How 5G Technology Changes Real Estate Development

Thank, you so much for coming to, 5g. And what. It means, my, name is Len forcus, and, my. Company is called milestone communications. We. Build and own cell phone towers were, based in Washington, DC area, just. To give you a little context, about Uli I've been involved, with Eli for almost. 20 years I, was the chair of Eli Washington, and. Also chair, of the District Council program, I'm, a former trustee and, it's. Really really fun to be, invited to talk about something that I, purposely. Transitioned, my business toward in, prior years I, was a landscape architect. Apartment. Developer, worked. For a home builder we. Did, master plan community development. Built. Retail centers owned office buildings so I've had, a pretty, broad real, estate career but. About in. 2000. I got really interested in the, cell tower business and the reason was. Because I looked at it as, if it was a reflectively, vertical real estate. But. What convinced me to start a company to build cell towers was, a trip, I took the Phoenix visiting, my brother-in-law, and I, noticed on a high school there was one of the light poles that lit the field that was taller than the other light poles and there. Were antennas above the lights and I, looked at and I thought oh my god that's a that's a cell tower and the, landscape architect, didn't me thought that is a really, good design solution, to. Conceal, the, infrastructure because everyone has a universal, hatred, for cell towers because their, period, a period scarves, in the landscape and so, I started a business to. Effectively, partner, with municipalities, and school systems, and also, power companies, to, build towers on their properties, and conceal them in a way where, they could be acceptable to the community and, and. So that's that's that's the context, of. How. I got into the wireless business fast. Forward to today I've got 50 partnerships, in six states I've, built over a hundred and fifty towers, and. Leased. Rooftops, lease, infrastructure. Water tanks and so forth so, I come from a real estate background with, a, technology, twist, and so, I'm not the expert on 5g, but at least I hope that my goal today is to be able to share. With you some, of the jargons, some of the trends. Some of the things that are happening in the wireless industry kind. Of paint a picture for you and, then and really open it up to questions because, I know that you're all here because you want to you have questions you have one I have answered whether it's on your assets, or on properties. Or just. General where where technology, is going but. This is I just want to share with you a couple of pictures of stuff that I build because I'm proud of this because of what it looks like though we've, done 50 60 of these the light pole replacements.

We. Partner, with municipalities. And power companies, we like power companies we liked all transmission, structures we've done a number of those that's. A tree pole tower you know some of these tree poles look ridiculous, but we, take a lot of pride in designing, them in a way that they can be concealed and this, is one of our most recent towers, it's a marquee tower that, we built at a park where all the equipment's, designed behind a panel and the, panels of the concealment. We're all based on the the, use of the park which is an aquatic center in a Nature Center so, again that's that's my day job that's what I do but what I'd like to do is talk to you about generally. The world that I live in which is the wireless communications, world and so, 5g so just to give you a frame, of reference on, kind, of the evolution of wireless networks, when. The first phones came out in you know the the late 1980s. They were big and bulky and it, was just. Effectively, analog. Using, voice. Over an, analog network, and back then you could build a cell tower would cover six, to seven miles of. Distance, because, it was a very low amount of information that was traveling, through when. The Syst the second gene networks came about that's, when we began to make the transition to, texting. And to, be able to receive some limited. Information but. Again. The. 2g networks were for primarily making the shift from voice. To, transfer, to data the. 3G networks. Effectively. Increased. The speeds to. 2,000. Bits. Bits per second, and that, allowed us to be able to. Take. Photographs and, send, them to social. Media at. At, reasonable. Speeds not, fast enough to, replace, the speed and our computers, but, but still mobile enough for us to be able to browse websites. And, transmit. Data and then, in 2012, 4G. Technologies, introduced, which, has, tremendous amount, of throughput. It's called LTE we. All know it because we see the the commercials. For it and that's, effectively where we are today but so you can kind of see how. Fast the, speeds have been. Been going through through time as technologies. Of shift have been different shaped I like. This slide because it talks, a little bit about some of the the, gobbledygook. Acronyms. Of all the different forms of, wireless. From you, know the first the first networks, were a and PS, 2g. Was a GSM, and. CDMA so. You can see there, were different technologies, introduced. By different companies and. They they, kind, of came to two. Different paths, there, was the path that, kind of followed us and led us to LTE, through. 2g. And then effectively you know, there have been these transition. Points, where. They call for, example we didn't go from two to three, they went to edge technology. Which, became, two-and-a-half G so, you can see the the evolution is constant. There's never a time when. The scientists, in the wireless world decide, after they launch a technology. That they stopped. They're. Always improving, they're always continuing. To move forward and, keep going but, what was interesting was a real pivotal moment, occurred when. The. 4G technology was, being developed in 2011. Of 2012, because, there were two forms, of technology that, were considered, relatively, equal, LTE. And, WiMAX and and. As you can see you don't hear much about WiMAX, and I'll I'll tell you a little bit about what, happened to WiMAX, but, the. Engineers as they. Started to focus on 5g. Decided. That they didn't want to have to. Make the same mistakes they've made in the past and have a lot of waste in terms of the design of the technology, the software, and the, equipment, so, they went to the International. Telecommunications. Union. Worldwide. Agency it's actually the vid agency, of the United Nations. 193. Member states, 700. Members. And they developed standards for all sorts of things that are technology, related to whether it's mobile, communications. Or. Satellite, communications. Spectrum. Internet. Data they are the go-to. Organization. In the globe that, make sure that when satellites, get launched, that their signals, don't cross as they as they shoot toward the United States and, the rest of the world and so, ITU. Effectively. Took. The lead to. Bring in all the engineers of the world together to. Come up with a with, a standard, for 5g, and here's, why, for. Those of you that are old-school guys like me you remember a VHS, and beta well. VHS. And Betamax. Were. Very, comparable, technologies. In fact Betamax. Was actually, a better technology. Than VHS. But. We. All none. Of us here. About Betamax, if, it quickly died part, of the reason that Betamax, died was that sony felt it was proprietary, and wanted, to keep the licenses, to it whereas VHS, was an open platform and so, they. Lost, billions. Of dollars by, by taking that route same. Thing happened in the wireless industry in 2012. The, two, different versions, by.

