Seeking Alpha has an interesting article posted on the opportunities for billboard companies to become the next generation of data carriers.
Some excerpts from the article:
- Data will grow dramatically over the next 10-20 years.
- Seeking Alpha views tower companies great long term investments.
- They see billboard companies as an under the radar way to invest with this data trend.
- Billboard companies are similar to tower companies, with long lived assets in which they generate fees from selling services associated with those assets.
- Billboards have high barriers to entry, low capex, and location based differentiation.
- Outfront is making a big push into Data with a new partnership with Diamond Communications which is the largest privately owned Tower company in the US. Diamond will provide Outfront with technical know-how in order to offer data services on their existing Billboard infrastructure.
- The incremental cost to the Billboard company is essentially zero as the equipment would be owned by the telecom provider and space is just leased.
Outfront recently announced (May 2016) their first major contract with SIGFOX, the world’s leading provider of global communications service for Internet of Things.
Insider’s take: This will be slow developing but a space to watch. Diamond Communications is working with Outfront. Skyway is working with the IBOUSA. Vertical Bridge has a partnership with Clear Channel. We are bullish on the possibilities for data in the industry.
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