SBA Communications at Citi’s 2025 Conference: Strategic Capital Focus

On Wednesday, 03 September 2025, SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) presented at Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference. The discussion, led by CFO Mark Montene, highlighted a strategic focus on capital allocation and industry trends. While addressing short-term disruptions from industry consolidations, Montene expressed optimism about long-term growth prospects driven by data demand and spectrum availability.

Key Takeaways

• SBA Communications is focusing on a flexible capital allocation strategy to balance share buybacks, debt repayment, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and dividends.
• The EchoStar/AT&T deal is expected to cause a $25 million churn in 2027 and 2028, but the long-term outlook remains positive.
• SBA is divesting from international markets lacking scale, while maintaining a bullish outlook on Brazil and Africa.
• Domestic leasing activity is anticipated to grow in the second half of the year, with a mid-single-digit growth rate expected in the long term.
• The company remains confident in the wireless industry’s growth, driven by AI, video traffic, and new spectrum availability.

Financial Results

• EBITDA stands at approximately $1 billion, with $425 million allocated to dividends.
• Cash interest expenses are about $435 million, while cash taxes are roughly $35 million.
• Maintenance CapEx is approximately $50 million, with a gross CapEx midpoint of $2.25 million.
• Annually, $675 million to $700 million is available for allocation.
• In 2023, $100 million was used for share buybacks and $500-600 million for debt repayment.
• For 2024, a balanced allocation of $200 million each to share buybacks, M&A, and debt repayment is planned.
• Year-to-date, $175 million has been spent on share buybacks, and a $975 million deal for a Central American acquisition was signed.

Operational Updates

• SBA has been divesting from the Philippines, Colombia, Argentina, and Canada, selling 400 towers.
• Positive domestic leasing trends are expected to reflect in stronger numbers in the latter half of the year.
• Internationally, SBA is optimistic about Brazil and Africa, with South Africa showing the highest return on invested capital.

Future Outlook

• SBA plans to maintain a flexible capital allocation strategy, targeting leverage around 6.5 times EBITDA.
• The company expects mid-single-digit growth in domestic operations, driven by escalator growth, lease-up, and minimal churn from Sprint.
• Long-term industry growth is anticipated, supported by advancements in AI and new spectrum availability.

Q&A Highlights

• The EchoStar/AT&T deal is expected to result in a $25 million churn in 2027 and 2028.
• Some churn is anticipated from the US Cellular portfolio due to the T-Mobile acquisition.
• Domestic leasing growth is expected to pick up in the second half of the year, with a focus on long-term value creation.

Readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript for a detailed account of the conference call.

Full transcript - Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference:

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: An infrastructure for Citi. Disclosures are available at the back of the room. And if you don’t have access or would like another copy, email me at michael. Rollinsciti dot com. We’re pleased to welcome back Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer of SBA Communications.

Mark, thanks

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: so much for joining us.

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Thanks for having me.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Well, it’s great to see you. It’s a timely opportunity to catch up on SBA and towers. And so maybe to get us started, just from a high level, provide us with an update on the strategy for SBA as you’re trying to enhance financial performance and improve value for shareholders.

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Okay. That’s a good question. I think the number one driver of value equation is capital allocation. And if you really and those numbers are public, I’m going to round them up a little bit. It’s roughly 1,000,000,000 of EBITDA, about EUR $425,000,000 allocated to the dividend, $435,000,000 cash interest expenses, EUR 35,000,000 for cash taxes and maintenance CapEx is about EUR 50 and midpoint about $2.25 of gross CapEx.

So that leaves you about, call it midpoint $675,000,000 $700,000,000 of cash to allocate every year. And it’s very critical to allocate this cash in order to create value. So if you go back 2023 in a rising rate environment with about 6.5, seven terms of leverage, we basically use $100,000,000 to share buyback in ’twenty three and 5 to $600,000,000 to pay down debt. Last year, we spent $200,000,000 it was balanced really $200,000,000 on share buyback, 200,000,000 of M and A, 200,000,000 to pay down debt. And this year so far, we’ve done about 175,000,000 of share buyback.

