Boosting connectivity, availability and service through growth of UK infrastructure platform

Digital Colony has announced further growth of its UK platform through the acquisition of Spyder Facilities, a leading UK wireless infrastructure company. The addition of Spyder is expected to compliment Digital Colony’s UK platform, which currently includes StrattoOpencell and iWireless Solutions and positions it to offer an even wider range of services to mobile network operators and real estate. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. 

TowerXchange: Congratulations on the acquisition of Spyder. In order for us to understand what assets you have bought, can you tell us more about Spyder Facilities?

Thank you, Spyder are a leading UK wireless infrastructure company with 115 live and over 5,000 locations available for wireless transmission technologies. In addition to this impressive site footprint, they have strong, long-standing customer relationships with several multi-site landlords as well as fantastic working relationships with the UK mobile network operators (MNOs).

We have joined the Digital Colony family, as we see the opportunity to offer something different, to what is currently offered by the our competitors. We will do this by proactively investing in tower infrastructure on behalf of our MNO partners. This will reduce the up-front costs of network roll-out and speed up network deployment and provide better connectivity availability and service.

TowerXchange: In his recent TowerXchange interview, Marc Ganzi said “Our bias is to find the best management teams first. That’s key. People create alpha, the assets don’t create the alpha.” Tell is about the management team you’re bringing on board with Spyder.

Andrew Saunders and Mark Nelson are co-founders of Spyder. Along with another co-founder, who is moving on to other challenges. They have spent 20 years building a brilliant business that has navigated tricky industry circumstances with a neutral and long-term mindset. Their foresight, diligence and focus on delivering quality services both to landlords and MNOs is both unique and inspiring.

TowerXchange: Having already acquired StrattoOpencell and iWireless Solutions as extensions of Digital Colony’s offering, what does the Spyder Facilities deal mean for Digital Colony, in terms of the breadth of services offered by your infrastructure platform?

Together these businesses mean we can be a true neutral host partner to all UK MNOs. Whatever the connectivity or network challenge, we can offer infrastructure design, deployment and on-going management at carrier-grade standards, and at pace worthy of the networks of tomorrow. We believe that it’s time for the UK to be a global network connectivity leader once again, and that the people to best enable this are those that have already been innovating in this market for years. Together the focus is on delivering macro Towers, Small Cells and DAS in-building, and Small Cells and Wi-Fi outdoors.

TowerXchange: With the “shift to the internet of things and other next generation technologies” can you provide some scope on how Digital Colony plan on enhancing their current capabilities?

In the UK we are laser-focused on increasing digital infrastructure. We will increase the availability of carrier-grade network connectivity (to support next generational technology capacity and latency needs). We will also champion mobile network access as a key non-competitive layer of resilient connectivity available to UK enterprises and land owners. Many in the industry pit Wi-Fi and mobile against each other but our view is that in most situations, particularly high stakes service providers (i.e. healthcare, transport hubs, cities, stadia) and even in remote locations, both are highly desirable. Which is why our focus is always on making the business and use cases no-brainers for our customers. They need connectivity options that are complimentary both in terms of physical infrastructure and economics.

TowerXchange: As one of the first movers to integrate the indoor/enterprise and the outdoor/macro wireless coverage propositions, how do you see Spyder Facilities complimenting this offering?

We see the UK tower market as ripe for collaborative disruption. There is a delicate balance between rapid deployment and long-term network enhancement, and we are bringing these businesses together to enable both simultaneously. With the backing of Digital Colony combined with Spyder’s expertise and customer base, we can offer the UK MNOs a truly different and comprehensive neutral host service. From tower deployment and management, to complex outdoor network design and roll-out, to indoor mobile connectivity services, we can extend the operators’ networks to their standards, and in as many instances as possible also spread the cost of the infrastructure. 

TowerXchange: Please summarise your vision of Digital Colony’s Digital Infrastructure Platform and how this deal enhances it.

The aim is to invest in UK digital infrastructure, reduce the upfront cost of network deployment and management for all UK MNOs, whilst increasing access to network indoors and outdoors across the UK. The acquisitions have been to ensure that that this investment is led by UK industry pioneers and market experts.

We are excited to be part of a group of businesses dedicated to doing things differently. There’s a huge opportunity to boost UK businesses and country-wide connectivity at the same time, and we’re ready to be a part of that growth.