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Date

April 22, 2026, 4:30 p.m. ET

Call participants

  • President and Chief Executive Officer — Chris Hillebrandt
  • Chief Financial Officer — Sunit Patel
  • Investor Relations — Kris Hinson

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Takeaways

  • Site Rental Revenue Guidance -- $3.9 billion at the midpoint for full-year 2026, reflecting the standalone tower business, with the guidance excluding the discontinued fiber and small cell segments.
  • Organic Growth Rate -- 3.1% organic growth in the first quarter excluding Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, equal to $30 million; adjusting for a $3 million decrease in other billings yields an organic growth rate of 3.6%.
  • DISH Agreement Legal Action -- Crown Castle exercised its right to terminate the DISH agreement after DISH defaulted on payments in January and amended pending litigation to include a breach of contract claim against DISH and EchoStar.
  • Restructuring and Cost Reduction -- The restructuring of tower and corporate organizations is expected to yield a $65 million annualized run-rate reduction, including a roughly 20% reduction in staffing.
  • AFFO Guidance -- $1.9 billion projected for full-year 2026, with an unchanged range for the 12 months following the anticipated transaction close of $2.1 billion at the midpoint.
  • Transaction Proceeds Use -- Upon the close of the fiber and small cell business sale, the company expects to allocate approximately $1 billion to share repurchases and $7 billion to debt repayment to maintain a leverage target of 6.0-6.5 times.
  • Capital Expenditures -- Full-year discretionary CapEx outlook remains at $200 million, with emphasis on acquiring more land beneath towers and investing in system automation; $40 million of this relates to prepaid rent received.
  • Land Ownership Strategy -- Management’s target is to increase tower land ownership from 30% to 40% over several years, citing a lower cost of capital than competing land buyers.
  • Post-Sale Liquidity and Rating -- The company expects to retain investment-grade balance sheet status and "significant liquidity and flexibility" after the transaction.
  • Tower Build Activity -- New tower builds are in early, small-volume stages with strict return requirements, reflecting cautious optimism rather than a large-scale expansion.
  • Edge Data Center Initiatives -- The business is in a trial partnership phase for “edge compute” at tower sites, characterized by leasing conditioned shelter space to partners who provide servers and handle technology risk.
  • Dividend Commitment -- Sunit Patel stated, "we came out reiterating that the dividend would stay where it is," despite a temporarily high payout ratio at approximately 90%.

Summary

Crown Castle (CCI +1.28%) reiterated its full-year 2026 outlook as it moves forward with the sale of its small cell and fiber businesses, with management stating the transaction is on track to close in the first half of the year. Executives described a multipronged strategy to drive operational efficiency through cost reductions and targeted investments, while prioritizing legal enforcement of the terminated DISH agreement to recover unpaid amounts. Discussion revealed ongoing evolution in the business model, including plans for targeted land acquisitions to raise margin profile and pursuit of second-half growth through both new tower opportunities and pilot edge-compute partnerships.

  • Management expects most operational cost benefits realized from Q1 restructuring to be offset by seasonally deferred repair and maintenance expenses later in the year.
  • Fiber and small cell segment results are now treated as discontinued operations, with financial reporting and guidance excluding these segments except where noted.
  • After closing the pending transaction, the company plans a capital deployment mix prioritizing both leverage reduction and share repurchases to "drive AFFO per-share growth."
  • Crown Castle is benchmarking customer experience, employee engagement, and operational metrics against tower peers in a concerted multi-year transformation effort.
  • Management characterized legal and financial recoveries related to DISH as highly uncertain in both timing and amount, emphasizing ongoing lawsuits and government engagement.

Industry glossary

  • Edge Compute: Deployment of data processing and storage resources physically close to end-users (such as at tower sites) to lower latency and support distributed applications.
  • Prepaid Rent: Payments received in advance for the right to use tower or land assets; impacts revenue recognition timing and CapEx forecasting.
  • AFFO (Adjusted Funds From Operations): A REIT performance metric representing cash available for dividends or reinvestment, calculated after subtracting recurring capital expenditures from FFO.
  • Organic Growth: Change in site rental revenues excluding effects from acquisitions, divestitures, Sprint cancellations, and DISH terminations.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Kris Hinson: Thank you, Chloe, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss our first quarter 2026 results. With me on the call this afternoon are Chris Hillebrandt, Crown Castle Inc.'s President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sunit Patel, Crown Castle Inc.'s Chief Financial Officer. To aid the discussion, we have posted supplemental materials in the Investors section of our website at crowncastle.com that will be referenced throughout the call. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and actual results may vary materially from those expected.

Information about potential factors which could affect our results is available in the press release and the Risk Factors sections of the company's SEC filings. Our statements are made as of today, 04/22/2026; we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, today's call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Tables reconciling these non-GAAP financial measures are available in the supplemental information package in the Investors section of the company's website at crowncastle.com. I would like to remind everyone that having an agreement to sell our fiber segment means that the fiber segment results are required to be reported within Crown Castle Inc.'s financial statements as discontinued operations.

