Thus, if the carrier pulled its permit early in the month, it could complete construction of the site improvements before the term commencement date. The carrier would have no obligation to remove its improvements, leaving the owner with a potentially large demolition bill to remove any tower, monopole, foundations and equipment facilities. Although rental rates are a function of the market, it is often quite difficult for an owner to get information on comparable sites. Because most site agreements are directly between the owner and the carrier and do not involve a broker or listing agent, there is usually no accessible record of the economic terms of the agreement. These terms vary dramatically and depend on site location and the owner's sophistication.
Carriers have an obvious interest in suppressing market information.
Freely available market information would establish benchmark values for sites, increase carriers' deployment costs and potentially upset owners of existing sites with below market rental rates. Often the only way to obtain accurate market information is to contact other site owners in the area or lawyers who have handled several transactions in a certain area. In any case, it is difficult to develop more than a rough sense of the market. The only assumption that generally holds true is that the carriers will pay as little as possible to get access to a site. In many instances, a carrier's rental obligations begin only when site construction starts.