Are Cell Towers Going Away?

If you’re wondering are cell towers going away, or are cell towers here to stay, the answer is NO. Cell towers are not going away any time soon. Well, at least not most cell TOWERS. The and the word to focus on is TOWERS. YES, cell towers are here to stay, for the most part. This is especially true for cell phone towers in rural and suburban areas. They have long-term longevity. But please read this entire page. What about the future of other types of CELL SITES? This is the million-dollar question for many people who collect a monthly rent check from Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile.

What About Cell Sites? Are Cell Sites Going Away?

Are cell sites going away? What about technology changes? Will they make cell tower become obsolete? What are the chances that your cell tower location will be no longer needed in 10 or 20 years?

What other kinds of cell sites are there besides cell towers? Glad you asked, because most people don’t use the proper wireless industry terminology when talking about cell towers. People tend to call all cell sites, “cell towers” which is technically an incorrect use of the industry term.

1. First, let’s define what a “cell site” is.
2. Second, let’s define what a “cell tower” is.
3. Third, let’s clarify what a “cell tower” is not.

A cell tower is a structure made of steel or wood (like a wooden pole used by a utility or landline phone company for example) and is usually a monopole, which is a single pole, a lattice tower which has three legs, or a guyed tower which is usually a lattice tower with 3 supporting cable wires anchored to the ground (see pictures for examples of each).

In the USA, people call them cell towers, cell phone towers, cell sites, cellular sites, cellular towers, cellular phone towers, rooftop cell towers, and sometimes call them mobile communications towers, mobile base stations, masts, antenna masts, base stations, or mobile towers. Communications towers and radio towers are typically referred to as a term for other forms of communications networks, not for mobile telecommunications.

Every Cell Tower is a Cell Site, But Not Every Cell Site is a Cell Tower.

Okay. now repeat after Tower Genius…

• All cell phone towers are cell sites. But not all cell sites are cell phone towers.

What is a cell site? A cell site is any structure that is used to mount 3G, 4G, or 5G cellular antennas for a carrier’s wireless network. The wireless industry term used primarily when discussing antenna locations is the term “cell site”. A cell site can be a tower, a rooftop, a farm silo, a smokestack, an overhead highway sign, a light pole, a steel electrical transmission tower, a wooden telephone pole, a water tank, or other overhead structure. 

Will We Need Cell Towers in the Future?

Are cell towers going away in the future? The answer is still a very big NO with a few exceptions. Cell towers located in densely populated urban areas where there is no rooftop available to mount antennas are at a much higher risk of becoming obsolete or less valuable to their networks than rural towers. Would a mid-sized cell tower company like Harmoni spend one billion dollars to acquire 1,000 cell phone towers for $1,000,000 per cell tower if they thought cell towers were going away? Doubtful.

However here at Tower Genius, we believe that in densely populated urban markets such as the 5 boroughs of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Miami, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta, where carrier network deployments primarily utilize rooftops, big changes are coming in the next decade when significant 5G densification occurs.

Put yourself in the cellular carrier’s shoes. If you are Verizon Wireless, AT&T, or T-Mobile and you have thousands of mature rooftop cell sites nationwide that have been increasing in rent by 3% or 4% every year for the past 25 years, many of them are going to be paying close to $5,000 per month or $60,000 per year in rent more. They want to reduce costs. That’s why cell site landlords get annoying and threatening rent reduction letters from vendors such as Md7, Blackdot and Lyle Company representing wireless carriers, to give them a “Lease Optimization” lease modification.

The rooftop cell site landlords receiving premium rent payments ($4K monthly and up) are the ones who need to be especially concerned with the future viability of the cell site on their buildings, and protecting their cell site income, while the cell site landlords receiving ground lease income are generally safe from these rent reduction threats. Yet when the rent reduction companies call and send letters, they group everyone, even the rural cell tower landlords that receive less than $1,000 monthly. Perhaps this is where a lot of the confusion stems from.

Will We Need Rooftop Cell Sites in the Future?

