Negotiating their way to 5G rollout

Since Md7 launched in Europe eight years ago, they’ve developed from simply renegotiating contracts to offering a full suite of services and technologies to European operators. However, their key strength lies in the strong relationships they’ve built with landlords, real estate agents and stakeholders along the way, and they see this as a key strength as European infrastructure begins to evolve further.

TowerXchange: Please introduce Md7, your company and footprint.

Md7 was born in 2003 in San Diego, and from there, we expanded into Europe in 2009, via the Netherlands. The origins of the business are in the renegotiation of contracts between operators and landlords in order to achieve more favourable conditions for the operator and more security for the landowners for the future. From there, we extended our reach further still, by establishing our European Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, while commencing projects in more than 10 different countries, such as Germany, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, and Egypt. Initially, our work revolved around renegotiation services and delivering OpEx savings for operators, but over time we have evolved to also offer prepayment, landlord management, site acquisition, modernisation and small cells deployment. We help owners build and secure their network, and try to get the best deal for both parties.

We support our clients in many ways, and we also help them improve their processes. For the last year we have been working with our local client to implement our own site management tool, LiveTrack, which offers them a platform to manage their real estate portfolio. The results are good and multiple vendors are already adopting this solution. LiveTrack allows the operator to monitor all site processes (for a new site or upgrading an existing) from A to Z. You might say that this is our first step in expanding this tool within the industry.

TowerXchange: What’s your client base? 

Currently we only work with operators and OEMs who also offer additional services. Sometimes through our work for operators we are required to work with the towercos on certain projects, if the towercos have a big portfolio in the network of the operator, for example, but generally we’re working with them but not for them.

TowerXchange: Tell us about your experience of regulations around landlord negotiations and other parties who are involved such as OEMs or real estate agents? 

We don’t compete with OEMs, we work together with them for the client. It’s true that real estate agents can muddy the water in terms of these kind of negotiations, but we’ve been in the Dutch market since 2009. Many of the big real estate companies can be tough to negotiate with, but we’ve been in contact with them for so long now, we have relationships with them to the point where they want to help us sometimes as well. If you establish the relationship and maintain it, in the end they will be on your side as well, it’s give and take. Relationships are the key to success.

TowerXchange: As a company with a global footprint, do you notice any trends or themes which are unique to the European market vs the US market? 

There are differences. For example, when it comes to upgrading existing sites, our US colleagues say contracts stateside don’t allow the operator to do what they want on a rooftop or a tower. In the European market, some operators adapted to this several years ago, and as a result have more rights to expand an existing cell site. With regard to government regulation, each big city and state has rules for deploying networks, and we feel in The Netherlands that it’s easier to deploy and upgrade a network which benefits the end users as well.

The US is always ahead, they have a lot of subscribers, and their income compared to The Netherlands or other markets in Europe is huge, so they have a lot of money to spend. In Europe operators always have to be careful where they have to spend their money when doing something with the network. In Europe the networks are also a bit more dense. In the US there are big open uninhabited areas but in The Netherlands its denser so it’s easier to adapt the network.

TowerXchange: Tell us about macro infrastructure, how has it evolved and what are the needs in the market right now? 

In the industry macro new build is slowing down. As far as Europe goes, I can only say that in The Netherlands, clients started to deploy big numbers of small cells in 2016 but they’ve all since stopped deploying bigger numbers this year. I believe that because the country is small and dense, there’s not a very big requirement for small cells yet, so over the next year or two they will focus on upgrading and improving the macro network. Small cells will be the future, particularly in cities, where it will be easier to have one landlord like JCDecaux or a municipality. Here in Europe, the operators we work with are still speculating as to what will be the best solution for a network of combined macro and small cells.

TowerXchange: Tell us more about LiveTrack, how does your asset management system help tower owners to streamline? 

One of the most important things about LiveTrack is that everything is in one place. Details of locations, site details, technologies, contracts, processes, orders, POs, etcetera are all housed in one system. It’s easier to report on and to manage and it can be modified for specific uses as required by projects. That’s the power of LiveTrack. It’s one system which can support an operator or towerco in one place where currently they use two or four systems. LiveTrack starts with the order until it’s integrated, then from there the same system manages the whole network. What’s great is that different parties can use it - we can set the rights so your partners can only see what they want them to see. That’s the beauty of it because when you work with different systems they’re limited so you can’t always provide access without giving away too much information. We can modify it to the needs of the operators and it’s a live environment.

TowerXchange: You have a solid small cells offering. Much is being made of this estimate that we’ll need 10x small cells for every existing macro tower at the moment. What are your thoughts on the rollout of 5G, and how the leap from 4G and 5G infrastructure will be made? 

That’s a difficult question. I believe that in the first part of 5G rollout the focus will still be on upgrading macro sites. Especially because Europe has already a very dense mobile network. However, some areas will be more populated in the future by inhabitants or tourists, and these spots eventually require capacity solutions. That’s why we help the operators advise the government, municipalities and communities on the benefit of small cells for them and for the network in general. It’s still seen as a new thing and some have no clue as to what a small cell is or what it can do. With small cells being closer to people at street level, it’s often a concern health-wise for stakeholders because most people still see it as an antenna. I have no doubt that in the end it will be the future, but at this moment I’m not sure when it will hit. Yes there will be a big shift in stakeholder relationships and it’s important to focus on existing stakeholders or landlords, with whom the operator can collaborate in future. If you have the right relationships, they’re much easier to manage, and you can get a bigger result from only a small set of landlords. It’s much harder to manage a big network with multiple landlords.