I think at this stage, we think it’s a low value in the stock. Paid on debt, but also we did a $975,000,000 M and A deal that was signed last year and we’ll talk about the details next year. That’s a deal in Central America that is going to create a lot of value long term for SBA. So increase the leverage by 0.2 turns, but very accretive for the long term. And going forward for next year, I think we’re probably going to index towards either buyback or paying down debt, given where valuations are very stretched in The U.

S. Domestic market and I don’t see us really expanding into new emerging market at this stage. So it’s really a balance, debt buyback, dividend, m and a, and and and dividend.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: That’s helpful. And I just heard that our mic wasn’t initially working. So just real quick, for those of you on the line that I haven’t met, I’m Mike Rollins. I cover communication services and infrastructure for Citi disclosures. We’re available at the back of this room.

And if you’d like another copy or need access, email me at michael.rollins@Citi.com. And, of course, we’re here with Mark Montenei, chief financial officer of SBA Communications. Okay. So back to back to the discussion. You you said something very interesting.

You know, you talked about next year maybe having a different capital allocation. And historically, SBA has been aspiring to expand the portfolio. I believe it was, like, 5% to 10% per year. Is that kind of a is that goal kind of now sunset and capital allocation is gonna be more focused on share repurchase in the future where there’s just, you know, maybe less opportunistic deals?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: I I think we’re just gonna be opportunistic. I think that’s a message. I think we like the leverage at around six and a half time today. S and P just upgraded us to investment grade at the corporate level. And I mean, valuations are very stretched in The US market, we’re competing with a lot of private equity money that could basically put ten, twelve turns of leverage on those assets.

And it was just didn’t make any sense and we bid, but we lost, I don’t know, this domestic M and opportunities outside of The US. Millicom, we thought was a very accretive transaction. We paid 11 times for an asset in Central America. That market is fully consolidated five markets with two carriers that are very healthy, basically, Claro and Medicom. We have a 50 new contract in US dollars with escalator index to CPI and BTS commitment from Medicom to build 2,500 BTS new sites over the next few years.

That’s going to lock in a mid to high single digit rate of growth on the top line And we like that deal a lot. So that’s a deal that makes a lot of sense. To the extent we see deals that creates value will be opportunistic, otherwise buying back shares which drives the FFO per share growth and paying down debt does the same thing.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Before we get to the operations, just maybe one more on the portfolio. So as the leadership a couple years ago, you know, changed at SBA, there was a discussion around portfolio optimization. And where are you today in terms of that optimization? Are you done? Is there more to do?

How should investors think about what your portfolio, you know, may look like over the next few years?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Right. That’s a good question. So Brendan Cavanaugh, CEO of this first earning call in February 2024, announced basically a strategic portfolio review. And I think the what when you look at the numbers, you realize where we are a leading tower company, number one, number two, number three, you get the call from the operators because they need your footprint to roll out a new technology, do a call those, get more capacity. If you’re at the fringe of their network, you’re the last one to get involved and your returns suffer and it’s really difficult to cover your SG and A.

So we looked at our fifteen, fourteen market around the world. And since we sold our portfolio in The Philippines, we were one of over 30 tower company. We sold Colombia, we sold Argentina, where we have we were just like a very small footprint. And recently we announced the sale of our about 400 towers in Canada. So Canada is a fantastic market, oligopoly, three great carriers there.

The issue for us is that it’s very difficult to expand in Canada in the share leaseback with one of the top three MNO. The deal they are striking is mostly with financial buyers. They are mostly financial engineering as opposed to strategic deal where they team up with a tower company on a long term strategic relationship where we could really support them in the long term. So we basically sold to a PE firm. We like the multiple.

I think, I mean, Canada is not a REIT. We pay taxes in Canada. So adjusted for taxes, we receive about 28 times FFO or 26 times, sorry. So we thought it was an attractive number and we just couldn’t see how to get scale in Canada. So it’s not a we love Canada.

