American Tower CFO: Its T-Mobile Deal Is $17B Revenue Boon

A 15-year agreement with T-Mobile will add $17 billion in contracted future revenue to American Tower’s order book, said American Tower Chief Financial Officer Rod Smith Monday at a UBS financial conference. With the C-band auction starting Tuesday, Smith sees the spectrum as a “pretty essential piece of the 5G deployments.” With clearing taking some time, deployments will start in 2021's second half, he projected. The citizens broadband radio service band will be mostly deployed indoors and could present growth opportunities, he said: “We do have a pretty extensive in-building network.” Smith expects some Dish Network business as it deploys a 5G network. “Whether we lease our sites to Dish on a site-by-site basis or if we have some sort of a holistic agreement, either way we’re fine with as long as the terms and conditions are right, the pricing is right,” he said.