AMT is breaking on high volume. Very positive news concerning business in Mexico:
MEXICO CITY, Oct 27 (Reuters) - U.S. firm American Tower
Corp. AMT.N is wooing Mexican wireless firms to "co-locate"
antennas on 200 towers to which it has rights in Mexico -- or
ones it could build in the future, an executive said on
Wednesday.
Michael Gearon Jr., executive vice president of American
Tower, told Reuters he was in talks with wireless, paging and
broadcasting companies to convince them that sharing tower
space would save them the money and time that would otherwise
be spent on negotiating rights-of-way for towers and building
them.
He said city governments in Mexico should also jump at the
chance to follow an international trend -- cutting down on the
forests of antennas currently littering hills and buildings,
and replacing them with single towers housing multiple
antennas.
"The building authorities respond very favorably to us
because we reduce industrial clutter," Gearon said.
In September, Boston-based American Tower signed a deal
loaning TV Azteca TZA.NTVAZTCACPO.MX, Mexico's No. 2
broadcast television company, $120 million in exchange for the
right to make money from putting other antennas on 200 Azteca
towers, which cover 95 percent of Mexico's population.
Azteca is half-owner of Unefon, a fledgling wireless phone
company. Although Unefon has no current deal with American
Tower, Gearon said he hoped one would come in the future.
Mexico is American Tower's first international venture and
Gearon said that in addition to making money from the existing
Azteca towers, the company could be the first to begin building
third-party towers here, possibly investing several hundred
million dollars over the next five years.
The Azteca deal "is a foundation for us to go after other
stuff in Mexico. We're interested in growing ... and becoming
the leading tower provider in Mexico," he said.
Gearon said American Tower, doing business in Mexico as ATC
Mexico, was in talks with several paging and broadcast
companies as well as cellular phone companies Pegaso, partly
owned by Leap Wireless International Inc. LWIN.O; Iusacell
CELV.MXCEL.N; and Telcel, the cellular division of dominant
Mexican phone operator Telmex TELMEXL.MX TMX.N.
"All the wireless operators we've met with have responded
very favorably to the concept of co-locating," he said.
Pegaso, Iusacell, Telcel and Unefon all declined to
comment. One industry insider said up to nine other tower firms
were courting wireless companies here.
The issue of antennas is currently touchy in Mexico, where
an explosion of new cellphone subscribers this year has taxed
wireless networks and the government has brought pressure on
phone companies to expand their networks and improve service.
Not only is expanding a cellular network expensive, but
experts say negotiating with local governments for the right to
place towers can be a drawn-out process.
"Everyone has that problem in Mexico City. They have to
deal with multitudes of organizations," said Mickey Schleien,
Latin American telecommunications analyst for Lehman Bros. |