Two Different different. Companies and different engineers, threw. Down and design. These two networks, that, were relatively. Equal, in terms, of their abilities. LCE. Proved, to have a slight, and small difference, in terms, of its usability. And effectively. Every single, wireless carrier in the, in the world with the exception to. Several. Companies like there's a company that, sprint was a 50%, owner in, called. A clear, wire and, clear. Wire took the path of WiMAX. And became. Obsolete within. 18, to 24 months of deploying and so, the. ITU. Became. The organization, that. Would focus on creating, a path, to. Developing, the, software and, hardware, for, the, next generation, networks so, that there wouldn't be a waste of resources and, creating. Duplicate, technologies, where you have a winner and loser pretty. Smart pretty forward-thinking when, it comes to the the folks, in the world that are developing these technologies. The. ITU set standards, for what, they want 5g, to what. The result would be what the outcome would be for 5g, and it. Really hinges on two basic. Premises, the, first is speed. The. Speed, in which a megabit, of data can flow through the. Wireless network their, goal was to reduce speed, to. Increase, speed effectively. Twenty fold, from. One, gigabit per second to, 20 gigabits, per second, massive, massive. Leap, in the, trends, in the speed of wireless. Technology the, second, element. Of of. The. Goal of 5g. And the ITU was to eliminate, the latency, latency. Is. Related, to speed in many, respects, but, but, latency, is actually, in some respects more valuable, than speed, because. Of the of the transaction, times and. And really what it's. A delivery mechanism so, there's there's. Connection, speed which, includes. How how, how, much data can flow through, the. Network, but, how fast it gets there also is significantly, influenced, by latency, so massive. Massive, goals, here in terms, of the developing the standards for. 5g. The. Second element is. They. Want this network to be able to be applicable, to, an. Increase. Of devices. By, a hundred, X so, imagine, how, many devices can we think of that, are used wirelessly, you know it's our phones, it's our tablets, it's. You. Know other other devices. But but, what they're planning for is that, this network will have the ability to be able to support, a hundred. Times increase, in the number of devices that, haven't, even been thought of yet, and. And so it all it all relates to what. Many of you know is IOT which is the Internet of Things where. Effectively. Everything. That has a power source has, a modem, that connects, to the network and and. That's that could be an infinite number of devices. So the idea was to create the capacity for. Hundreds. Hundred. X of what we have today in devices over the next several years the, other. Element was to create, a network that would effectively, reduce. The, amount of energy it takes to power up a device so. Their goal was, to have a 90%, energy. Reduction, and and, it's even hard to imagine because, I think every one of us knows that if we don't get to a charger, today sometime, during the meeting we're, gonna run out of juice for our wireless phones our wireless devices but, that's the goal is to is to be able to create a network, that reduces. Energy, consumption, and also, for. Devices. That are in the field for, example whether it's a it's a wireless device that's, connected to a. Traffic. Light they. Don't want they. Want this network to be able to reduce.