Will cell towers become obsolete? Are cell towers going away? Hey Tower Genius…. what is the future of cell towers? This probably won’t be a popular opinion among rooftop cell site landlords in the big cities and heavily populate urban areas, but we have been quite consistent about what to expect in the future if you have a rooftop cell site… so buckle up.

Unpopular Opinion: When are cell towers going away? Future of Urban Cell Sites!

Most towers are safe outside of big cities. Rooftop cell sites in big cities are at risk. A rooftop cell site leased in the year 2000, which started paying $2,500 monthly (a very common rate in a big city) and has escalated by 3% annually, will be paying over $5,000 in the 25th year of the lease term. By year 35, it will be paying over $7,000 monthly. 

What’s stopping a wireless carrier like Verizon or AT&T from installing 10 or 15 5G small cells close to the “expensive cell site”? In the USA, thanks to wireless industry lobbyists in Washington DC, a carrier has the ability to lease a 5G node cell site (and eventually a 6G node) on a public right of way for only $270/year. You read that correctly.

If the conditions are present, and they can connect to fiber cables buried in the public right of ways, they could hypothetically install 15 small cell antenna nodes and drastically reduce their annual rental expenses by hypothetically replacing a macro rooftop cell site with 15 hypothetical small cell nodes. These small cells are the 15′ to 20′ poles that have a a bucket-sized tube at the top that houses the antennas. Sometimes they simply stick them on top of a wood utility pole. These 5G nodes can be powered up to reach out to greater distances than simply to increase coverage or capacity in an intersection or shopping center parking lot.

If you were AT&T or Verizon Wireless, and you could theoretically “install 15 small cells” for $4,050 per year in rent vs. paying 1 macro rooftop cell site landlord $45,000 per year for a single cell site, and get very similar coverage, what would you do? We think that you have a limited window of time if you planned on selling to get top dollar. As of writing this in 2024, we don’t think that most big city urban rooftop cell sites will be operational in 10-15 years, most of them will be replaced by 5G and 6G nodes, or small cells that tie into underground fiberoptic cables. So don’t be looking up at the low orbit satellites providing broadband, look down instead at the underground fiber and street-level small cells that will likely eliminate a large number of urban rooftop cell sites in the next decade.

“Big Short” Moment Coming for Rooftop Sites?

Our professional opinion is, if you think your rooftop cell site and future cell site rental income is safe and is not going away, then keep collecting as much rent as you can, and enjoy the rooftop cell site rental income for as long as market conditions will allow. NEVER give the carriers a rent reduction. At Tower Genius, we believe there is at least an 80% chance if you are a rooftop cell site landlord in a large city, Like NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc., that your urban rooftop cell site will become obsolete in the next 15 years due to carriers cutting costs by installing thousands of 5G and 6G nodes. It’s just a matter of time. But if you are losing sleep over the future viability of your big-city ROOFTOP cell site, then sell it and let somebody else worry about it. The cell tower lease buyout companies are still buying these rental streams and seem to have no concerns about anything that we have discussed here.

Why would a cell site lease buyout company purchase a cash-flowing asset that is possibly going away? Frankly, many of these people aren’t that smart, and they enjoy the casino called Wall Street.

Are cell towers going away? So again to summarize, we think that most “cell towers” are not going away, but many or the majority of “urban rooftop cell sites” in the big NFL-type cities have a high probability of becoming obsolete in the future over the next decade, into the 2030s as the 5G networks reach maturity and become more dense, and 6G is rolled out.

Can We Help Answer Your Cell Tower or Cell Site Questions?

• Do you have questions about your selling your rooftop cell site lease?

• Do you need help negotiating an amendment with a tower company for a cell tower lease renewal?

• Have you received a nasty letter from a third party representing a carrier about wanting to modify your lease agreement and reduce your rent to make your location more valuable to their network?

• Or has good fortune smiled upon you and you have questions about a brand new cell tower proposa which you have received to have a tower built on your property?

We would love to speak with you.

Please give us a call 1-888-313-9750 or contact us today find out are cell towers going away?