Consistent with last quarter, the company's full-year 2026 outlook and first quarter results do not include contributions from what we previously reported under the Fiber segment except as otherwise noted. With that, let me turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Hillebrandt: Thank you, Kris, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered solid first quarter results and are reiterating our guidance for full year 2026. This is a transformative year for Crown Castle Inc., and we believe we have an opportunity to generate attractive shareholder returns as we transition to a standalone tower business and pursue our goal of becoming a best-in-class U.S. tower operator. To maximize shareholder value and to reach our goal of becoming best-in-class, we are focused on three business priorities. Our first priority is to conclude the sale of our small cell and fiber businesses, which we believe remains on track to close in 2026.

We have received almost all required approvals and have largely completed the separation of our small cell and fiber businesses. 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. And finally, to become a best-in-class U.S. tower operator, we are performing a thorough review of our business, looking for ways to drive improvement in our operational efficiency and effectiveness.

In the first quarter, we successfully executed a restructuring of our tower and corporate organizations, resulting in an anticipated $65 million reduction to annualized run-rate cost. We have benchmarked our performance against competitors to both drive efficiency and excellence in operations. I would like to thank our Crown Castle Inc. teammates for working hard to ensure that we continue delivering for our customers during this transition period. I remain impressed by their resilience and determination along this journey. 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. Second, we believe the investments we are making to enhance, streamline, and automate our systems and processes will improve the quality and accessibility of our asset information and empower the Crown Castle Inc. team to make better business decisions in a more timely manner.

As I look to the future, I am excited by the opportunities in our sector, including the persistent growth in mobile data demand, the upcoming spectrum deployments by Crown Castle Inc.'s customers, and over 800 megahertz of new spectrum auctions beginning in 2027. I believe our focus on becoming a best-in-class U.S. tower operator will position us to capitalize on these trends and maximize cash flow by unlocking additional organic growth and improving profitability. In summary, we believe we will generate attractive shareholder returns by focusing on the following priorities: concluding the sale of the small cell and fiber businesses, preserving the value captured in our DISH agreement, and improving our operational efficiency and effectiveness.

We believe these priorities, combined with our disciplined capital allocation framework and investment-grade balance sheet, will maximize shareholder value. With that, I will turn it over to Sunit to walk us through the details of the quarter.

Sunit Patel: Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. We had a solid start to the year in the first quarter as we executed the previously announced restructuring. First quarter organic growth, excluding the impact of Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, was 3.1%, or $30 million, and included a 0.3%, or $3 million, decrease in other billings. First quarter organic growth increases to 3.3% if DISH revenues are excluded from prior-year site rental billings. Excluding the decrease in other billings, organic growth was 3.6%. This growth was more than offset at site rental revenues by $5 million of Sprint cancellations, $49 million of DISH terminations, and a $26 million decrease in non-cash straight-line revenues and amortization of prepaid rent.

Adjusted EBITDA and AFFO in the first quarter benefited from lower repair and maintenance costs, sustaining capital expenditures, and other non-labor costs. These lower costs were largely due to timing and seasonality, so we expect them to occur later in the year. We also experienced a modest decrease in quarterly interest expense due to lower-than-anticipated short-term borrowing rates. Turning to page four. Our full-year outlook remains unchanged. When excluding DISH revenues from prior-year site rental billings, our full-year outlook includes 3.5% organic growth excluding the impact of Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, which we expect to mark the low point.

At the midpoint of the range for full-year 2026, we expect site rental revenues of approximately $3.9 billion, adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.7 billion, and AFFO of approximately $1.9 billion. As a reminder, for the purposes of building our full-year 2026 outlook, we assume the sale of the small cell and fiber businesses closes on June 30. Following the close of the transaction, we plan to allocate approximately $1 billion to share repurchases and approximately $7 billion to repay debt, allowing us to remain at our target leverage range between 6.0 and 6.5 times.

Our full-year 2026 outlook positions us well to meet our unchanged range for AFFO for the 12 months following the anticipated close of the transaction of $2.1 billion at the midpoint. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with significant liquidity and flexibility, positioning us to efficiently maintain our investment-grade rating after the sale of the small cell and fiber businesses, based on our previously announced target capital structure and capital allocation framework. Lastly, our outlook for discretionary CapEx remains unchanged at $200 million, or $160 million [inaudible] $40 million of prepaid rent received.

To wrap up, we believe we have an opportunity to generate attractive shareholder returns as we transition to a standalone tower business and pursue our goal of becoming a best-in-class U.S. tower operator. With that, operator, I would like to open the line for questions.

Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Ric Prentiss with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Ric Prentiss: Yes, thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. Hey, Chris. Two questions for me. One, we noticed on the FCC website that there is an application maybe to split the fiber/small cell transaction into domestic and international to maybe try and get a May 1 closing. Can you update us as far as is that hopeful, what would be the process, and it seems to make sense? If you could just comment on that FCC letter that is saying maybe you could split it in two, and the vast majority of the value seems to be in domestic.

