subject: Why Be Flexible During Lease Renegotiations? [print this page] Are you are a landowner who has been approached about lease renegotiations for your cell phone tower site lease? If you have, this may bring much anxiety to you since your rent from cell phone companies is important to you. It is critical that you remember that flexibility of terms is all part of the benefit for both parties involved, the operator as well the land owner. The growing capabilities and demands of mobile devices combined with millions of users change how operators need to provide reliable service, which is precisely why, as a land owner, you need to understand the need for flexibility in some terms that are in your lease contract. Some things do not need to be left ambiguous at all, but there are others that need to be flexible that really are just common sense.
Cell phone and wireless operators have to constantly invest in new technology as it comes along in order to stay competitive and provide the best service to their customers. As that technology changes, so too does the need for many types of cellular towers. Even though there are more people today than ever before who have cell phones from various companies, they are paying less for their service over all it simply is not as expensive as it used to be for service. They are also enjoying more features, too. Operators can not control the cost of keeping up with new technology, and they also can not control the decreasing cost of service plans, so they have to find other ways to control their expenses. One of the biggest expenses for these companies is cellular tower site rent. It is important for land owners to keep these things in mind during any lease renegotiations.
Operators that are building new cell sites are putting rent structures into place that are much more flexible than before, and sometimes their lease rate for new lease renegotiations is 80% less than what they were paying previously for some of their sites. These operators are also carefully evaluating their current cellular tower sites to determine which ones are no longer necessary for maintaining the integrity of the network, and an important factor in their decisions regarding which ones to keep and which not to is the cost of the rent they pay land owners for the sites. Land owners who are able to work together with operators to create financial terms that are less constraining are more likely to have guaranteed cellular tower site rent income for years to come.