The Energy so that they could have a 10 year battery life, in a, wireless, device that transmits data from a traffic. Light those, are the big picture elements, of what, ITU, is establishing. For, the 5g network, the. The easiest way to think, about this and I can make this graph available to you is that, we're really looking at instant, in some areas between a ten to a hundred times increase, in. Capacity. Traffic. Capacity through the networks. Network. Energy efficiency, the. Density. Of data, that can flow through networks, the, reduction, of latency, and. An, effectively, spectral, efficiency because, all these devices, are flowing through licensed, spectrum, that. Are purchased, by the wireless, carriers and again, to find ways to be able to use. The spectrum that they have available in more, efficient ways and and, effectively increase, the user experience by a hundred. Times, increase. In terms of the user experience. And so, in to. Put it in kind of human terms, you. Know on a 3G network you. Could download a two hour movie a high-def two-hour movie it would take roughly a day under. 4G, it, takes about six minutes under. The standards, of 5g, which are being developed now it, would take 3.6. Seconds so. It's it's almost unimaginable, on. A device, that could function that way in a mobile environment but, those are the goals that the ITU is setting and that's what the the, engineers of the world are working on right now to, developing those standards. So. If you kind of look at it in more, human terms you, know the first generation, was about voice the, second was about email, the, third I you say cameras, because that was kind of when devices, of devices, became cameras, but really 3G was when we, all be able, to get, access to the Internet and the, way I look at 4G is 4G, is the the speed and the quality of the technology, and the devices that really. Uncomplete. Ly completely. Untethered us from the computer, and. I think that was to me in my mind the biggest difference. My. Wife is a very low-tech person, she's. Got a big, fat iPhone. And I, don't I haven't seen her used as a computer in our home in, about two years her. Whole world is that phone she can seek and gain access to everything that she needs whether, on mobile or at home and I think that's to me was the trans transformation. What 4g did, to us really gave to us really was. The the, complete untethering of needing. To be connected. And what. 5g, is is really, going to be is is. The, number. One benefit. The five you will have is will it will be the portal, for entertainment, it will be able to send, video. Through. The wireless network in, in, the quality, and speed that we've never seen before and that's, what's driving the. The density and the transformation, that's occurring right now and in, the wireless industry, in. My, mind the best way to describe it is 5g. Is fiber. To. The phone and. If. You think about how, disruptive that, will be when.

You Think about how we acquire. How, we acquire Internet, in our offices, how, we acquire Internet in our homes whether, it's cable, companies or. FiOS, or other other forms effectively. This, is why ATT. Is purchasing, Time Warner. Eighty. Verizon. And maybe, sprint a Sprint t-mobile combination. They're. All making. The transition from, voice. It's. A broadband, to. Complete. Experience. Entertainment. Experience, that's. Where they see their future is is. The effectively. The gatekeeper. That get, that provides, to you. Every. Every element of communication. From. From all those all those things bundled up. So. That's in a nutshell what 5g, is when. Is it coming so ITU, established. A calendar. And it, actually goes way past 2016. Earlier in 2016, it started effectively in 2011, after the 4G standards, were were, adopted, but, effectively, they, they, they worked. With the all, the engineers throughout the world to, begin to start to focus on different modules, of. Of. Problem. Solving, and and steps, so it's like any project management. Responsibility. It's. The focus the focus of engineers, that are effectively, competing, against each other to develop, the, platform and the standards, and the software codes for. This, type of technology and so whereas, leading to right now is a, deployment. In 2020. Now. You're, going to hear a little bit about the. Race to 5g, and I'll talk a little about that from the context, of the wireless carriers and what that means to them but. The, ITU, is focusing. On mobile. Standards. You'll. Hear about 5g. Being deployed by Verizon, and by, Sprint, and by, 18t, but. What they're talking about when they're talking about 5g right now they're talking about something that's very different than, what ITU is working on they're talking about a. Technology. Called fixed wireless whereas. ITU is focusing, on mobile. Wireless and, all, difference. That differentiate, that in just a few a few minutes here so. The. Race to 5g, so. The race to 5g is not about how fast we can deploy a 5g, network because.