It’s just we didn’t have the right position, so we decided to exit.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Maybe shifting over to the domestic operations. Over the last few quarters, you’ve talked about leasing activity building on a quarter over quarter basis. So as we’re sitting here today, are you still seeing leasing activity continue to build going into the end of this year? And what does that translate to in terms of organic growth for SBA as you’re thinking about second half of this year, but as well as ’26 where that book to bill might take you?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Right. So we have seen a number of application to touch our site, do modification on-site increase for the last six quarter. Today, the majority of applications offer Kotos in terms of revenue opportunities. And we feel good about the momentum we have. And so if you will look at the CapEx cycle for the operators, they can receive a new band of spectrum, all other new technology in this case was five gs CapEx as a percentage of revenue was running close to 25% for two years and this year it’s a trough, it’s about less than 15%, it’s almost a historical low.

We are rebuilding from them because traffic on a handset, the tonnage keeps increasing at double digit. Fixed wireless access is showing a lot of capacity. The carriers have more demand for COTO’s densification coverage. Timo is still working on their ninety five percent fifty megs down on 95% of the path for middle of next year. So the momentum is there.

It has not been reflected in the lease up number in the second quarter because the book to bill cycle on the quarter is six to nine months. So definitely, the new lease activity in the second half of the year will be greater than the first half, and that’s a good sign for next year. We have not put together a budget yet for next year. We have not provided guidance, but we feel good about where this business is going, going forward.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And in terms of the exit, I think the implied math was like 11,000,000 exit rate for 4Q. Is that still the expectation?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: I think that’s what the math would tell you right now.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: For those less familiar, for the domestic leasing activity revenue contributions. So, you know, maybe getting into the news of last week. So as investors have been trying to think about where tower revenue growth is going, we get this announcement last week, EchoStar selling its selling some spectrum to AT and T. And it’s raised a number of questions about how this is going to impact the tower business model. How would you frame the different impacts that investors should be mindful of from that transaction and the possibility, right, that, you know, more of that EchoStar spectrum could end up in the hands of the carriers?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: And that’s a good question. I think everybody is probably scratching their head there. What does it mean? Obviously, don’t have a crystal ball. I just have about three years of experience in that industry.

And my view is that long term, it’s probably a positive. If you look at the wireless industry around the world, it’s and it happens in the wireless industry, in the airline industry, in the railroad industry, in the love industry that have massive fixed costs and low variable costs. Those industries get driven to oligopoly with about three operators. And once you get to that stage, it’s a very stable stage, the three operators are very healthy. They could basically forecast their business long term and spend a large amount of capital to keep growing and generate top line growth.

So I think it’s good for the long term of the industry, Short term, it means disruption, but it’s a blip on the screen. This industry has been around for thirty five years. Those towers are going to be there on thirty five years. It’s going to be almost impossible to overlap some of those towers. And you look on Long Island, you look where we’re headquartered in Florida, you look at Westchester County.

How do you build a new site in given the zoning constraints? So you see some of those sites every year you drive by and you see more equipment on those sites. So I think short term is disruption, long term, I think it’s good for the health of the industry.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And so maybe just to frame the disruption. So can you remind us your revenue exposure to EchoStar?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: And where is the risk that that revenue gets decommissioned away? So for us, it’s about $55,000,000 of revenue every year right now run rate. And it’s about 2% of our global revenues. The lease up from DISH this year, new leases, we’re penciling $2,000,000 it’s already called for, there’s no impact to $25,000,000 If those leases are not renewing, I don’t think they’ll be renewing at this stage, should probably be terminated, we’ll see twenty five million dollars of churn in 2027 and $25,000,000 of churn in ’twenty eight, a little bit on ’twenty six, a little bit on ’twenty nine. So this is assuming the leases are being terminated and not with you.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And you mentioned the momentum you’ve had with densification and with activity. Is there a risk that now, at least for AT and T, which could have more spectrum post this transaction and use that as a mechanism for capacity for some period of time, is that going to dilute growth for SBA because now your customer has an alternative for capacity?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Well, they bought two band of spectrum from Dish, the 3.45 gigahertz band, they could basically roll out five gs with software upgrades. We’re not going to see anything there. That being said, on our network, AT and T has only rolled out 550% on the network. So they’re still gonna have to put more five gs equipment out there and roll out, you know, dish band and their own band. So I think it doesn’t really change that much.

