Cellular billboard antennas are the-next-big-thing-that’s-going-to-happen-but-never-does. Insider suspects this is because many billboards are in rural areas with little additional demand for cellular/wireless antennas. Insider has received only 1 request from a cellular company seeking wireless antenna space on a Circle City Outdoor billboard. It was looking for a billboard near the Lucas Oil stadium in downtown Indianapolis.
Insider asked for some opinions.
Paul Wright, SignValue
Our sources tell us that the lack of widespread deployment is based three things
- population density around the sign
- coverage needed
- height
Many times billboards can’t deliver on one of these things.
Max Drachman, Kalil and Co
I remember many operators being excited about the prospects of generating revenue from antennas on their structures. That said, that excitement was generated by a handful of leasing agents promising big numbers to get as many sites under contract as possible. The majority of their promises went unfulfilled, and we see very little cellular revenue on Outdoor assets we sell. It’s unfortunate too, because there are a lot of exciting things happening in the tower space. We are selling towers for 20 – 30 times tower cash flow, and typically get over twenty offers per engagement. Worldwide consolidation is in full swing, with American Tower acquiring approximately $13b worth of tower assets in the last couple of months.
Chris Cowlbeck, IBOUSA
The carriers get a majority of the funding for this type of project from bond offerings I am told. The packagers need a ton of info up front to submit to the engineers to decide where to put them and it needs a broad footprint. One area of info surrounds the ground, and they want to know who owns the property, if leased how long the lease is, what the zoning is, what the utility conditions are, type of structure, and one key bit, the elevation of the top of the board above the roadway….I have tried and I have an ongoing conversation with a packager, but the key hurdle is that our media owners don’t want to give the land owner and term information. Frankly nor do I as a billboard owner. The revs from ads far outweighs the risk of exposing land info. Besides, with all the privacy turmoil, I expect the next tech wave to come from satellite delivery which can easily tap into 5G. ”
Jim Johnsen, Johnsen Fretty
There are four reasons it’s not working.
- The honeycomb is too deeply entrenched. Verizon, AT&T etc have achieved nationwide coverage because each cell tower coverage circle bumps up against the next. When you draw a bunch of these circles adjacent to one another you end up with a honeycomb picture. Trying to fit a new circle in this honeycomb because challenging if not impossible. While I think tower companies were interested in trying to utilize billboards for a while, I think they now view it as a thread the needle exercise.
- Most boards are not high enough. Across the US the subset of boards high enough to be cell towers is quite small. When you compound that with #1, a billboard candidate subset really gets reduced.
- But for a small subset of leases I’ve seen, outdoor operators don’t have the clear right to also act as a cell tower. While the can do it and hope the landlord doesn’t catch them, it’s not clear whether or not, without tacit approval, operators can grant cell transmission rights to a tower or cell company. We all know what happens when we billboard guys have to go ask our landlord for something.
- (Bonus point). Even if you satisfy 1,2 and 3, one is still left with the challenges of zoning approval. While this is on the tower company, we outdoor operators know a thing or two about the triple lindy you need to perform to achieve zoning approval.
Why aren’t there more antennas on billboards? Do you think we’ll see more antennas on billboards as 5G is rolled out? Let Insider know using the form below.
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