Top 10 Tower Companies

Editor’s Note: Following is the listing of the top 10 tower companies in the United States, along with a list of “honorable mentions” of companies that more than likely fall in the top 20 tower companies. A continuing trend in the tower industry is that the largest players continue to grow by consolidating their smaller counterparts and through international expansion. This list originally ran in the PCIA Wireless Infrastructure 2010 Show Guide.
Crown Castle International Corp. (CCI) remains the top tower company in the United States, followed close by American Tower Corp. (AMT) The next tier of tower companies – from AT&T Towers to TowerCo – all count thousands of towers. The list quickly drops again to companies that all own fewer than 500 towers.
Although other major carriers maintain site inventories that would include them in this list, they were not included on the list because they are not actively pursuing co-location opportunities so were not considered active “tower companies” per se.
Jim Fryer, president of Fryer Marketing & Media, compiled the top 10 list for RCR Wireless News and filtered out alternative structures, raw land, managed sites and rooftops, among other things. Monopoles were included as were stealth flagpoles; multiple occupancy was assumed. Fryer was the founder of Fryer’s Site Guide and TowerSource and has been an analyst and researcher of the tower market for over 20 years.