Market Sectors
Fiber
Rural fiber is consolidating.
Scale and cost of capital decide who buys and who sells. ILECs and CLECs still control the majority of rural FTTP and FTTH, and many of those systems are underfunded for the next build cycle. Those systems have begun to trade, and the buyer universe has widened: private-equity-backed fiber platforms, regional carriers building out of adjacent markets, cooperatives and the national incumbents that eventually buy the platforms.
The consolidation cycle is here. In a February 2026 AlixPartners survey, 73% of fiber operators said they were likely to engage in M&A within a year, and 95% expected that activity to target operators with fewer than 500,000 passings — which is to say, nearly every independent.
What buyers are paying for: passings, penetration and take rate; cost per passing and remaining copper exposure; ARPU, churn and business/enterprise mix; subsidy streams and BEAD, A-CAM and Enhanced A-CAM obligations; middle-mile and wholesale revenue.
Data Center
Independent data centers are the targets of cloud and AI buyers.
Power decides the price. Most metros outside the top tier have a handful of independently owned data centers serving enterprise, carrier and public-sector tenants. Those facilities — and the powered land around them — are now the acquisition targets of national colocation platforms, infrastructure funds and developers working for hyperscale and AI tenants.
Our technology and communications practices have grown into direct relationships with the buyers entering the cloud and AI space. We advise operators selling a facility, and operators developing their first campus, on siting, power and valuation.
What buyers are paying for: contracted and expandable power (MW) and interconnection status; tenant mix, lease duration and renewal history; carrier density and fiber connectivity; PUE, remaining capacity and expansion land.
Wireless
The auction window is open again.
Wireless assets are being repriced. In June 2026 the FCC closed Auction 113 — AWS-3 — its first spectrum auction in four years, with bids of more than $3.5 billion. A 160 MHz upper C-band auction is scheduled for 2027 under a statutory July deadline. New spectrum and renewed carrier capex reprice everything downstream: WISPs and fixed-wireless operators, tower and rooftop portfolios, small-cell networks and the spectrum holdings themselves.
Our Principal Bankers have worked in wireless since 1999 — spectrum, communications towers, WISPs, and indoor and outdoor small cells — and we track carrier appetite deal by deal, not auction by auction.
What buyers are paying for: subscribers, ARPU and fixed-wireless penetration; licensed spectrum and CBRS PAL holdings; tower and rooftop tenancy, lease terms and escalators; fiber backhaul and carrier relationships.
Regional Carriers
Middle-mile routes, wholesale relationships and enterprise fiber.
Regional and rural carriers sit between the national incumbents and the local exchange — with middle-mile routes, wholesale and carrier relationships, enterprise fiber and tower backhaul contracts that larger buyers are actively acquiring to fill gaps in their own networks.
With years of experience, we understand the factors that create market value for regional carriers, and which buyer each factor matters to — and knowing the difference is where value is made.
What buyers are paying for: route miles and unique, non-overbuilt routes; wholesale and carrier revenue, concentration and term; enterprise and public-sector contracts; regulatory status and subsidy revenue.
Design, Engineering & Construction
The firms that build the network are trading at premium values — while the funding lasts.
IIJA- and BEAD-funded construction has pushed service business values to an all-time high. With BEAD moving into construction in 2026 and peak build activity ahead, national contractors, private-equity roll-ups and engineering firms are paying for backlog, crews and customer relationships.
Timing matters in this sector more than in any other we cover: sell into the backlog, not after it. We know how acquirers underwrite master service agreements and backlog, and we position design, engineering and construction firms to sell at the peak of the build cycle.
What buyers are paying for: contracted backlog and master service agreements; crew count, utilization and owned equipment; safety record and certifications; customer concentration and geographic footprint.
Power & Energy
Power is the new bottleneck in digital infrastructure — and a transaction category of its own.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that data centers consumed 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and could reach 6.7% to 12% by 2028, driven largely by AI compute. Interconnection queue positions, behind-the-meter generation, substations and powered land are now valued like infrastructure assets.
NMP's internal comps guide our valuations of generation, powered sites and grid-adjacent assets. We advise their owners — and the data center developers who need them.
What buyers are paying for: interconnection queue position and utility agreements; megawatts available today and expansion headroom; generation type, fuel supply and permitting; land, water and offtake counterparties.