Md7 celebrates 15 years in business
This month Md7 is celebrating 15 years in business. In January 2003, Michael Gianni created Md7 after spending much of 2002 traveling and speaking with his friends and acquaintances in wireless about the future of the industry. As noted in a prior Md7 blog post, Michael began to see two themes emerge:
- OpEx was becoming just as crucial as CapEx as wireless executives were beginning to forecast the decline in explosive subscriber growth. It was Business 101 – the wireless industry would eventually flatten out as subscriber growth approached 100% penetration.
- Rent rolls for cell sites were becoming an increasing area of concern for operators. This was also Business 101 – if revenue growth flattens, operating margins become more crucial. And after payroll and backhaul, rent rolls were the most significant OpEx line item in the network.
With this in mind, Michael set out to find innovative ways to optimize wireless real estate by viewing cell sites as assets rather than an underlying cost center. By thinking outside-the-box, Md7 came up with some creative ways to reduce the OpEx and CapEx associated with cell sites. Some gained traction, and some did not, but over the next fifteen years, Md7 persevered, innovated and evolved through a variety of industry cycles.
Since January of 2003, Md7 has performed services for 26 different operators in fourteen countries including:
- Negotiating hundreds-of-thousands of lease agreements
- Performing site development and modification services on tens-of-thousands of sites
- Reducing rent rolls by hundreds of millions of dollars/euros
- Developing Lease Administration services that allow operators to outsource nationwide portfolios in Europe
- Developing what may be the fastest growing Architectural and Engineering services (A&E) and Land Use operation in the USA
As we look to the future, Md7 will continue to shift the paradigm when it comes to managing wireless real estate assets. It is in our DNA.