The 600 megahertz band, AT and T doesn’t have any equipment there, it means new equipment. We they have some rights and the the MLA that we signed with them two years ago. It really depends what type of equipment and and the timing of rolling out in that band. So at this stage, we have no idea what it means, to be honest with you. We have we have I I don’t think we have engaged yet.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: So because that’s been a question like whether you could get amendments. And I think there is some question of whether that 600, depending on the equipment, could fit in that. So is it fair to kind of think about this being a possibility of getting amendments, the possibility of being included, or does it really lean one way or the other?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: I I to be honest, I really don’t know the answer today. It depends of what type of equipment and what timing. So it’s it’s we don’t have I don’t have a crystal ball yet.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Sure. And when the tower businesses go through these episodic events of like a carrier changes their their capacity plan. So now maybe they have more spectrum with with the transaction. How long does that take to trickle down to the towers where you’ll have better visibility of, you know, what it might mean for growth or densification or the things that could impact 2627 organic growth?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: I don’t know, to be honest

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: with you. That would be pure speculation on my side. And maybe just zooming out, right, where you think about the long term comments that you made. We talked, I think, a little bit about this on the last earnings call. But how are you conceptualizing the annual long term domestic growth?

Like where should that be? I think is it almost 4% ex the merger churn this year?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Yes. So I think the way we look at it in The U. S. Through escalator, I think it’s about a 3% top line growth rate. Then lease up around 3%.

And remember the lease up is a step function. It’s it’s not like one year it’s gonna be three years forever. It could be one or 2%, one year, seven, eight, another year. I give you an example. If you look at the upper c block spectrum, it’s probably NPRM and all these four proposed rulemaking.

It should be issued by the FCC this fall probably in twelve months by the ’26. Auctions rule will be drafted for the auction of the C block and then it’s probably twelve to eighteen months of clearing. So you could see the C block coming to market late twenty eight, twenty nine. It’s a brand new brand called Spectrum. That is going to drive Lisa because it’s a 100 megahertz, maybe 120.

It’s just gonna need new equipment. Everything is gonna be new right there, and that’s that’s the opportunity for the tower company. So the way we look at it is 3% CPR or escalator growth, 3% lease up and ex churn about the ex Sprint, the churn about 1%. So top line growth rate at around mid single digit. Okay.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Very helpful. And is there anything else just in terms of domestic growth that investors should be mindful of in terms of this current cycle that we’re in and trying to think about the acceleration going into the end of the year and what it means for next year?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Well, I mean, as management, we really focus on creating value for shareholders over the long term. So it really means allocated capital in order to create growth and value over the long term. So we don’t really think of those like quarter over quarter variation, because we have a footprint, it’s almost impossible to really overlap with some of our most of our footprint given the zoning norm must be urban or suburban area. And we know that the carriers like the service we provide, the quality, we’re very responsive, we help them on the service side. So we have a very good dialogue with the carriers who are trying to support them.

And I think it’s a good relationship. So I feel that we are really working for the long term to create value for investors and our company. You meant of course those like those quarter over quarter variation, it’s almost false precision, you know, because you got the application, but, hey, the the equipment didn’t get on the side, so you don’t book in this quarter. That’s okay. It’s gonna show a number next quarter.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And so you mentioned the services business, and the services business has been ramping this year. Investors tend to look at that, at least from the feedback that we get, as one of the leading indicators for leasing because you get the services sometimes before the leasing. But you also have a different algo this year, right, where you’re also getting some revenue from third party sites, which is boosting that figure. So how do how should investors think about, like, the strength of the organic services business, what that means for leasing versus, like, the benefit you’re getting from monetizing your business across a, you know, a larger portfolio.

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Yeah. So I wouldn’t read too much into it. I think Nicole Thomas, who runs that business, is doing a fantastic job, absolutely fantastic job. The team is delivering first rate quality of service to customers. But it’s indexed towards one carrier today, and you don’t have long term visibility.

So we feel good about the ramp up for the second half. It’s a good sign for the first half of next year, but there’s no long term visibility in this business, and it’s it’s a nonrecurring business.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And can you remind our audience in the domestic business what your exposure is to carrier consolidation? We’ve just talked about, you know, EchoStar, but are there other things, you know, the T Mobile integrations? Like, what what’s left that people should be mindful of just to to think about that?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: I think the only thing I could think of is US seller being acquired by Tmall. We have about $20,000,000 of revenues from US seller. There will be some churn. I’m I’m I’m pretty much sure that not all of it will go away over and with consolidation usually takes three to five years before it’s all done. So twenty million dollars not all of it will go away.

