Impact of Federal Regulatory Reviews on Small Cell Deployment

The objective of this paper is to independently assess the impacts of regulatory reviews required for the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NHPA/NEPA) on 5G small cell roll-outs by US wireless carriers. In assessing the costs wireless carriers incur in relation to these reviews, Accenture found the following:

• 29% of deployment costs are related to NHPA/NEPA regulations when reviews are required
• The industry incurred $36mm in costs for NHPA/NEPA reviews for small cells in 2017
• As small cell deployment grows significantly in coming years, it is projected that wireless carriers will incur $2.43bn in NHPA/NEPA costs from 2018 to 2026
• Savings of $1.56bn are estimated if the proportion of small cells requiring review under NHPA/NEPA could be reduced by two-thirds