Category: Wireless Carriers

Sprint/T-Mobile “Landlord Release Agreement” Trap?

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

We’re seeing Sprint sending some landlords a “Landlord Release Agreement” in connection with Dish Wireless that contains:

Release. Effective as of the Assignment Date, Landlord, for Itself and its affiliates, successors and assigns, does hereby forever release and discharge Tenant and its affiliates, partners,
employees, agents, successors and assigns of any and all liabilities and obligations arising from or relating to the Lease from and after the Assignment Date.

Most savvy cell site landlords will recognize the inherent danger to their lease security by agreeing to this little stinker clause.

If you receive any sort of release agreement from a wireless carrier (either directly or via one of their agents), take the time before you sign to get a qualified legal opinion regarding the terms of that agreement.  In some or many cases, the true benefit flows solely to the exiting carrier, not to the landlord!

Jonathan

 

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Verizon sues Rochester NY over attachment, tench, overhead fees

Verizon sues Rochester NY over attachment, tench, overhead fees

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

Verizon has sued the City of Rochester, NY in federal court claiming that Rochester’s fees for attachments, trenching, overhead, etc. exceed the FCC’s presumptive caps, and therefore sink to a prohibition of service.

How silly. How very silly.

I suspect this little law suit will go exactly nowhere while the big show is playing out in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Verizon law suit against Rochester turns on the outcome of the main 9th Circuit case.  The 9th Circuit case is where local governments around the country are suing to set aside the FCC’s Small Wireless Facility Order. It’s that Order that Verizon cites as the basis for its suit against Rochester.

I will not be surprised one bit when the judge in the Rochester case puts the brakes on that case to await the outcome of the 9th Circuit case.

Here’s Verizon’s complaint:

VZ-Rochester-Complaint-8.8.19

Jonathan

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Booting Boost

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

T-Mobile’s ‘Un-CEO’ John Legere has announced that upon the completion of the FCC-overjoyed, DOJ-disfavored merger with Sprint, Boost Wireless will get the boot.  Boost wireless is Sprint’s ‘off brand’ of prepaid wireless services.

Prepaid wireless services are often used by people with less than normal credit ratings, those who want to live below the radar, and others who (for whatever reason) don’t have or want access to a standard wireless plan.

Mr. Legere says that NewT-Mobile will get rid of Boost selling it to a buyer that can invest in it and make it a stronger brand, but that NewT-Mobile will maintain its relationship with its own T-Mobile off brand providers Metro and Virgin Wireless.

We’ll see if Boost Wireless customers get the boot of NewT-Mobile.

jlk

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Getting Sirius(XM) About AT&T Cell Sites

Getting Sirius(XM) About AT&T Cell Sites

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

AT&T is filing applications with local governments to modify existing cell sites to add a wire frame parabolic antenna at some of its sites.  The application also shows the addition of signal splitters (or combiners) and multiple power amplifiers.   In the applications that I’ve seen so far, there’s no mention as to the service that is being provided by (or is it to) this new antenna.

What the heck is going on here?

Well, I have a very Sirius answer for you.

AT&T is adding re-transmission services for SiriusXM radio to some of its cell sites.  Are they telling the jurisdictions that re-transmission is for a completely different non-carrier?  Well, so far unless pressed hard, all I’ve seen is a big fat NO to that.

Sirius-ly, what’s the story?

SiriusXM satellites are in orbits that are occasionally blocked for their mobile users. Why? Primarily because of tall building and hills that place physical barriers between the satellite and a car’s satellite receiver.  If the blockage lasts for more than a few seconds, drop-outs will start to occur.  In urban areas, such as here in L.A., rows of tall buildings are a real issue.

How does SiriusXM deal with this?

Historically, SiriusXM has used terrestrial relay stations that receive the satellite signal at high points and they re-transmit the signals via narrower beam width antennas shooting up and down highways with blockages on the south side.

Guess what?

A heck of lot of AT&T cell sites already do the same thing along highways, and into neighborhoods that are otherwise sometimes blocked by tall buildings.

And, on top of that, AT&T has a lot of antennas with spare transmission ports waiting to be used.  That’s what SiriusXM is going to do…use those spare ports, no doubt for a tidy fee.  Whatever the fee, however, it’s 99.999% likely that the collocation charges levied by AT&T will be less than SiriusXM leasing its own re-transmission sites.

Here’s a basic block diagram I’ve pieced together to example how all this works:


(Block diagram by JLK: Click on the image above to enlarge it.)

AT&T is claiming that these SiriusXM site modifications are subject to the expedited treatment under Section 6409(a).

Well, maybe

What I’ve seen so far, at least at camo AT&T sites, is that these SiriusXM add-on installations can bust the camouflage provision that drops a modification out of Section 6409(a) and back into major-mod land.  There are some other problems with these SiriusXM projects as well, but I’ll save those tidbits for our firm’s clients.

And now you know a lot more about this very Sirius AT&T issue.

jlk

 

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Mobilitie: Fake News; FCC Fines; and Churchill's Barking Dog.

