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Verizon, AT&T Announce Plans To Build and Share Hundreds of New Cell Towers (fiercewireless.com)

Posted by msmash on from the next-up dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Verizon and AT&T announced a joint venture with Tillman Infrastructure to build and share hundreds of cell towers in more in a move that is sure to be seen as a threat to more established tower companies. The companies said the new structures "will add to the overall communications infrastructure in the United States," filling gaps in current tower footprints, but will also enable the nation's two largest network operators to relocate equipment from towers they're currently using. Construction plans on the first towers will begin early next year and will come online "quickly" as they are completed.

7 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Perhaps I'm the only one by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But it seems like this summary - and the article itself - would be more useful if it supplied additional information.

    I certainly know very little about how cellular towers are managed - until a few minutes ago, I assumed the carriers themselves owned them. Apparently that is wrong...

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    #DeleteChrome
  2. What a difference two years makes? by jonatha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In March 2015 Verizon essentially sold off over 11000 cell towers to American Tower....

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    The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
    1. Re:What a difference two years makes? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      In March 2015 Verizon essentially sold off over 11000 cell towers to American Tower....

      Neither VZ nor ATT really cares who owns the towers, so long as the towers exist and someone is maintaining them. You can be sure that they will have kept the towers which are lucrative to operate, and dropped the ones where they have the least subscribers.

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      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:Fire sale on existing tower capacity by Shatrat · · Score: 2

    Unlikely. AT&T and VZ are gearing up for 5G expansion which is going to require them to have denser tower footprints. They'll still need all their existing tower locations as well, and will be using those existing towers in many cases as part of their fronthaul for the new towers.

    The other carriers are going to have to solve this problem as well, which is one reason T-Mobile and Sprint were looking at getting hitched.

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  4. Re:Anti-Trust Action, Please! by Darkk · · Score: 2

    I fail to see why this would be an anti-trust issue? If anything it FORCES Sprint to improve their network and compete for their customers.

  5. We definitely need them here. by gsilver0 · · Score: 2

    At my office (30 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah, just off a major freeway, and in a county of over half a million) my reception is so bad on Verizon to be practically unusable. I tried to do a speedtest, and the first one resulted in: 816ms ping 0.00 mbps down 0.25 mbps up Subsequent runs either failed to complete or failed to run.

    1. Re:We definitely need them here. by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Funny

      You live in Utah...I'm sorry.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'