We Can't deploy a 5g network because, a 5g network has not yet been defined, from, the mobility, standpoint. The. Other element, is wireless, carriers, have. To recoup, billions. Of dollars, that, they've invested, in deploying. Their. 4G, network, I mean this equipment, and, the antennas, and the, spectrum that they need to purchase to be able to allow all this data to flow is extraordinarily. Expensive takes a tremendous amount of capital and just, like any investment, that each of us makes there's, a return on cost there's a return on investment over time and so, when, you hear the when, you hear the the conversation. About the race to 5g, what's. Really being talked about is the, race to design. The. Standards, for 5g. The. President, and members. Of, our. Federal government are saying we have to win the, race to 5g. But, what they're really saying, is American. Scientists. They. Want American scientists, to have more, of a voice as, to, what the design of 5g, will look like and right. Now the. American scientists, are not leading the. Design, of 5g it's being led by. Mostly. By Korea. China. And India. With, United, States so you know right up there but but those three countries and the engineering, brainpower, that's. Focusing, on the, elements. Of the design of the 5g mobility, network that's, what we're talking about and there's, a lot of a lot of fear in the by. By, people in our government that somehow, if other, countries are have, a lot larger voice or a stronger voice and what 5g looks like that, that could somehow you know be be a threat to the United States I'm not really buying off on that but I think that's. What they're talking about I see the race to 5g because, there's not one wireless carrier that is racing, to. Deploy. A network, that hasn't been designed, yet from, the standpoint of mobility. But. There's. A difference, between mobile, 5g, and fixed. 5g, so if I can explain to you what fixed 5g is and it's. Being it's being developed by each carrier, Verizon. T-mobile Sprint. AT&T. They. All are deploying, what's called. It's, effectively called fixed-fixed, 5g or fixed wireless and what. It is is using, some of the trials with, some of the software that's being developed to.

Increase The speeds, on. A point-to-point, network, so in other words what, fixed 5g, is is, a, signal. Coming from a cell tower or. A rooftop or a connected. Transmitting, device to, a receiving, antenna now, receiving antenna in the trials right now looks, like a small pizza dish or a small square that, you would mount and. A building. Or. In a location, where, you could get fiber, from that device to your, network to. Your to your your you know Wi-Fi distribution, point in your home or to your vices and what, that is is that's sending a signal from. The tower and line-of-sight. To, the antenna so, it requires a. Relatively. Line-of-sight. Clear, path between those two points kind, of like DirecTV, has a path toward the satellites, there's, a clear path between that device and the. Antenna, on the cell tower and and, they're getting insane. Speeds, through. The fixed 5g, wireless, and there's, no standard, for, fixed 5g, wireless each company, is developing their own design. There's. A technology, called beam, forming. Which. Allows, for, the the the wireless, signals to effectively, move, around. Objects. So if there's a tree, or, a building. Blocking. You from the, antenna some, parts of that spectrum can can beam around that. Device, and or, that that obstruction and so, that's what's what's interesting is there's also another buzz, Vergil here it's called the millimeter, millimeter, wave spectrum, it's, a high band spectrum that's that's, being used to. Effectively. Connect. Connect. Devices at, super, high speed from an interim, a receiving, antenna from, a transmitting antenna and so, if you hear about t-mobile. Or Sprint, or, Verizon we've. Got 5g, we're pushing out 5g, that's, what they're talking about they're not talking about 5g to your phone because, the true 5g, to your phone hasn't, been designed, yet still, a few more years off, from that so this whole idea of race to 5g, think, about in the context, of the race to design it versus. You, know versus a the race to deploy it at least, at this point. Another. Way to think about 5g. From, the perspective, of wireless carriers, is, it's. A first-class, seat, on a 4G. Airplane. Because. The, 4G network just like a coach seat in a plane it's going to get you there at the sorrell you know relatively.

