“T-Mobile’s expanded alliance with long-term partner Crown Castle will fuel acceleration of our nationwide network build and provide synergies that we can further invest into that build – all in support of our Un-carrier mission to truly deliver 5G FOR ALL,” said Neville Ray, president of technology at T-Mobile.
“This agreement is another integral piece of T-Mobile’s ongoing efforts to rapidly expand what is already America’s largest 5G network. We won’t stop focusing on reaching even more customers and delivering fast 5G speeds to more people – every day and into the future.”
The under the terms of the deal T-Mobile will have increased access to Crown Castle's towers and small cell locations, enabling the T-Mobile to bolster the reach of its 5G, while also realising financial synergies following its merger.
In turn, the agreement also helps Crown Castle generate long-term tower and small cell revenue growth.
“We're excited to build on our long-standing strategic relationship with T-Mobile as we work closely with them to continue to deploy their next-generation 5G network,” said Jay Brown, CEO of Crown Castle.
“T-Mobile and Crown Castle are ideal partners for this next phase as wireless network architecture continues to densify. We believe T-Mobile's significant long-term commitment to utilize our comprehensive infrastructure consisting of towers, small cells and fibre will enable our collective teams to quickly meet future network demands.”
The news follows on from the agreement between the two formed in 2018, at the time Crown Castle was to deploy additional small cells within their existing footprint and light up small cells in new markets to help T-Mobile enhance 4G LTE network capacity and prepare for 5G network deployments.
Prior to this, T-Mobile US and Crown Castle entered into definitive agreements in which Crown Castle will acquire rights to approximately 7,200 T-Mobile towers for $2.4 billion in cash. Under these definitive agreements, Crown Castle was granted exclusive right to lease and operate the T-Mobile towers for a weighted average term of approximately 28 years.
