Crown Castle

“Like Crown Castle mentioned that they're owed $3.5 billion when they terminated the agreement with DISH.”

An analyst compares American Tower's DISH exposure to peer Crown Castle, which disclosed being owed $3.5 billion after terminating its DISH agreement.

“Crown Castle is supportive of AT&T and SpaceX obtaining the announced 3.45 gigahertz, 600 megahertz, AWS-4, H block, and unpaired AWS-3 spectrum bands”

Crown Castle supports SpaceX (alongside AT&T) acquiring DISH's spectrum bands, a read-through on SpaceX expanding into terrestrial/mobile spectrum.

“the recent Verizon closed the Frontier deal, AT&T closed the Lumen deal.”

Verizon's close of the Frontier acquisition (and AT&T's Lumen deal) is cited as driving fixed-wireless/fiber convergence that could create new tower build opportunities for Crown Castle.

“AT&T's deployment of the 3.45 spectrum, specifically where they had already deployed radios and antennas that could utilize that band on a portion of their portfolio.”

Crown Castle discusses AT&T's spectrum deployment (3.45 GHz via software plus new 600 MHz radios/antennas), a read-through on AT&T's network buildout and future tower leasing demand.

“After DISH defaulted on its payment obligations back in January, Crown Castle exercised its right to terminate the agreement.”

Crown Castle's tower customer DISH (Dish Wireless, an EchoStar entity) defaulted on payments; Crown Castle terminated the agreement and is seeking to recover over $3.5B, a strongly negative read-through on DISH/EchoStar's financial position.

“Can you maybe just comment on the impact of the T-Mobile's acquisition of U.S. Cellular on the business over the next several quarters and years?”

Crown Castle characterizes T-Mobile's acquisition of U.S. Cellular as de minimis to its tower business, expecting very little impact.

“And then finally, the EchoStar question that you asked, look, we have a good agreement in place. It runs through 02/1936. And the bottom line is we expect to be paid for the terms of the agreement.”

Crown Castle expects to be paid the full contractual terms of its tower lease (DISH/Boost, ~5% of tower revenue) with EchoStar, whose network buildout plans remain uncertain.

“We have minimal exposure to U.S. Cellular towers -- U.S. Cellular on our towers. It is a negligible amount that would not have an impact on our overall financial results.”

Asked about T-Mobile's plan to acquire more towers from U.S. Cellular (USM), Crown Castle said its direct exposure to U.S. Cellular as a tower tenant is negligible and immaterial to results.

“we're starting that process and have started that process and believe we're making really good progress and have worked really well with both Zayo and EQT to make that happen.”

EQT (the Swedish private equity firm, not EQT Corporation) is one of two buyers, alongside Zayo, in Crown Castle's pending sale of its fiber solutions and small cell businesses.

“we're starting that process and have started that process and believe we're making really good progress and have worked really well with both Zayo and EQT to make that happen.”

Zayo is one of two buyers (alongside EQT) in Crown Castle's pending sale of its fiber solutions and small cell businesses, expected to close in the first half of 2026.

“this includes around $20 million in annual Sprint churn that we have from leases that will be coming to their natural final termination date between 2026 and 2034.”

Post-merger Sprint network site decommissioning by T-Mobile continues to churn off Crown Castle tower leases, with about $20 million in annual Sprint-related churn expected through 2034.

“EQT has agreed to acquire Crown Castle’s small cell business and Zayo has agreed to acquire Crown Castle’s commercial enterprise fiber business.”

Crown Castle agreed to sell its commercial enterprise fiber business to Zayo Group Holdings as part of exiting fiber/small cells to focus on a pure-play U.S. tower business.

“EQT has agreed to acquire Crown Castle’s small cell business and Zayo has agreed to acquire Crown Castle’s commercial enterprise fiber business.”

Crown Castle agreed to sell its small cell business to EQT's Active Core Infrastructure fund as part of exiting fiber/small cells to focus on a pure-play U.S. tower business.