Potential New Tower Build Outlook Clarified
This article is a preview of U.S. Towers analysis featured in the upcoming issue of Inside Towers Intelligence 2026 Vol 2 edition. For more information: https://insidetowers.com/intelligence/
UPDATE Since we published our May 28 story on the outlook for new tower builds, several of our astute readers let us know that our analysis may be overstating the volume of towers in the Granted category. They also expressed concern that the numbers could be misleading to tower company planners and their investors. We appreciate that feedback and subsequently reworked our analysis.
First, we discovered that around 15 percent of the original tally included Granted towers that were actually Constructed. For whatever reason, those tower owners have not updated their FCC registration records to reflect that change. Secondly, we shortened the timeframe over which we counted the Granted towers. Instead of the entire database, we are now counting Granted towers over the past 5 years and year-to-date for 2026. We believe the current results now show a more realistic picture of the pipeline for new tower builds. The good news: it’s still very positive.
As we pointed out in the first article, it is important to understand that we do not have visibility as to when these towers might be built but assume that such builds will take place within several years of being Granted. However, some of these Granted towers may never be built for various reasons such as lack of financing, unable to obtain local permitting, or change of business plans.
The Inside Towers Database shows a total of 8,146 towers as Granted, but not yet Constructed, for the analysis period. Of that total, 7,593 are telecom towers with the balance among non-telco entities such as government agencies, railroads, utilities, energy companies, and others.
Private towers companies account for 3,168 towers or 42 percent of the telecom towers as Granted. Vertical Bridge has by far the largest pool of Granted towers with 2,139, of which 1,929 were approved in 2025. Among other Private towercos, CitySwitch had 240 Granted sites, followed by Tillman Infrastructure with 149 and Harmoni Towers with 120.
By comparison, the public towercos have much less in works with a total of 370 Granted towers over the analysis period. Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI) leads the pack with 256. Of Crown’s total, 162 towers have been Granted so far in 2026, reflecting the company’s refocus on its tower-only business. Array Digital Infrastructure/UScellular (NYSE: AD) tallied 78 Granted towers over the study period, with 37 in 2025 alone. American Tower (NYSE: AMT) came in with 30 and SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC) with six.
Mobile network operators, through their various operating entities, also have in-works a total of 4,055 or 53 percent of Granted sites, over the study period. AT&T Mobility (NYSE: T) has 3,320 Granted sites, of which 2,610 sites were approved in 2025. This surge reflects AT&T’s spectrum deployment acceleration having acquired key low- and mid-band licenses in key markets from EchoStar (NASDAQ: SATS) and UScellular in 2024-2025, Inside Towers reported. Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) has 583 sites and T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) with 152.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
