Telecom Lead America: North American mobile operators’
capital expenditure is likely to grow at 4.9 percent to $10.5 billion in 2013.
North American mobile cellular capital expenditure is
expected to hold its ground in 2012 year-on-year, with expenditure of around
$10 billion,” said Jake Saunders, VP for forecasting at ABI Research.
In Q2 2012, Verizon Wireless had discontinued investment
in the expansion and capacity enhancement of its 3G network as the operator has
allocated those resources to building out its 4G LTE coverage. On a
year-on-year basis, capital expenditure should trend flat or slightly down. The
operator is confident its 4G footprint will at least be equal to its 3G
footprint by mid-2013.
T-Mobile USA will invest $4 billion in 2012 and 2013 to
strengthen its 4G network, including the planned launch of LTE in 2013.
Expenditures in 1Q-2012 were essentially neutral in Q1 2012 due in part to
these network modernization efforts.
AT&T is still spending substantially on wireline
upgrades, but in 1Q-2012, wireless telecoms took 54 percent of its total Capex,
up by $454 million y-o-y to $2.3 billion.
Sprint’s wireless upgrades to support LTE are helping to
drive up its capital expenditure commitments to $710 million in Q1 2012, up 58
percent y-o-y.
Clearwire had started off as a WiMAX 4G operator but has
seized the LTE-TDD opportunity to introduce mobile broadband services. The
first phase of LTE overlay network build-up saw the installation of 8,000 sites
in hot zones in urban centers as part of the company’s strategy to provide
capacity offload services to other operators. Clearwire expects Capex in 2012
will amount to $350 to 400 million.
