T-Mobile US and Crown Castle International have signed a new 12-year agreement to support the continued build-out of T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network with increased access to Crown Castle’s towers and small cell locations.
Under the terms of the agreement, T-Mobile US will further expand the reach of 5G network to serve consumers across the U.S. while also realizing financial synergies following its merger. The agreement also helps Crown Castle generate long-term tower and small cell revenue growth.
Neville Ray, president of Technology at T-Mobile, said: “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.”
“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, Crown Castle’s CEO. “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 fiber will enable our collective teams to quickly meet future network demands.”
Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 80,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market.
In a separate statement, T-Mobile said it ended 2021 with over 210 million people covered with its Ultra Capacity 5G service, which is based on standalone architecture, reaching over 80% of all T-Mobile customers, The carrier said it aims to reach 300 million people covered by this service by the end of 2023.
The telco said it has been executing a multi-band spectrum strategy that includes low-band Extended Range 5G which reaches over 310 million Americans and is expected to cover 99% of Americans by 2023.
“Our 5G leadership continues to be unrivaled on every level. We are crushing our network build out goals. Our nationwide Ultra Capacity 5G and our Extended Range 5G expansion is way ahead of schedule and we aren’t slowing down. We’re way out ahead of the pack today creating the foundation for transformational 5G experiences that will define the future for years to come and consumers will benefit,” said Mike Sievert, T-Mobile CEO.
T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint in 2019 led the way for T-Mobile to use Sprint’s licensed 2.5 GHz spectrum and previously licensed 600MHz spectrum to roll out its standalone 5G network in 2019. By the summer of 2020, T-Mobile claimed to deploy the world’s first nationwide 5G SA network.
