Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Verizon will add access to more than 4,400 Array (formerly US Cellular) towers through a new multi-year colocation agreement.
- The deal reflects Verizon’s lease-rather-than-buy strategy following its exit from tower ownership last year, which has become the industry norm for all major U.S. carriers.
- Network improvements are likely to be real but fairly incremental, with limited short-term impact for most users.
Earlier this year, T-Mobile formally acquired US Cellular’s customer base, retail presence and some of its spectrum in the process. That said, the company behind US Mobile continues as Array. Looking ahead, Array’s core business is licensing its massive collection of aging U.S. cell towers to other companies, and T-Mobile signed a deal in May to use more than 2,000 of them to boost its own coverage. now it seems Verizon is making its own dealcommitting to use more than 4,400 new towers in the agreement.
I don’t want to miss the best of Android Authority?
The new multi-year agreement will allow Verizon to gain access to Array’s towers nationwide, from coast to coast. That means Verizon can use the towers to install its own equipment, but that doesn’t necessarily stop other carriers from doing the same. Verizon is expected to use this injection of additional towers to strengthen its existing 5G network.
Why rent instead of building your own tower spaces? Verizon no longer owns the towers it uses after selling the remaining 6,339 towers to Vertical Bridge last year for $3.3 billion. You’re not alone here either, as all the major carriers have started ditching their own towers to rent space for their equipment. In other words, this is already the industry norm.
Of course, the biggest question is how this deal will affect customers. While Verizon doesn’t provide direct numbers on how many sites the team operates, based on what I was able to dig up, I’d say this is a pretty small fraction of its existing sites. Still, it’s a decent update that could eventually have a positive impact on 5G performance.
US Cellular’s existing towers were also more prominently located in underserved areas of the country, so this could strengthen the carrier in some of the areas where it is currently at its weakest, including certain rural and suburban areas of the country. How noticeable will these changes be and how quickly will they happen? That’s much harder to guess at this point.
The updates are likely to be incremental, and while they may not affect a large portion of Verizon’s network, they will improve your overall plan and could help you in some of the areas where you are currently struggling the most. Regardless of what happens, the silver lining is that even with Verizon at its current low, it is not sitting idly by and is working to do everything it can to improve the performance and reputation of its network.
Thank you for being part of our community. Please read our Comment Policy before posting.
#Verizon #boosts #network #additional #towers
