Water Tower Lease

Hello - I am trying to negotiate a water tower lease with a local municipality and they are coming back with crazy numbers. I have heard through the online community that some WISPs are getting rates of less than $200 per month. Does anyone have any great water tower lease pricing they would be willing to share that I could use to help establish reasonable WISP lease pricing? Any help would really be appreciated. Thanks.

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Pricing really depends on what and where you're trying to colocate on the tower and the popularity of the site. If you're trying to get on a popular site that is already hosting a number of WISP's and/or cel providers, I'd expect the rates to be higher. If the tower is in a popular/high-density area, the rate is going to be higher. Are you signing year to year (probably going to be higher) then if you sign multi-year agreement. Are you hanging a bunch of PMP450 2.4GHz dual slant sectors... your rate is going to be higher (typically bigger the antenna, the higher the rate per antenna). If you want to be in/around the top or the cel phone coral/bill board area, rates are going to be way higher.

I work with 3 major tower providers that operate over multiple states, and the average per sector cost for a WISP is around $100mo for a 2' sector hung in a tier 2 position, which typically means somwhere around 2/3rd's up the tower to mid tower... the low end is $50mo per sector, the high end is $150mo per sector.

If you have other similar sites that you operate on, and can show a standard for what you're used to typically paying, you can show this to the tower owner and see if they'll match the pricing. I've used this negotiating tactic with varying success. It doesn't hurt to ask... good luck!

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