At, The same time but, the experience, is gonna be very different and so this is how when, 5g is deployed, the, wireless carriers are going to effectively. Focus. On marketing, it it's going to be an upgrade to. 4G, 4G. Whilst you know 4G has the ability, to send, effectively, a fiber like speed today to. Your to, your wireless device they, just haven't they haven't deployed the infrastructure to be able to facilitate that in a, uniform. Way but, you can get you get a hundred Meg's to your phone on a wireless, device under, 4G and I, don't know about you but at home I pay, for you know I'm paying a lot of money for 50 through, a fiber line 4G. Has the capacity to go to a hundred so 4G. Has the capacity to. Give fiber to your phone right now and. But. Again the infrastructure, is not there and the spectrum is not there to be able to do that in a uniform way that's why the 5g networks will be so valuable. So. That's in the context, of where the carriers are what. They're thinking about what 5g will be it'll be an upgrade, over over. A base infrastructure. Of. 4G and, I. Think, another thing that's really relevant to point out is, the. Amount of competition, in the wireless space and how. It's affected, the, spending patterns of the. Infrastructure, for these wireless companies. Two. Years ago I've. Got 80 many. Of you have ATT Verizon, two years ago you. Had a data plan and if you went over your data plan you, had to buy more data, well. Marcella. Claire it's at, Sprint and John, Legere at t-mobile and it, was really lazier, that kicked it off in the, summer of. 2016. Rebranded. They called themselves the uncarrier, and. They. Effectively, took, all took all the limits off of, the, amount of data unlimited. Data. Sprint. Follows suit quickly, and over. The course of between, August, and, January. February, of 2017, they. Stole a significant. Amount, of market share from, 18t, and Verizon by, going by going to free. And fixed, price unlimited. Network. Capacity. For, the consumer, and, finally. In March. Of last. Year both. ATT and Verizon, conceded. To. Stop the flow of the hemorrhaging, of customers, to these other networks and match. The unlimited, data. Program, and in doing so the. Amount of revenue that, those. Two companies. Received. Plummeted. To. The point now where. 18t, and Verizon, and Sprint and t-mobile are, really. Not. Profitable. From, 4G. Giving. Unlimited, speeds. To. Every, user for. Each device as. As, consist, significantly. Constrained, their, revenue, potential, and so, they're looking, to 5g. As the, opportunity, to, be able to get. Premium pricing, on. Top of your base plan to, be able to drive drive, more revenue to pay for this because, ultimately. Manat. If the current model that they're under right now which is unlimited is just, not sustainable for them to be able to continue to make the capital, investments, that they need to be able to continuously. Upgrade. Their their network. The. Recent changes in net. Neutrality and tax. Reform were a significant. Positive for. All these each of these companies net. Neutrality. Really. The, the laws to create, net neutrality. Were. Passed, under the Obama administration, and. They were repealed, by. The the, most recent administration, but, before, the Obama s tradition. Administration. Created the laws that define. Net neutrality there, was no new net net neutrality and for. Those of you that may not know what net neutrality is effectively, the concept, behind net. Neutrality is that there. Shouldn't be a preference, paid on the, speed of, data. Going through the network from different companies like for example, Netflix. You know Netflix, Netflix, will pay a premium to. AT&T and Verizon, and Sprint so. That when their data flows through their wireless networks it gets there faster. Than. You. Know Amazon, Prime right.

