UK telecoms site market to see major change as Macropolitan reveals largest urban portfolio of next generation communications sites rights

 

UK’s largest owner of urban building telecom rights leaves stealth mode

 

8^th March, 2007,

 

Macropolitan, a new company formed by Ryan Jarvis, formerly BT Chief of Wireless Broadband and Richard Greco, formerly CEO Bulldog Communications, announces today that it owns the largest portfolio of exclusive telecoms rights at UK urban sites. Macropolitan manages and leases to telecoms operators roof space for communications equipment in urban areas, generating new rental revenues for those property owners. Macropolitan’s unique site portfolio and low-cost model will change the UK telecoms site market. Macropolitan enables operators to deploy new networks, ranging from 3G to WiMAX, faster, cheaper and with significantly greater ease than the direct site acquisition or tower company alternatives. 

Macropolitan has secured the exclusive rights to the buildings within 33 company chains that include Travelodge, Premier Travel Inn, David Lloyd Leisure and Fitness First. Macropolitan aggregates and rents access to this portfolio of over 7,600 sites to operators on one common set of pricing and terms at a substantially reduced cost. Unlike the current, tower company-dominated site market offerings, Macropolitan is a low-cost provider that does not impose access charges or maintenance staff on its operator customers.  

Ryan Jarvis, CEO, stated that “Cities are the overwhelming focus for new network deployments but until now operators have faced high costs and delays in acquiring access to metropolitan sites. With the upcoming Ofcom WiMAX auction Macropolitan, as the UK’s largest owner of urban telecoms rights, can now prevent city site acquisition becoming the chokepoint for a ‘Wireless Broadband Britain.’ We have already proven that we can bring a WiMAX operator to market six months ahead of traditional operator site acquisition methods and believe Macropolitan is in prime position to take major market share in new wave roll-out”      

This innovative approach will also bring hassle-free, new revenue streams to property owners. Telecom rights have traditionally been difficult to leverage for each individual property owner as each separate operator faced high acquisition and transaction costs per site. By aggregating sites from multiple owners, Macropolitan is able to drive up utilisation for each property owner.  Macropolitan also removes property owner costs as it manages the operator on the property owner’s behalf.