Ranking U.S. Tower Companies
This analysis is an excerpt from the Inside Towers Intelligence 2026 Vol 1 issue, available now.
We’re tracking the U.S. tower business several ways. One key metric is how the different tower companies rank by tower count.
American Tower (NYSE: AMT) is the top tower company in the country. Its U.S. & Canada region accounted for 41,795 towers at the end of 2025. Across all its regional operations, the company reported 148,824 towers, making it the largest independent, multinational tower company in the world, according to Inside Towers Intelligence. Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI) is a close second in the domestic market with all of its reported 39,804 towers, all in the U.S.
Vertical Bridge, a DigitalBridge Group (NYSE: DBRG) portfolio company, is the largest private tower company in the U.S. with over 18,000 towers. The company moved up to third place ahead of SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC) which reported 17,398 towers in its U.S. domestic operations.
Fifth place, Array Digital Infrastructure (NYSE: AD), now the fourth public tower company behind the Big 3, reported 4,450 towers at the end of 2025.
The subsequent eight towercos all have over 1,000 sites. Of that group, Diamond Communications is the largest with over 4,000 towers followed by Harmoni Towers which reported 3,022 towers and Symphony Towers with 2,973 sites. The Inside Towers Database shows Tillman Infrastructure with 2,250 registered/constructed towers.
Four companies – TowerCo, Everest Infrastructure Partners, K2 Towers and Industrial Tower West – each have tower portfolios in the 1,000-1,500 range.
Industrial Tower and Wireless shows 852 towers across its operating regions around the country. Phoenix Tower International confirmed it has 831 towers in the U.S. This number is a subset of its broader international portfolio of 32,840 sites.
So how do we come up with these numbers?
The primary source is the Inside Towers Database, a proprietary compilation of data on all the telecom and non-telco towers in the U.S. These data are sourced from the FCC Antenna Structure Registration and Universal Licensing System databases and the FAA Digital Obstacle File database, and are updated daily.
The first column is the chart shows data from Inside Towers Database for only the registered and constructed towers by tower company. We are not counting other tower status categories such as ‘Granted’ or ‘Pending.’
Moreover, we believe that there is also a sizable number, in the order of several tens of thousands, of unregistered sites. Unregistered sites typically are towers that are less than 200 feet and are not located near airports, so do not require lighting or painting.
The third column shows what the tower companies are reporting themselves. Public towercos share their tower counts in quarterly reports and presentations. Private tower companies offer information on company websites, either in broad terms or in site locator maps and spreadsheets. In addition, we have created a separate portal in the Inside Towers Database for tower companies to provide their site data. It turns out that these voluntary submissions include thousands of unregistered towers.
Finally, the numbers shown in the Managed, Leased and Unregistered Towers column are the difference between Reported Towers and Registered/Constructed Towers.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
