52-week low / high: $3.41 / $9.63
Shares Outstanding:  146.01 million
Market Capitalization:  $548.98 million

FiberTower provides “backhaul” services to wireless telecom carriers over its network of microwave and fiber optic pipelines. Backhaul is defined as the transport of data between a carrier’s cell site (tower or rooftop) and switch locations. Microwave architecture, the basis of FiberTower’s growth strategy, has many advantages to legacy copper cable, including speed of rollout and data transmission quality and scalability.   

The wireless industry continues to experience enormous growth based on the nearly insatiable demand for delivery of voice/video/data to handheld devices. As a result, the backhaul market is expected to grow to $10 billion in 2010 from $3.5 billion (2007). All of FiberTower’s installations are designed to accommodate future transport service needs, including WiMAX, metro Ethernet and other packet-based protocols.

Revenues for the three months ended June 30, 2007 were $6.2 million, up 100% from $3.1 million in the year ago quarter. Backlog grew from 1,594 sold customer locations at the end of 2006 to 2,020 at the end of the second quarter of 2007. FiberTower has budgeted $200 million in infrastructure investment (CAPEX) in 2007 and 2008 in order to deliver projected customer backhaul needs. 

In August, FiberTower announced an agreement with Sprint Nextel to provide backhaul services in seven initial WiMax launch markets. Verizon and Qwest also selected FiberTower as the backhaul subcontractor for their U.S. General Services Administration 10-year, $20 billion contract.