Crown Castle

Crown Castle Inc. is a company that owns and manages important equipment for communication. It is based in Houston, Texas, and has offices around the world. The company helps people stay connected by taking care of structures like tall towers that carry cell phone signals.

Crown Castle looks after more than 40,000 cell towers and many miles of special wires, called fiber, that help send information quickly. These tools are very important for things like small cells, which are tiny pieces of equipment that make wireless networks work better.

Because Crown Castle manages so much of the infrastructure we use every day, it plays a big role in how we talk, watch videos, and use the internet. Their work supports many different kinds of communication services across the United States.

History

Crown Communications started in 1980 by Robert and Barbara Crown from Pittsburgh. They built and managed cell towers all over the United States. In 1994, Castle Tower began with 133 towers in Houston and grew quickly.

In 1997, Crown Communications and Castle Tower merged to form Crown Castle International. This merger doubled their assets and kept a strong presence in Pittsburgh.

In 2004, Crown Castle sold its UK business. Over the years, they bought many companies to grow their network, like Global Signal Inc. in 2007 and NextG Networks in 2011. They also made big leasing deals with T-Mobile US in 2012 and AT&T Mobility in 2013.

In 2015, Crown Castle focused only on the United States and bought more fiber networks. In 2017, they bought Lightower, growing their fiber network a lot. By 2020, they were on the Fortune 500 list.

On March 13, 2025, Crown Castle decided to sell its fiber and small cell businesses to focus only on towers. The sales closed on May 1, 2026, bringing in a lot of money and making Crown Castle a company focused just on cell towers in the U.S.