So I just don’t know how much will survive. But I think between Sprint dash and UScellular, that’s pretty much it at this stage.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And how much is left on Sprint?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: We have $50,000,000 this year, 50,000,000 in 2026 and $20,000,000 thereafter. So really, the last big year is 26,000,000

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And on the international side, where are you in terms of getting through some of these Latin American headwinds? And how are you feeling about where that business sits?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Yeah. So basically, Latin American for us is real Brazil. And personally, I’m very bullish on Brazil. It’s the largest economy in Latin America. The GDP per capita is four or five times GDP per capita in India.

It’s a large exporter of corn and soybeans, mineral oil. The Central Bank has done a phenomenal job getting inflation under control. The real is appreciated by over 20% this year. And we are the land of two tower company 12,000 towers behind American Tower. The industry is going from four to three, which is healthy for the long term.

It’s painful in the short term. So oil is being parceled out to Claro, Vivo and TIM and oil wireless went into reorg last year. We had another $20,000,000 of annual revenue to OiWireless that eventually we don’t see OiWireless surviving. So over the next two or three years, we see that $20,000,000 revenue going away. So those consolidation takes three to five years, but long term five gs in Brazil is only like less than 35% deploy.

The country is going to need five gs. The fixed line, I think infrastructure is really not what it is in The US. So I think fixed wireless access has a huge potential there. And I’m bullish for Brazil long term. Listened, was on the next day with a large operation in Brazil and it’s either white hot or no one wants to touch emerging market.

It’s totally driven by interest rates in The US. The million interest rates go down in The US, everybody is chasing growth and higher return and Brazil is the number price place they go because of the size and the macroeconomics of the country. So it’s a country of the future. So we feel good about Brazil, it’s just we are being very patient there. So what we’ve done in the short term, I mean, cost of capital is very high.

You get 15% in the checking account in Brazil now. So obviously, when we look at new side bill, we’re looking for rate of return much greater than this. And our competitors, either the smaller companies have much higher cost of capital than we do, so they can afford to build a lot of sites. And I think our number one competitor is we pull back in the region. So when we build site, we’re going to build sites this year.

We are teaming up with our carriers and making sure that we get a return commensurate with the cost of capital to operate in that country. But I feel good about Brazil long term.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And what about Africa? How is the business doing there? Are you happy with the investments that you’ve been making? And where does that go over time in terms of exposure for SBA?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Right, so we have two countries in Africa, Tanzania, Tanzania is a fast growing market for us. A lot of new sites are being built mostly for coverage. The government is we pushing the carriers to build more sites and our operations are growing very well, very pleased with the operation in Tanzania. South Africa has the highest return on invested capital most of our all of our international market, because we got in early, we saw tremendous growth. And I think we’re number four, number five carrier in South Africa.

Once again, Africa is ups and down, but in long term, I think it’s a good place to do business.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Then just, you know, thinking about the competitive landscape and and over time, just like the positioning of towers for your wireless carrier customers,

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: are you seeing any impact or conversation about how these LEO constellations might affect their interest for rural towers, whether it’s in The U. S. Or some of your emerging markets? Well, honestly, I it’s hard to say for us, Leo is probably a complementary to the fixed wireless network to the fixed wireless network just because I mean, first of all, the the antenna are expensive, so it’s never gonna be as ubiquitous and as big and needs to be plugged to the grid to the grid. So it’s it’s never gonna be as ubiquitous as a handset.

Handset. So I think it’s a complement in very rural areas in The US. So we don’t see that as a disruptor. You don’t get the capacity. You don’t get the cost basis.

The cost per bit to deliver a bit over satellite versus terrestrial wireless is probably a 100 to 500 dacs. So it’s more complement than another threat to to the the the wireless networks.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Maybe shifting over to capital allocation for a few more minutes. So you mentioned earlier the potential pivot next year into buybacks. Do you look at that as opportunistic, where there might be moments to really leverage the financial flexibility that you have? Or do you see kind of going back to maybe the way I perceived SBA used to manage the balance sheet, which was you had a certain leverage ratio you wanted to be at. And if you weren’t there because you had flexibility, whether it was because of growth in the business or there wasn’t M and A, you just bought back stock.