Mobilitie: Fake News; FCC Fines; and Churchill’s Barking Dog.

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

Mr. Jason Caliento, the Executive Vice President of Network Strategy at Mobilitie, presented the keynote address and a follow-up discussion at the AGL Summit on September 27, 2018. That Summit was held in Kansas City as an ongoing part of AGL’s (very important for municipal officials and industry personnel alike) lecture series.

I spoke at the AGL Summit on a 5G topic, but that’s not the focus of this post.

Mr. Jason Caliento (left) with Mr. Bryan Tramont.  Photo  Copyright © 2018 by Dr. Jonathan Kramer

The focus of this post is a snippet of about 2 minutes and 40 seconds of the one-on-one follow-up discussion with Mr. Bryan Tramont, Esq., the Managing Partner of Wilkinson Baker Knauer, LLP. The subject of that portion of their exchange was the 2018 Consent Decree between the FCC, Sprint, and Mobilitie. That Decree was adopted and released on April 10, 2018. (CLICK HERE to download and read the Consent Decree.)

In their relatively short exchange, Mr. Caliento managed to claim that there was some sort of ‘fake news’ involvement in the story about Sprint and Mobilitie violating the FCC’s rules; that the ends justified the means; and that Mr. Caliento seems guided by Sir Winston Churchill’s quote, “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” I suppose an apparently intentional program between Mobilitie and Sprint to build sites absent required regulatory permissions is the barking dog in his odd analogy.

Please listen to Mr. Caliento’s comments responding to Mr. Tramont on this topic in its entity.  Then you may decide for yourself what you think of Mobilitie’s and Sprint’s (presumably and hopefully former) approach to regulatory compliance:

Okay. I suppose that’s one way to spin intentionally violating federal regulations because the ends seem to justify Mobilitie’s and Sprint’s means. Further, as for the ends justifying the means, apparently paying the FCC an $11 million dollar fine seems a very small and economical price to Mobilitie and Sprint given the billions Mr. Caliento claims that they have saved (and presumably will save).

I opine that now we know the real fake news.

Jonathan

PS: The next AGL Summit is in Atlanta, Georgia on November 8th. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend, but I highly recommend this event to municipal officials who want the real story about what’s happening in the coming 5G world. -jlk

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The Wireless Sky is Falling!

The Wireless Sky is Falling!

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer
The wireless sky is NOT falling!
The Wireless Sky is Falling! The Wireless Sky is Falling…

Yes, the wireless sky is falling according to various firms who want landlords to hire them to sell their Sprint leases.  Our landlords are receiving letters and emails from various firms wanting to buy Sprint leases, with justifications such as:

‘Once the T-Mobile-Sprint deal is done, the value of your Sprint Site will drop to $0.’

‘Sprint will lay off 70+% of its staff.’

‘Sprint will shutter half of its cell sites.  Yours will be one of the sites they shutter.’

‘Your Sprint site is surrounded by [insert any number] of T-Mobile sites.’

‘You’ve got a narrow and closing window to act before the FCC and DOJ green-light the merger.’

Once they have set their end-of-the-world table, these firms then suggest that now is the time to hire them to help sell the soon-to-be-worthless Sprint lease.

Wait, I don’t get it…

Why would any buyer be interested in buying a worthless site owned by a company that’s going to shed the better part of its staff, and shut down half of its sites?

Yes, why indeed!?

If history is any indicator, post-merger (by a couple of years), there will be some site shut downs, but many will survive. Not all the sites to shutter will belong to Sprint…some T-Mobile sites will be goners, too.

The lowest hanging fruit for shut downs will be where Sprint and T-Mobile are collocated on the very same tower or property.  Next will likely Sprint and T-Mobile sites nearby to each other (blocks).  Finally, sites further separated will get the evil eye.

Expect companies like MD7, BlackDot, and other so-called site lease optimizers to be pulled in to push landlords to cut their rents, extend their terms, and other fun stuff (wait for: ‘Hello landlord…Now that T-Mobile and Sprint have merged, they have too many sites. T-Mobile is considering terminating your lease, but if you give them a big fat kiss in the way of a long-term rent reduction, an elimination of other terms favorable to you, they’ll stay…’).

If the T-Mobile/Sprint deal is done, we’re in for interesting times.  Before that, however, don’t get suckered into selling your Sprint (or T-Mobile) lease until you get competent counsel that help you understand your legal position.

Competent counsel does not come dressed like a little bird, nor does competent counsel cry out that the wireless sky is falling.

Jonathan

 

 

 

 

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New Mobilitie Design: The ‘Fanny Pack’

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

Mobilitie, the purveyor for Sprint of such new but instant classic wireless designs as:

The “Speargun” Design * (see below)

and

The “Pox on a Pole” Design (this is the Walrus version) *

and

The “Stick it Up Your Pole” Design * # (see below)

…has (finally) come up with a fairly-decent site configuration.  I call the new design the “Fanny Pack.”  Here’s what it looks like, as recently deployed in the City of Los Angeles:

The “Fanny Pack” Design *

The RRU, UE (backhaul) Relay, the power distribution, and elements other than the downlink antenna are all located within the Fanny Pack.

