AT&T and Verizon are two of the country’s largest telecommunications corporations, noted for their outstanding wireless networking services. Both companies are fierce rivals in the wireless business in the United States. Due to specific circumstances, the entire market has moved, such as news that both businesses have opted to share their networking towers. As a result, this article addresses the elephant in the room: do Verizon and AT&T share towers?
Both AT&T and Verizon sold off most of their cellular towers just a few years ago. They each received around $5 billion in cash as a reward for their efforts. As a result, it should be no surprise that both AT&T and Verizon have realized they must now pay rent. They are tenants in those towers, and they have discovered that their operational expenses and margins have increased. They’ve discovered that anyone, even T-Mobile, can rent space on those towers and provide the same service.
To get out from under their crippling leases, Verizon and AT&T have teamed together and planned to build hundreds more towers. The increased number of towers also ensures better signal with Verizon and AT&T. AT&T and Verizon are both ecstatic about the idea of working together.
Is there anything wrong with the two market-leading businesses cooperating while keeping the remaining competitors out? Is it the anti-competitive component or the short-sightedness that is the worst? Continue reading to learn how operators share towers and how competing carriers agree to utilize the same towers.
What is the logistics of Mobile Towers?
Mobile towers are typically owned by power companies, private persons, or even other carriers rather than those who use them. This is because carriers prefer to save money wherever they can. After all, leasing a tower is less expensive than buying and maintaining one.
And, because only a few spots in a given area meet both the coverage and building requirements, leasing is a more cost-effective alternative than outbidding your competitor. The owners of those towers rent them to carriers, who use them to install their network and cellular equipment.
Carriers will be free to increase the capacity of these leased towers as they see fit. Because leasing a tower allows a carrier to be more flexible, the coverage and quality of the signal provided by two carriers using the same tower can vary. If AT&T and Verizon share the same cell tower, Verizon signal strength may differ.
What are shared tower agreements?
Shared Tower Agreements come into play here. They give a robust structure for two competing carriers to place their networking equipment on the same tower. These agreements are also set up so that both parties benefit from them.
Verizon and AT&T have several such arrangements in place around the United States, where they share towers. Some businesses exist solely to lease cellular network equipment, such as Verizon and AT&T, which lease towers in locations where demand is insufficient to justify building their own.
Carriers sometimes work with power companies, as in the instance of the mobile tower near my house. The tower is owned by the local utility company, which leases it out to the carriers in my region.
Do Verizon and AT&T share towers to offer cellular services?
Both Verizon and AT&T quickly realized that selling the towers and relying on shared Networking towers for rent was terrible. They realized that they were little more than renters paying rent in those towers. Furthermore, they understood that anyone could rent the same space by utilizing similar networking towers, resulting in a much more significant change. As a result, they’ll be able to deliver network coverage that’s similar to Verizon and AT&T.
This understanding prompted the two firms to take another bold step, announcing that Verizon and AT&T would collaborate to improve their cellular networking services. They chose to construct tens of thousands of networking towers for themselves, eliminating the need for crippling leases and exorbitant tower rentals.
Hundreds of mobile towers are being built by AT&T and Verizon in collaboration with a third party. Tillman Infrastructure, the third company, is a private company that manufactures and owns towers and builds them for AT&T and Verizon. The new towers are placed in areas that require more coverage, thus one AT&T weak signal solution. AT&T and Verizon may also have to move equipment from existing towers to make way for the new ones.
It’s worth noting that the two telecom behemoths chose Tillman Infrastructure, a small New York-based firm, above any of the top three cell tower firms in the US: American Tower, Crown Castle, or SBA Communications. According to executives from both carriers, the decision to go with an industry underdog was deliberate.
Nicola Palmer, Verizon’s chief network officer, said the new collaborations would improve the user experience while lowering costs. “Reducing operating costs is critical,” Palmer said. “We need more alternatives to the existing tower leasing model with the large incumbents,” AT&T’s SVP of global supply chain reiterated that sentiment, saying, “We need more alternatives to the traditional tower leasing model with the large incumbents.” It is neither cost-effective nor long-term.”
Early 2018 saw the start of construction on the first towers, which went live shortly after. While sharing cell towers makes commercial sense, it will also benefit customers because the new sites will assist fill in places where cellular service is now limited. Verizon was recently chastised for turning off service to tens of thousands of rural customers, many of whom had no other options.
How did AT&T and Verizon plan to achieve this goal?
Following the news and declaration of the rental tower leases being terminated, each of the current tower leases is being meticulously inspected as the time for rent renewal approaches.
They’ve chosen to form a joint venture with a third party to construct the promised cell towers. Tillman Infrastructure, a private company, is the third company they’ve chosen to construct these towers. It should also be noted that this is not a significant corporation but rather a tiny one that will be building the required number of AT&T and Verizon Networking towers.
Furthermore, executives from AT&T and Verizon have stated that the decision to hire Tillman, an industry underdog, was made only to obtain some advantageous methods.
What are the advantages of AT&T and Verizon sharing towers?
Sharing networking towers is generally thought to be a sensible decision because it has long been accepted that in this manner, all parties gain and the expense of issues are shared. This might benefit AT&T and Verizon, which will jointly own and lease the towers. This is far superior to renting the tower from a third-party company.
On the one hand, sharing the towers can assist the former parties in recouping their initial investments, controlling and minimizing maintenance fees, and distributing operational expenses.
More importantly, it allows the carriers to avoid large initial investments and reap the benefits of using high-quality equipment to provide adequate coverage to their customers. There is no need to purchase the best Verizon cell phone signal booster for home or office with better coverage.
Who constructs Verizon’s 5G towers?
Crown Castle is one of the critical companies that build Verizon’s 5G towers, and the company just contracted to build roughly 15,000 for the cellular carrier. Crown Castle also owns over 41,000 cell towers in the United States and a fiber network spanning 80,000 route miles.
Additionally, SBA Communications assists the corporation in constructing its 5G towers, and both of these companies are among the top three cell tower companies in the United States.
In the middle of seemingly lessening tensions with federal safety inspectors, the two major carriers in the country (AT&T and Verizon) were permitted to turn on new 5G cell towers. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave AT&T and Verizon permission to build more 5G towers on the C-band, or mid-band spectrum, in January 2022.
After obtaining information from carriers on the location of wireless transmitters, the Federal Aviation Administration said it took the required steps to verify that the new services would not interfere with plane communications systems.
Is AT&T Purchasing Verizon’s Towers?
AT&T did not purchase Verizon towers, but the two companies did form a partnership to build mobile towers together. AT&T did, however, purchase some Verizon Wireless holdings in the past, including network assets and licenses, affecting 1.6 million subscribers across 18 states.
Bottom line
AT&T and Verizon share towers occasionally, which is most common when you’re in a Verizon extended network area. Furthermore, if you’re outside the Verizon coverage zone, you can be on an AT&T or other company’s cell tower. In addition, the fiber cables that run from the cell phone tower to the switch and via the ground must be provided by a local supplier. Verizon, Century Link, or even AT&T, among other local providers, could be the provider.