And So. That. Is that was a huge revenue source for, these wireless carriers was the ability to be able to create premium pricing, for, the speed of data flowing. Through wireless networks it was also not just wireless networks it was through all fiber and. So it created. An economic constraint. For. The wireless industry so, by going back to where we were before the net neutrality laws were put in place it now, creates a revenue opportunity, for, prioritization, and there's, a lot of people that feel very strongly on both, sides of that argument as to whether that is equitable, to the American consumer I, won't, get into that but all I know is that, the, going. Back to the model that existed, before then that neutrality laws were in place is a. Significant, positive to, the wireless industry which. Will then provide, resources, for them to, be able to invest in the next generation of their networks the. Same thing obviously, with the tax reform a, huge, amount, of capital was. Released as a result, of the, tax changes that were being. Placed in effect right now and again. Accelerated. Depreciation as, well, as the, ability to be able to use. Utilize, that cash that's coming in that, was you know was in other places or overseas, or whatever but, all each of these companies have all had the ability to be able to benefit from just many, recent changes that occurred um. The other thing that is interesting when you're looking at it from the perspective of, the wireless carriers, is what's. Happening with the. Companies which we're often, relate to as fangs which are Facebook. Amazon. Netflix. And, Google. If you take those four companies, and you. Look at their their their, their capitalization, their worth those, four companies, have. A have, an asset value of three trillion. Dollars. Compare. That with. The. Telecommunications industry, whether. It's cable, fiber. Wireless. Communications. Talking. About you know a huge, huge. Number of companies. Together. The. Industry, that provides this, information to us is one-third. The size of those four. Companies. The. Wireless industry that, the data, telecommunication. Industry cable, industry, heavily. Regulated, as, to. How. They operate, what. They cute what's, communicated. Their their policies, toward consumers, those. Four companies. Have. Almost, no, regulation, and so. What, does that mean well it's just what I'm the reason I bring it up is because. We've. Got an industry, that, has a, tremendous. Amount of burden and weight in. Terms of being able to operate and and. I think that the the the balance, is going to start to sway as Congress. Begins to look at. Transparency. Data. Privacy, and a. Whole host of other elements and we're. Gonna see that that's going to affect those. Other those other companies and we're going to start to see see, more equality I think the wireless carriers feel that. The, amount of regulation that they have to to, fund and be, part of, there's. A huge disparity with. Respect to other companies that are in the technology space I. Do. Want to talk a little bit about fiber and data, and data centers because obviously, data.

Centers Are very focused. A very focused, real estate space but. When. I first built my when, I built my first cell tower it. Didn't really matter if there, was no fiber to the tower because. My customers would put a microwave dish on the tower and then they would relay, high-speed. Data, to. The microwave, dish and then to their radio cabinets, and then have, the data function through that, and. For, many many years until, 4G. That. Was a very. Affordable and economical way, to be able to create. The interconnectivity. For. The wireless signals to be transmitted, through their network but. The speed of 4G and of course 5g means that the. There. Has to be fiber to. Every single tower, and. If it's not available in. Such as in very rural areas then, you're not going to see the the same connection, speed that, you're gonna see in in more urban, areas so, every. Single tower that I build, we've. Got to have fiber at that site or, find the path to get the fiber to that site, the. Second thing that's very interesting is, the, average distance that. A an. Element, of data travels, from. From. The data center to. The wireless NOC to. The tower is, 500. Miles and. Back. So, effectively, the. Average, this, is not the maximum the. Average, distance a bit of data travels, back, and forth from. Than from its originating, source to. The consumer, is a thousand. Miles, and, as, we know latency. Is all about how. Long that how, fast and how long it takes for, that data to flow through the, pipe so if you think about it as a you. Know as a storm water pipe or a plumbing. Pipe right a water pipe. Obviously. The. Width of the pipe is. It. Creates, the amount. Of amount. Of capacity. Or potential, speed but. The longer the distance the. The slower the latency, and so, what, we're gonna see is a. Transition. From, mega, data centers to, more. Micro. Data centers as, a company and where, I live in near Washington DC called edge connects, their. Whole business model is to build data centers in. Higher, density, areas. To closer to where the consumers are so rather, than building you know million square foot data centers or halflings Griffin just four data centers they're building smaller data centers that are much more proximate, to where the users are, the. Company one of the biggest wireless, tower companies within the world it's, a the second one of the second largest tower reads called crown castle, they, bought a company called / io and, vapor. Develops. Effectively, a module, it's a you know it's roughly you. Know 20. Feet long it's a it's a shelter building 20 feet long it's HD wide a feet high and it. Can how it can host, many. Data centers, the biggest issue they have is expelling, the heat from, that building but, the notion is that over time we're. Gonna be seeing micro. Data centers or smaller compact, data centers at, cell towers or in, places where there are antennas being transmitted, so, when I use the word cell tower I'm talking, about what's called a base station that could be a rooftop as well but, over time to, decrease, latency, and to, create, a better user experience, we're, gonna see more infrastructure, more physical on the ground infrastructure. Approximate. To, wireless. Wireless, infrastructure, base stations. So. What does it mean for real estate and, it's. A tough question to answer because. Obviously. We're, at the early stages of even. Defining what 5g is but. A couple things that come to mind again, the. Ecosystem. That. Allows. For. All, of our wireless devices to. Function. Is based. On a. Large. Part of a large. Number of different forms. Of transmitting. Devices so. When I use the word tower I also call it a macro sight cell. Tower macro, site or in a rooftop installation, is typically anywhere, between nine and fifteen panels. That. Are connected, to radios, that, connect a fiber that, run back to the the, operators, network, the. One thing that I've seen in. The last 18 years of being in this industry is the. Amount, of equipment that is being placed, on rooftops. The amount of equipment that's being placed on my tower when, I built my first tower in 2000. Nextel. Put. Six. Antenna panels, each, antenna panel was six feet high and about, eighteen inches wide and then, they had a cabinet, at the base of the tower and that, allowed them to be able to launch their their, 2g, network today. With. The LTE network we're, seeing 15, antenna panels, many. These antenna panels are. Feet tall two. Feet wide and the. Radios that, used to be in the base cabinet, on the ground are, now mounted. Behind the antenna, panels and. Effectively. They're the size of carry-on suitcases, then.

They're Called remote radio heads and what. That does is by moving the radio from. The ground from, the base station on the ground up to. Behind. The antenna panel is it, gives them a 15 to 20 X. 20. Percent, increase, in the, speed so they lose twenty percent of the, speed by, running, that fiber and those, coax cables down to the ground so, we're seeing a lot more equipment, on the tower a lot more equipment on the rooftop for the. Macro, macro, sites, it. The, amount of just, to give you an example a typical, installation, for. Verizon. Or, 18t. Is four. Thousand. Pounds, of equipment, on one. Rad, Center or one space on my tower I mean, it's like hanging a pickup truck on. My tower that's how much weight and wind load and so, the. Cost to build towers now has obviously, gone up because we need to buy thicker steel stronger. Foundations, and so, forth so, that's that's one of the elements of some, of the trends is there's a lot more gear, a lot more equipment to be able to allow the the. Devices. In the networks to function the, second form of equipment were seeing are called small cells, small. Cells are effectively. Micro. Or mini cell towers, from, the standpoint of they, have antennas. And radios. Built, in that. Allow, for the wireless carrier to, send their signal through, that device now. There's another another. Device called is distributed, antenna systems, or did - and, just. To give you some examples, of what this looks like so far left. Typical. Macro, tower installation. With, antenna. Panels, radio heads behind and then, cabling it runs down to the ground rooftop. Installations, very, similar it's effectively a tower on a rooftop many. Real estate owners are very familiar with this again. More. Equipment more, Geir and. Absolute. Need for fiber the, third photograph, is a typical, as an example of a small cell where, it's combined with a streetlight, and all. The equipment is integrated, into the thicker part of the pole, and there's, typically three panels and those, three panels, send out signals in these. Are the three azimuth, and and. Then the networking equipment is, housed on, the base of the, of that particular, structure there's, a lot of different types of designs for, this being developed, and. That is a key element in being, able to propagate. A stronger. Signal lower. The ground below the trees the. Fourth device is called a distributed antenna system. So. The way you think about a distributed, antenna system is. It's. The other name for it is called neutral host and what, that is it's a device that has intended. Panels inside but. Those intended panels are designed to, be able to send a signal from. Multiple, frequencies. And multiple carriers so. For example in that particular device which, is mounted on top of a wooden light pole a private. Company like, x2 net or crown castle or American, Tower actually. Build pay for and fund and own that device and then, they lease, capacity. To, companies. Like Verizon Sprint, and t-mobile so, that's called a neutral host distributed, antenna system many of you have nutri, hosts distribute kind of systems, in your buildings, and. So, the carriers will pay a fee and, pay a capital expense to, have access to that, type of network but, they really prefer, not, to go, on the distributed, antenna system and the reason is, because those. Companies as third-party companies, manage. The network they, manage the hardware, they. Manage the networking, equipment, and they're. Responsible for allocating, capacity. With, the wireless carriers, want to do is have control, over the. Entire transmitting. Experience. That's, why they're building what are called small cells and all, it takes to light that small cell device up that, that small cell device also can be mounted on a, square. Panel, on a parapet, if you mounted on us. 20 feet up on the side of a building that, can be mounted on, power. Lines or. Wooden. Poles or Street. Traffic lights and so, forth so you're seeing a huge amount of expansion toward, toward small cells. Because. It again it gives the wireless, carrier the, ability, to be able to control 100%. The. Equipment, the. The. Flow at, as much or as little capacity. As they would like to as they choose to. To. Give you some economic, you. Know information on this, for. Example a wireless, carry the Lisa space on. One of my towers will, pay anywhere from two, thousand to three thousand dollars a month depending, on how much equipment and loading they're putting on my tower. There are similar rents available. On rooftops, if any of you manage rooftops for your companies or. Your portfolio, you'll. See that those that generally the rent friends. There's. Been a lot of pushback on rent, recently, just because of the fact that these wireless companies are having just, a lot of economic, stress but, but.

