Tower contractors are becoming more and more interested in diversifying beyond the wireless industry. There are plenty of choices out there, including fiber deployment, electrical vehicle charging stations, wind turbines, solar panels, and civil construction. During the Workshop: “Customer Diversification: Innovating Beyond Wireless” speakers told how their companies navigated change as they entered industries outside of towers at NATE UNITE 2025, held this week in Raleigh, N.C.
One of the reasons for diversification is the pay is decreasing for tower services while labor costs are increasing, according Nat Mangum is president and CEO at Selective Site Consultant, LLC, an engineering and site acquisition firm based out of Kansas City. He gave a stark example concerning structural analyses.
“On average, in 1997, they were getting paid $15,000 for a structural analysis. In 2005, that decreased to $4,500, and today we get paid $2,200 for the same service,” Mangum said. On the flip side, when we look at our average compensation, our labor cost was up 50 percent during that time.”
Another reason to diversify is to even out the capex cycles, which create a boom-and-bust roller coast for tower contractors. Staffing up and laying off employees can be very hard on a company’s morale, the speakers noted. When times are good, people forget that, between tech upgrades, the capex falls and staffing drops, according to Mangum, and those periods can be very hard on a company’s culture.
“So diversification can provide stability, not only to your revenue, but it buys stability for your workforce. It allows you to keep key core people.” Mangum said. “We’ve given them a new playbook, an opportunity to learn a new skill set, to meet a new network of people, and we’ve given them stability.”
Diversify into an area where you have an expertise
Mike Young worked his way up through the wireless infrastructure ranks to become president of Vikor Teleconstruction. But when he left to found ANCO Holdings, where he is president and CEO, Young was forced to look outside the tower business due to a non-compete clause. The decision was made to enter the fiber deployment segment, even though the company did not have any customers in that area.
“We were forced to go and do something outside of the tower industry for a few years,” Young said. “The non-compete clause was kind of a blessing because fiber deployment was all we focused on for a number of years. What really helped us get to success with that division was the fact that we weren’t distracted. We were fully committed to figuring out everything that it entailed.”
When the non-compete clause expired, ANCO acquired a small tower company and then began adding tower services, including broadcast work. As it grew the tower business, it started an electrical division with the intentions of self performing all the work at the tower site, which is now the Utility division. Today, ANCO is a utility and communications infrastructure contractor and its expertise has allowed it to expand into multiple divisions — Underground and Electrical Utilities, Wireless, Energy, and Developments. It has completed more than 1,500 projects for more than 200 customers.
“You have to diversify into what you’re an expert at,” Young said. “I would never lead with the work. If you lead with the expertise, then I promise you people will hire experts.”
When technology meets real estate, take a look at it
From 1997 to 2021, 100 percent of SSC’s revenue came from wireless, and its entrance into the electric vehicle charging market came almost by accident. The company gained its first electric vehicle client in January 2021, when Mangum serendipitously met Rivian’s national development manager who was helping her daughter sell Girl Scout cookies door to door. What began with basic permitting work evolved into creating a nationwide design template for Rivian’s charging stations.
“Through our experience with Rivian, we learned that a lot of the things we do in wireless are just applicable outside of the wireless space,” Mangum said. “Plus, getting an EV charging station approved in a zoning hearing is much easier than zoning a tower. People actually clap.”
SSC electric vehicle charging work has ballooned to 44 EV clients, and every client has been secured because of work SSC did with another EV company. EV will represent between 15 and 20 percent of SSC’s gross revenue.
“Any time technology meets real estate, that is when the wireless service business should open their eyes and take a look at it,” Mangum said. “EV should rank very high for diversification possibilities, because it requires utility coordination and permitting. All the regulatory steps that happen in EV overlap with that of the wireless industry. So the actions are playing to our strengths.”
Today, SSC and its sister construction company (Aerial Infrastructure Services, Inc.) support deployment plans in multiple markets with regard to new construction, small cell / DAS deployments and carrier construction modifications.
Where do we put our guys now?
When Scott Wendland, president and CEO at NICX Construction, began his company, it built 5G small cells and smart city infrastructure, but that market quickly dried up and he had to shift gears.
“We had a large body of small cell work, and we were all really busy doing that,” Wendland said. “But when we finished all of the small cell work that the carriers wanted, we wondered, ‘Where do we put our guys now?’ The answer was fiber deployment. This is a great place to be, and I’d say 80 percent of our gross revenues are currently in the fiber industry.”
There are a number of ways to diversify into a different industry segment, including merging with a company that specializes in a certain technology segment, strategic hires of knowledgeable personnel in that technology, or cross training existing personnel.
Wendland also decided to diversify into the state and local public sector civil construction projects, because his company already had that expertise.
“We have a lot of personnel that are good with civil projects. Because we build towers, we know how to do steel, and we know how to do concrete,” Wendland said. “We realized that we can use that expertise for building bike paths, retaining walls and staircases and bridges, all for municipalities.”
Brett Sorrells, owner of Telogistix LLC, who moderated the panel, summarized the panel like this, “So it’s been a tough year or two for our industry, and we need to share ideas on how the companies in our industry can grow, strive and keep our teams growing with profitable business. We need to open our minds to the possibilities of diversification, but first we must think about what unique skills, talents and experiences that we have that we can leverage to move forward.”