So by the end of that quarter, you got to kind of in that range that you wanted to stay within. So it’s a very prescriptive way of managing the balance sheet and capital returns. Like where are you in terms of that opportunistic discretionary approach versus more of a programmatic First

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: of all, I just want to correct. So I don’t think I say we’ll pivot towards share buyback. I just say it’s going to be a mix of share buyback, dividend, debt pay down and M and A. Okay. It’s just going to depend on opportunity, the level of our stock.

So it’s a totally flexible approach on this 700,000,000 of extra capital. And then to me or to us, the leverage is an output. It’s not an input. The input is what are your cash interest expenses every year and what are the opportunities on the M and A side. If there’s another Mellicom deal at eleven times EBITDA, 50 new contract, US dollars, high single digit growth for 0.2 turns of leverage, I think you’ll spend the money and increase the leverage.

I think I like the kind of where we are at 6.5 times. I mean, if interest rates were to go up and we don’t see M and A opportunity, I think we’d probably pay down debt, right? I want to highlight it’s like a flexible capital allocation approach, and we want to be flexible and be able to react quickly.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: And when you spoke earlier about your outlook for domestic leasing growth, when you combine that with international, what’s the right expectation for organic AFFO per share growth on an annual basis?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Yes, that’s the billion dollar question. I think if you relook at it, you say, okay, the top line growth rate about mid single digit, probably mid to high single digit at the EBITDA line. And then if you would excuse exclude, I mean, rate impact, I think it’s it’s probably high single digit, but then the $1,000,000,000 issue is where interest rates are going to go in the future. That’s why we need to be nimble and flexible. If interest rates stay higher for longer, we need to index

If interest rates were to go down, I mean, there’s no reason not to relever the balance sheet and do M and A or buyback.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: When you think of the opportunities in front of SBA, what do you think is the most underappreciated part of your future financial opportunities when you look at how the market values you?

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: I think obviously we are highly dependent on interest rates. You could see the volatility in our stock when interest rates fluctuate. I think you need to realize that and I’ve been in this wise industry for thirty five years. People have underestimated the growth in that industry for the last thirty or forty years or thirty five years. And you started doing voice a dollar a minute, and then it’s voice is basically free today.

Then you do text, then you do data, then you do video, now you’re gonna do AI, you do fixed wireless access. We always thought that the wireless network would basically cannibalize the fixed network eventually. No one use a landline anymore. I think no one expected that when an industry started twenty five to thirty years ago. So if you take a long term view and even ten, fifteen years with AI, you don’t even know where this is going, because I mean, look how much video traffic goes to wireless network with Mark Zuckerberg in his AI glasses, you’re gonna have even more video flying over those networks.

You have no idea what it means on the on the capacity on these networks. I mean, twenty years ago, the carriers at 35 to 40 megabits of spectrum, and now they have 300 or more. And you see like another hundred and one twenty coming from the c block. You’re going to see government spectrum. You’re going to see blocks of 100 megabytes of spectrum coming to market over the next ten years.

And that’s just going to drive more traffic. The cost per bit on those wireless network has dropped. It’s almost like Intel and their prediction of the the how many semiconductor you could put on on a chip. Same thing has happened in the cost per bit in the wireless industry. It’s probably gone by over a thousand x over the last twenty years.

And if it’s gonna keep doing the same as more spectrum come to market. And the the problem for the operators is that it’s very difficult to build new towers in those in those neighbors. No one wants to see a new tower coming up. We have done infrastructure, it’s there, there’s capacity on it, and we are there to support them. So I think it’s a symbiotic relationship, and if you take a long term view, I think I feel really good about our business.

I mean, always say after the Google search business, just show me a better business. It’s 85% gross margin, 70% EBITDA margins and the fixed cost to get into that business also wide, it’s going to be very, very difficult to come and compete with us.

Michael Rollins, Analyst, Citi: Mark, thanks so much for your time.

Mark Montene, Chief Financial Officer, SBA Communications: Thank you.

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