That In a nutshell is the type of installations. Small. Cells we're, seeing rents from anywhere, from 200 to 500 dollars per month, not. A lot of rent but, again we're seeing that as something. That's being, deployed and something is very popular. Inside. Buildings. Neutral. Hosts again has been, the theme although, we're seeing some small cell installations, inside buildings but, the biggest difference that we're seeing inside buildings is that, the. Wireless companies, are no longer investing. In. Paying. For the infrastructure to, provide capacity. Inside. A building and one, of the reasons for that is that it's a very low return on their cost but. Second, was the invention of effectively. Mobile. Over Wi-Fi so many of us have phones now that, allow, us to be able to connect to the network using. The Wi-Fi network so, the advances. And software effectively, have facilitated. The, the the, dead zones and our buildings if. You have Wi-Fi and your phone is connected to network so. Your, phone's going to be functional, even if it's in a in a place where it's not getting a signal from outside and. So I think that's one of the biggest, advances, that. I think you're going to limit the. Ability. To be able to fund and, pay for death, systems inside buildings, but we're still gonna see them in stadiums and, convention. Centers in other places where you have you, know a tremendous amount of users. I. Think. You need to wrap it up if, you think about how. We perceive. Technology. And how we perceive the, adoption. Of it you know the movie I Robot came, out in 2004. And their prediction, was we'd have driverless cars by. 2035. Well. We're gonna have driverless cars by. 2025. I remember. When Minority Report came, out was the first time we had ever seen you, know moving files, on a on a tablet, or on a device that was a screen and. They predicted that to happen in 2050, for so the, the rapid pace of the the upgrades and the changes in technology I'll. Require, wireless, networks and it's just it's just so interesting to to think about where that what the, head. In the future. So. We'll talk about a little bit off the future before we wrap up and open up for questions but. Clearly. Big. Buzz at least in our but our industry is you, know what's going to happen with mobility and cars, fleets, public, transportation, when, when, the networks are functioning to, give you a perspective on, speed. 4G. LTE network in Pittsburgh. Is. Operating, the driverless car programs they have I believe, it's Google. I think is doing the driverless car program in Pittsburgh so. If you imagine the, speed of the data flowing through a 4G network, the. Car can respond, to a. Risk. At. Approximately. The same speed as the. Speed, of our brains how fast we make decisions, so, it's it's pretty relatively.

Equal. Speed. Fast. Forward when the 5g networks emerge. We're, talking ten times that speed ten. Times the decision-making, processing. Power to have that vehicle decide, what to do ten. Times faster, than the way that our minds can process information that's. Where the safety really comes, into play with. 5g, but. Make, no mistake. Running. Driverless, cars on a 4G network is, a very, keep proposition, and we're not going to see the ubiquitousness. Of that until, the, 5g networks are well established and, fruit. On the road but, but if you think about the 5g speeds 100, times faster 20. Times the 20, times less the X the latency, things. Like machine, to machine, community. Remote surgery, drone. Delivery I, mean, smart, cities the Internet of Things everything. Being connected that's. What that effectively is what what foot 5g will mean I think we're done with little over time so I want, to thank you all for coming it was really a pleasure speaking to you.

2018-05-13 00:07

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