Does Verizon Own Its Towers In 2024? (All You Need to Know)

As one of the largest wireless carriers serving over 120 million subscribers in the U.S., Verizon has built an extensive network covering over 2.4 million square miles nationwide. However, over the past decade they have moved towards a lease model rather than owning all of their telecom infrastructure outright.

Many readers may be wondering – does Verizon own its cell towers or rely on leasing agreements to provide nationwide coverage? As an industry analyst studying the evolution of wireless networks for over 20 years, I have researched the latest on Verizon‘s strategy.

Verizon Sold Over 11,000 Towers in Recent Years

In 2021, Verizon struck an over $10 billion agreement to sell more than 11,000 cell towers to American Tower Corporation. They currently lease space on many of those same sites to continue growing their 5G Ultra Wideband and 4G LTE footprint.

Overall, Verizon retains full ownership and operation of over 2,000 macro cell towers spread across the United States as of their 2022 SEC filings. The company also manages over 4,290 rooftop and/or concealed cell sites like flagpoles or chimneys that blend into communities.

Their current portfolio includes tower infrastructure as well as rooftop cell sites and small cells:

*primarily American Tower sites

So while they have sold or leased the majority, Verizon continues building new sites to enhance capacity and coverage – especially for 5G services.

Who Maintains Verizon’s Network Infrastructure?

Given the substantial infrastructure required to operate America’s largest wireless network, Verizon relies on partnerships with major tower providers who own and manage sites across the country:

• American Tower – As mentioned, Verizon recently sold over 11,000 towers to ATC. Beyond leasing antenna space, ATC also provides compound maintenance, emergency repairs and even handles new tenant additions on Verizon‘s behalf based on contractual obligations.

• Crown Castle – While they focus heavily on fiber, Crown Castle is also a top provider of macro cell towers and small cell solutions. For example, they recently signed an agreement with Verizon to deploy 15,000 new 5G small cell nodes on city infrastructure.

• SBA Communications – With over 17,000 tower sites in their portfolio plus extensive recent capex investments in their underlying infrastructure, SBA emerged as a key partner maintaining and hosting Verizon equipment nationally.

Verizon is also leaning more heavily on “dark tower” infrastructure providers like Tillman and CityBridge that build new sites even without having an anchor tenant lease lined up yet. By funding new construction speculatively, companies like Tillman aim to eventually support Verizon while streamlining rollout timelines.

Do Verizon and AT&T Share Certain Network Elements?

In areas with limited infrastructure available from either telecom giant, AT&T and Verizon occasionally cooperate on tower sharing or fiber backhaul transport agreements:

• Network roaming – If traveling outside Verizon’s coverage, your Verizon device may connect to an AT&T tower in rural locations where both carriers maintain minimal overlapping infrastructure. However, speeds often remain capped.

• Shared fiber routes – The high-speed fiber optic cables interconnecting towers, switching centers and data centers may be owned by either Verizon, AT&T or even third-parties like CenturyLink depending on locality. Competitors sometimes lease dark fiber capacity to reduce infrastructure duplication.

However, any facility sharing arrangements are almost always mutually exclusive from their strategic 5G visions and next-gen network advancements.

Who Is Actively Building More Verizon Towers?

While outsourcing most of their tower ownership, Verizon does work with partners specializing in new building projects nationwide:

• Tillman Infrastructure (350+ sites)
• CityBridge – a collaboration between operators facilitating small cell deployments
• Tower companies like Crown Castle expanding 5G-capable small cells

Crown in particular has an extensive new five-year plan to enhance Verizon’s 5G reach. CityBridge builds on street lights and local transit infrastructure, simplifying small cell deployment logistics across all carriers involved.

How Does Tower Ownership Market Share Shake Out?

Diving deeper into the numbers across telecom infrastructure players nationally:

However, from an international standpoint China Tower dwarfs any single American provider with over 1.9 million towers spread across China – the world’s largest group of connected consumers accessing wireless services. They generate over $10 billion in annual tower lease income alone as China’s carriers rely on their infrastructure to operate nationwide mobile data networks.

So while America’s big three tower cos individually have 40-80K sites, China Mobile’s infrastructure firm holds enough properties to cover nearly all of Verizon and AT&T’s towers combined!

Conclusion

In summary – following billions in recent deals to transfer ownership elsewhere – Verizon relies much more heavily on tower leasing agreements and infrastructure partners to supply the backbone powering their wireless services from 5G to LTE and legacy 3G. Still an evolving picture as 5G buildouts continue, but hopefully this overview has helped answer the question on all readers‘ minds recently!

For more carrier infrastructure analysis, feel free to find me here with any follow-ups or comments.