I see the Fanny Pack design as Mobilitie’s best efforts to date to come with and deploy a closer-to-mainline wireless site that is far less awful that its prior outdoors site configurations.  There are some site deployment issues with the Fanny Pack design, but those issues are relatively easy to address.

We’ve seen plans for the same basic Fanny Pack design, but with the equipment enclosure on the back of the pole.  Needless to say, we’ll refer to that as the “Back Pack” when deployed.  Photos to follow after the first Back Pack goes up near us.

Keep up this better work, Mobilitie!

Jonathan

* Okay, as you should have guessed by now, these are my design names, not Mobilitie’s. Got it? Good!

# Ms. Shannon Nichols, a NCE Permitting Manager for Mobilitie in Southern California told me on 12/6/2017 that the wood pole configuration shown above, with its standoff bracket and equipment, was a design requirement of the City of Los Angeles.  She went on to say that Mobilitie would have preferred to have its equipment flush to the body of the pole.  Thanks for the clarification, Shannon.

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Sprint Uses My Photo of Mobilitie to Promote Small Cells

Sprint Uses My Photo of Mobilitie to Promote Small Cells

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

I guess Sprint really, really likes my cell site photo collection, and photos I use in my lectures.  So much, in fact, that they they included one of my annotated photos of a Mobilitie ‘pox-on-a-pole’ site in Los Angeles as a presentation tool in an Ex Parte meeting with 9 staff members at the FCC on October 23, 2017.  Here’s my annotated photo, used by Sprint in its Ex Parte presentation:


Did Sprint bother to ask me for permission to use my intellectual property in its Ex Parte presentation?

Of course not.

Does my annotated photograph above, used by Sprint without my permission, look like the type of cell you’d want in front of your residential balcony?

I suspect not.

Hey, Sprint (and specifically Keith Buell), the next time you’d like to use my intellectual property, please consider giving me a call first.

Here’s a link to Sprint’s Ex Parte 4-page filing containing MY photo: CLICK HERE.

jlk

 

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SprintCasTrum?

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

Published reports late today have Sprint putting aside its merger talks with T-Mobile to focus on a potentially MUCH MORE IMPORTANT deal–one with Charter and Comcast (or is it Comcast and Charter). I’ve predicted a deal like this for years.

Why is a Sprint-MSOs deal more important than a deal with T-Mobile?

As I’ve said before, cable TV MSOs are like Visa: “Everywhere you want to be.”

Sprint needs to strike a deal with the biggest MSOs to gain access to the fat backhaul offered by MSOs, the quick deployment and provisioning of small cells on cable TV strand (and inside cable TV pedestals), and to the back or front yards of millions of homes passed by the cable operators.

Who are the real losers?  Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Mobilitie.  As to the first three, they are likely to be blocked for Cable TV strand-mounting of small cells in the major markets controlled by Comcast and Spectrum.  As for Mobilitie, I believe it stands to lose the most from any Sprint-MSO deal that will invariably drive a silver stake into the heart of what I can only call a very troubling and disjointed ‘5G-but-not-really-5G’ piecemeal deployment of small cells that aren’t really all that small.

Oh, yes, Crown Castle and Extenet, as well as other fiber/builder providers will suffer from a deal like this which would cut into the heart of their fiber and node businesses in a really big way.

Not too long after Sprint inks a deal with the MSOs it can expect to cease to operate as a separate entity as the cable operators swallow Sprint whole to bring the wireless services under the sole control of the MSOs.  For the MSOs it gives them the existing Sprint network, such as it is, outside of the MSO’s footprints to offer streaming video services over Sprint’s wireless network.  This would likely follow AT&T’s deployment of offering streaming video services via wireless outside of the existing wireline U-Verse and Giga-whatever footprint.

T-Mobile should now expect to receive merger-partnering overtures from other first tier and second tier cable operators. Moreover, it can expect to slide to a solid last place with a Sprint-MSO deal.

Those of you old enough will recall that Sprint largely came out of Cox Communications’ pioneer FCC licenses. What’s old is new again, and we live in interesting times.

–Jonathan

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Where there’s smoke (at Sprint and Mobilitie)…

Posted on by Dr. Jonathan L. Kramer

After reading Lydia Beyoud’s Event-Driven.com Sprint/Mobilitie article while returning from a lecture Tripp and I presented in Cleveland, something occurred to me: the common connection between smoke and fire.

Presuming the existence of the email at the source of Lydia’s article, it documents the end of an experiment to bypass some government permitting requirements to build small cells. This strongly suggests, based on a presumption of the existence of the Sprint memo, that there must be other, earlier and coincidental documents within Sprint and Mobilitie, and ‘at-risk’ and other memos to and from their contractors, that further describe the scheme’s planning and execution.

However the alleged Sprint memo from last week made its way to Ms. Beyoud, one certainly wonders whether other documents will surface to help flesh out the details of what is looking like a odious, if not illegal, plan.

Jonathan

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