that two of the nation’s largest wireless carriers who will remain anonymous have been sitting on multi-million dollar cellular licenses but they haven’t been using them at all. for the construction of new sites. Why would a carrier do this? Perhaps it has something to do with keeping the competition out of the industry?
If these cellular licenses were to become available, they would no doubt be purchased by companies looking to enter the wireless telecommunications industry. It would create more competition in the wireless industry and lead to lower prices, which is a benefit to the consumer, and stimulate the economy by creating more jobs in the wireless infrastructure industry through the development of additional cell towers and sites. of cellular communication on the roof. .
