Tillman Infrastructure building hundreds of towers for AT&T
Companies like American Tower and Crown Castle are highly profitable and show significant return from investors. The other side of that equation is the enormous tower leasing cost footed by carriers like Verizon and AT&T. Last year those two companies partnered with Tillman Infrastructure to try to take cost out of tower fees.
And now, a little more than a year in, AT&T says Tillman has built hundreds of new towers with hundreds more on the way.
Tillman Infrastructure was founded in 2016 by Sanjiy Ahuja, the former CEO of Orange and also the founder of Lightsquared, which tried to launch a satellite-based wireless network. The company is building to suit for the top two U.S. carriers. On Dec. 17, the company announced it had received funding of $500 million from two capital partners with the potential to grow that investment up to $1 billion.
Tillman CFO Suruchi Ahuja said in a statement the infusion of capital will “fuel the next stage of our aggressive growth plans. We are committed to continue to be the carrier friendly and carrier preferred infrastructure provider, and a true partner to our customers as they focus on expanding their coverage and capacity across the nation.”
AT&T is in the process of spending $40 billion to construct a dedicated LTE network for first responders, FirstNet, and using the opportunity to upgrade existing sites to support LTE Advanced technologies like 4X4 MIMO and 256 QAM, while also installing RAN gear that can be upgraded over the air to support the 5G New Radio specification.
AT&T’s EVP of Global Connections and Supply Chain Susan Johnson said the attraction to Tillman is based on “a sustainable cost model while also delivering best in class cycle times and tower construction. Our work with Tillman Infrastructure exemplifies our future model for the cell tower industry.”
