Windstream's plan to spin off its physical assets into a REIT prompted widespread speculation Tuesday that other US telecom players might follow suit, and stock prices lifted across the board. (See Is Windstream Boldly Setting a New Trend?.)

But reality has already set in, as it now seems unlikely that many others will be able to duplicate the Windstream move after all.

As a result, stocks for AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) fell Wednesday, almost to pre-REIT speculation levels, and Verizon shares were actually trading below where they were on Monday. Only Frontier Communications Corp. (NYSE: FTR) still seemed to be maintaining the afterglow of Windstream Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: WIN)'s news.

And that might not last. Donna Jaegers, senior telecom analyst at D.A. Davidson and a veteran in this space, sees limited expansion of the strategy of spinning off physical network assets into a real estate investment trust, despite the IRS approval of the move.

"I think Windstream will get it done, but it will be interesting to see how the bond market reacts to this," Jaegers points out. "In order for this to work as a tax avoidance scheme, the bond market has to buy into it, and I don't see it as all that appealing."

One reason for the lack of appeal is that not all copper assets are equal and thus might not be sustainable in a 15-year lease such as Windstream will have with its REIT. Investors will look at the value of those networks when committing their money, just as they would evaluate the quality of real estate property in a REIT, Jaegers says.

"People are going to be asking if the economic life of those assets is really 15 years," she says.

Jaegers agrees with the general speculation that it would be much harder for an AT&T or a Verizon to pull off a deal like this because it requires state regulatory approval, and those companies tend to have a bigger footprint in the states in which they operate. They would thus face tighter scrutiny, and likely experience resistance from state officials concerned about tax revenues. Windstream's assets, though, are spread across 23 states, and they are not a dominant force in any one of them.

Even smaller companies wanting to embrace this strategy must have their debt structured in a way so that it is immediately callable, so that money raised by the REIT can be used to pay down the parent company debt without incurring substantial extra costs, Jaegers notes.

Windstream is actually getting a double benefit on the financial side from this deal, as it is not only cutting its federal tax bill but also reducing its overall dividend, from the current $1 a share to about 70 cents, combined, from the two entities that emerge -- namely Windstream, as a services company, and the REIT.

"It's a graceful way for them to cut their dividend," Jaegers says. "I think they will have more free cash flow to put back into the network to stimulate more growth."

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Windstream could still use a stronger West Coast presence than even its Paetec acquisition earned it, the analyst thinks, and will be in a much better position to make acquisitions in that space. Prior to the REIT strategy, the company didn't have a lot of room for additional debt capacity and couldn't really use its stock as currency in most deals. (See Windstream's Plan for Paetec.)

"If they can show a little better growth, their stock becomes a better currency," Jaegers notes. But this means the company has to strongly execute the strategy that CEO Jeff Gardner has laid out, increasing its sales to mid-sized enterprises, especially of cloud services and advanced networking options. (See Windstream Portal Integrates Cloud, Network, Windstream Offers Speedy Virtual Data Center Setup to Enterprises, and Windstream Makes Regional Cloud Play.)

"A lot of this comes down to whether the sales force can be effective and whether you can deliver on the products you are marketing," she concludes.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading