Wireless carriers want space on your roof

Wireless local loop carriers seek regulatory help to reach office building users.

By David Rohde
Network World, 06/07/99

WASHINGTON, D.C. - New wireless carriers looking to bypass local Bell company loops and link users directly to long-distance broadband networks say they need a little help from the government.

The carriers are asking the Federal Communications Commission to force commercial real estate owners to let them install antennas on rooftops and offer building tenants a choice of local loop technology.

But these carriers, such as Winstar Communications and Teligent, are preparing for a fight from the 17,000-member Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), which says the FCC has no business regulating private property owners.

At stake are connections to hundreds of thousands of branch offices located in multitenant office buildings. The carriers' trade association, the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA), says many building owners are shutting out the new wireless carriers. The association claims building owners are demanding unreasonable fees for antenna installation or charging users additional fees if they choose a wireless carrier over a Bell company.

As early as this week, the FCC may release a notice that it is considering a building-access rule and requesting comment, sources say. Without FCC action, the new carriers - which typically sell broadband local voice, data and Internet access via 38-GHz and other microwave spectrum - say they must fight battles with individual building owners before they can reach users.

"A company such as Winstar literally has to market its services building by building," says Brent Weingardt, vice president of government relations for PCIA. "The company does it the old-fashioned way."

The building owners say that's exactly how the market should work. Just last week, BOMA officials point out, Winstar announced a deal with a real estate investment trust called Crescent REIT, which chose Winstar as a preferred supplier in up to 70 buildings. That deal echoed a number of other recent announcements.

"They're going to have a hard time demonstrating that the market is working against them," says Gerry Lederer, BOMA's vice president of government and industry affairs. "We encourage our members to use a second and third [local access] provider."

The dueling parties are playing hardball. If Congress or the FCC forces building owners to provide entry for all potential carriers, building owners may ask for a reverse mandate - that wireless local loop carriers place rooftop antennas on any building whose owner asks for it, Lederer says.

BOMA also has placed an "International Call to Action" on its Web site asking members to sign a form letter to Congress. The letter claims that "forced building entry" by telecom carriers that may or may not have bonded and insured technicians could be "dangerous to building occupants and dangerous to real estate development."

Using this kind of technique, BOMA has helped defeat proposed mandatory rooftop access laws in Virginia, Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Colorado. Carriers have won building-access mandates in Connecticut and Texas, and a building-entry law is now making its way through the California legislature. But carriers say they would prefer a national standard.

"There's no doubt that the property owners feel they are in the driver's seat," says Harry Hirsch, CEO of Advanced Radio Telecom (ART), an emerging wireless local loop provider.

Some success

Yet Hirsch says ART has succeeded in winning a number of "master contracts" - deals with owners of multiple buildings - in its original three markets of Seattle, Phoenix and Portland, Ore. Last week, ART got a vote of confidence in its ability to market its services: Long-distance carrier Qwest took a 19% stake in the company.

PCIA says the FCC has precedent for expanding its regulation. Association officials point to an FCC requirement that pole attachments owned by electric utilities be made available to telecom carriers for wireless and other equipment.

Building owners counter that the agency has more justification for regulating utilities than private property owners. "There's a big difference when you're a regulated entity like a phone company or electric utility," BOMA's Lederer says. "We didn't use guaranteed rates of return to build our buildings. We built them ourselves." o