Why the ground of a transmission tower is worth its weight in gold

Why the ground of a transmission tower is worth its weight in gold

Transmission towers are massively present in our landscape, serving us with high-speed 5G connectivity and further developments. Their future, and that of landowners, looks bright.

You see them towering in many places: the transmission towers that provide our mobile connectivity. They have been entrenched in our landscape for years and will remain so for a long time to come, because without transmission towers, we can forget about our high-speed 5G connection and further developments. This makes them indispensable even in the future. The BIPT’s transmission mast map shows that in Flanders alone, several transmission masts are housed.

Transmission towers did not get their location on the map by chance, and that makes the land beneath them golden. Those landowners are often large or small companies, but just as often rural farmers. In this spider web of landowners and operators placing their masts, it is no easy matter for providers to reach fair agreements. This requires intermediary partners such as APWireless to bring order to the chaos and create a win-win situation for the landowner, operator and provider alike.

Business model

Behind the spider web of transmission towers spreading worldwide is an entire business model. Most providers do not own the transmission tower land. “Usually someone accidentally becomes the owner of such land,” says Stijn Van Calster, Country Lead at APWireless. The operator contacts the landowner to place a transmission tower on his property, in exchange for a lease agreement. “Many owners are not aware that their transmitter site is worth a lot of money, and this is sometimes a nice surprise for them,” Van Calster continues.

From the moment a lease arises between the provider and the landowner, APWireless comes into the story. Their business model is simple: they take over the lease between the provider and landowner (who is often the operator), in exchange for a buyout payment. That lease is usually taken over on a right in rem basis or by buying the property. “Usually the land remains in the hands of the owner, it is not our ambition to become the owner of the land,” Van Calster said.

Landowners of a transmitter site are usually medium or large companies that own multiple sites, but the farmer with his field or smaller businesses may also own such a site.

Stijn Van Calster, Country Lead at APWireless

Hunting grounds

The location of transmission towers is not chosen haphazardly; quite the contrary. In theory, it would be possible to place your transmitter mast a hundred meters away outside a certain territory, because that party does not agree to the terms, for example. “In practice, unfortunately, this is not so simple,” Van Calster explains. “On the one hand, it is not so obvious to get a permit from the relevant municipality, on the other hand, the installation of a transmitter mast involves large investments.”

Operators are also getting more creative about utilizing those lands. “We do see more and more that one operator is going to share sites with another operator, which of course affects the size of the portfolio for us,” Van Calster believes.

Win-win

Why is it interesting for operators that companies like APWireless own the leases? “We work with operators in a sustainable way so they can take on the technical side in a practical way and be provided with a constant cash flow,” Van Calster states.

So it is advantageous for companies to hand over the lease in exchange for a buyout payment. “Borrowing money suddenly became very expensive, which makes that companies often could not realize their plans. At APWireless, we do offer companies that advantage,” Van Calster says. As icing on the cake, these agreements also save a lot of work for providers, who can now work with a single party like APWireless for several operators, without sitting around the table with each individual landowner.

There are no losers in this story. This approach in the field of transmission tower rental is a win-win situation for all parties and will develop further in the future as a result.