Crown Castle’s Q1 2026 results and recent news mark a historic “reset” year for the company. Following the completion of a massive strategic overhaul and the completion of the sale of their small cell and fiber sale to Zayo / EQT, the firm has begun execution of being a “pure-play” tower company.
As noted below, Crown Castle has announced a renewed focus in acquiring the cell tower leases beneath its towers.
Overall Highlights:
- Proceeds from recently completed fiber/small cell sale to be utilized: $1B share repurchase, $7B debt pay down
- First quarter growth of 3.1% (excluding Sprint and DISH decom)
- Focus on 3 business priorities:
- Completion of small cell sale and fiber business
- Preserve value in original DISH agreement from 2020
- Become best in class US operator
- Target to increase tower land ownership to 40% over next few years
- $32M spent on purchases of land interest (77% higher than Q1/2025 – $18M)
Crown Castle Land Buyout Program:
Crown Castle’s goal of purchasing land and leases beneath their tower is driven by operational control and cost certainty. Landlord relationships are critical to them being able operate as a wireless infrastructure provider. Through purchasing an easement or prepaid lease, they are able to lower their annual expenses and improve their profitability. The more purchases that they are able to perform, the more their projected expenses from existing ground leases will decrease.
Year over year in Q1, Crown Castle increased it’s purchases of land interests by 77%.
Crown Castle has 14% of its cell tower leases that have lease expirations of 10 years or sooner. These will likely be the heaviest focus of their ground lease buyout program to ensure that they are able to continue to operate their business of leasing to other tenants that utilize the towers with revenues uninterrupted.
Quotable: Crown Castle’s Desire to Acquire Land Under Its Towers
“Our 2026 guidance also includes a year-over-year increase in capital expenditures as we seek to acquire more land under our towers and invest in systems and processes, which we believe will drive operational efficiency and effectiveness in the following ways.
First, we believe that acquiring land under our towers improves our margin and increases operational control of our assets, allowing us to deliver more value to the customer by meeting their needs more rapidly.”
Chris Hillabrandt | CEO, Crown Castle
Quotable: Increasing ownership from 30% to as much as 40%
“Some of this is about how we engage with our landlords so that, if they want to do something, they prefer us. Some of it is financial returns where we might be competing against others who focus on land purchases. We believe our cost of capital is lower than many of those operators. You saw some benefit in the first quarter with higher CapEx; we think this is a long-term opportunity. Our goal over the next handful of years is to move ownership from about 30% to as much as 40% of the land underneath our towers. On CapEx, the guide we provided for this year is fine.”
Sunit Patel | CFO, Crown Castle
Quotable: Crown Castle’s Disciplined interest in new tower builds
“I do not want to raise expectations that we are going into a mass tower build. It is more that customers are looking for partners to help them build towers. Some smaller companies have slowed down, and as the cost of capital has become more expensive, it requires having potentially multiple tenants lined up to make the business cases work. We have a very disciplined approach, and initially volumes will be small. Our hope is to eventually provide this as a service to customers. We think our size and scale allow us to deliver at an attractive price while meeting the return thresholds that Sunit and his team require to put steel in the ground.”
Chris Hillabrandt | CEO, Crown Castle
Quotable: Crown Castle Utilizing its compounds for the “Edge”
“We are a real estate company; we sell a lot of vertical space and we also have horizontal space. In this case, it is conditioned shelter space that customers would rent, with power. In some cases, they might want power backup. All our towers have fiber backhaul, so you have a fiber connection, power, and secure conditioned space. We already have a fair bit of this from prior initiatives; in some cases, we would improve or add new shelter space. Essentially, we are renting our real estate—horizontal this time—not taking depreciation or technology risk by deploying our own servers.”
Chris Hillabrandt | CEO, Crown Castle
Quotable: Potential Threat of Satellite Technology
“On satellites, as we have said repeatedly, we see this as ultimately a plus-up for operators to go into very rural locations where coverage is more sparse. There are limitations around satellite in terms of in-building coverage and line of sight that do not make it a perfect surrogate for rural sites, but rather something that is an additional plus-up for the satellite companies and the operators to squeeze some incremental revenue opportunities in those very rural areas. In terms of its impact on us as a business, it is de minimis at this point.”
Chris Hillabrandt | CEO, Crown Castle
Quotable: Update On DISH Network / EchoStar Lawsuit
“Second, we are working diligently to preserve the value captured in our original DISH agreement from 2020. Along with the Wireless Industry Association, we have taken an active role in engaging with the relevant government authorities to ensure that DISH honors its commitments. We have also taken appropriate legal action. After DISH defaulted on its payment obligations in January, we exercised our right to terminate the agreement, and we are seeking to recover the remaining payments they owed for the terms of the contract.
We believe we have a strong legal case against DISH and continue to vigorously pursue a legal remedy in the federal courts. During the first quarter, we amended our pending litigation against DISH to include a claim for breach of contract alongside our request for declaratory judgment. The amendment also asserts a claim against EchoStar for their role in helping DISH evade its contractual commitments.”
Chris Hillabrandt | CEO, Crown Castle
As Crown Castle increases its lease buyout efforts, your land is their most valuable asset. JW Tower & Telecom Consulting provides the market intelligence property owners need to navigate buyouts, easements, and renewals in this new 2026 landscape.