And then second, when you think about Crown Castle Inc.'s portfolio of U.S. towers and the peer group, public and private companies out there, is there any reason systemically or fundamentally why, over a medium or long term, your growth rates should vary from the peer group? Maybe it is something as simple as where we are in the 5G cycle and then heading into a 6G cycle. Is there anything systemically or fundamentally different in your towers that is leading to the kind of lower new lease activity we are seeing in this year's guidance?

Chris Hillebrandt: Yeah, Rick, maybe I will just start by saying we continue to work towards our stated goal of closing the transaction by the end of the first half. We have received the vast majority of approvals, as I mentioned in my statement, and continue to feel very positive about the direction that things are headed. While not getting into the specifics of some machinations that might be going on behind the scenes, we remain extremely confident that we will close by the end of the first half, or as soon as possible. On your portfolio question, you almost answered it for me, so thanks for the context.

If you look at the full course of the 5G cycle to date, our organic growth has been roughly in line with at least one of the peers and slightly lagged the other. When you include DISH, organic growth was in line with one peer and exceeded the other. So nothing systemic; more a function of cycle timing of when that growth occurred. The benefits of having a portfolio that tends to skew towards urban and suburban are that POP coverage needs drive activity earlier in the cycle for us.

We are looking forward to the 100 megahertz of spectrum being released starting in 2027 in the auctions and what it might mean for both Crown Castle Inc. and the industry as a whole.

Operator: The next question comes from Matthew Niknam with Truist. Please go ahead.

Matthew Niknam: Hey, thanks so much for taking the questions. I will have two as well. First, on the 5G cycle, are we at the point now where carriers are coming back to initial 5G coverage layers to add more densification, and is this any different from prior 3G/4G cycles? Secondly, bigger picture, given the dynamic of your carrier customers partnering with satellite players for connectivity in remote areas, has that affected at all how they are approaching network and site planning in conversations with you? And just a quick follow-up: does the mix of applications you are seeing between amendments and new colocations evolve at all in recent periods?

Chris Hillebrandt: Thanks. On densification, you get a combination of two things. You have both additional capacity where spectrum is available to add additional radios and tower loading on individual towers where they are installed today, and then you have continued densification where maybe an operator does not have the amount of spectrum that they need and/or they are looking to drive better in-building coverage in either residential or workplaces and therefore go on incremental towers in the form of colocations. Not really any change from past deployments and very specific to the individual customer and their spectrum portfolio.

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. On your follow-up, nothing specific to call out in the mix between amendments and new colocations.

Operator: The next question comes from Ari Klein with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Ari Klein: Thanks. I think you mentioned in the prepared remarks how you are looking at benchmarking yourself versus peers, and I am curious where you think the biggest incremental opportunity remains on that front. And as a follow-up related to satellite risks, if you think about your portfolio and maybe what is in a little bit more remote markets, is there an element that, over the long run, where you think maybe that piece is at risk? Are you able to quantify that?

Chris Hillebrandt: Thanks, Ari. Best-in-class for us is defined across several pillars of our business: customers, our teammates within the company, our shareholders, and partners—which for us are landlords and vendors. For customers, one example is customer satisfaction and how we can dramatically improve it over time. We benchmark against competitors and find ways to take actions to meet unmet needs—this might be in the form of increased cycle-time in delivering an application or in the products we develop. We look at this holistically to drive a superior customer experience such that when there is a choice between two tower companies, we win 100% of the jump balls.

For teammates, examples include employee engagement, training and development, process improvement and tools, and pay for performance. We have worked with outside consultants to define goals for 2026 and through 2027 and 2028 to enable a long-range transformation to become a best-in-class tower company. On satellite risk, we have no indication from customers that suggests a negative impact. Public statements from carriers, satellite companies, and the Satellite Industry Association all frame this as complementary. There may be specific use cases in very rural areas—emergency coverage, for example—but for mobility and broadband quality in motion, this is not a substitute that will displace towers anytime soon.

Operator: The next question comes from Michael J. Funk with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Michael J. Funk: Yes, thank you for taking the questions. Two, if I could. We have heard from a couple of carriers that they intend to do more densification on their own fiber with small cells in 2026. Are you hearing similar comments from your carrier customers? And a follow-up: are there any early conversations with AT&T about points in the spectrum they are acquiring from DISH that could start to flow through, expected to close relatively soon in the first half of the year?

Chris Hillebrandt: If I understand the first question correctly, it is around densification specifically in the small cells business that we are listing as discontinued operations, where a carrier is utilizing their own fiber and using small cells to add capacity rather than contracting with tower companies for densification in some urban and suburban areas. I do not have any specific knowledge of that at scale. I do know we have seen continued demand from operators starting to ask us if we are interested in going back into the business of building macro cell towers for them.

Costs have gone up considerably in the last six or seven years post-pandemic to build new sites, and therefore the business cases that we or any other builder would apply require appropriate returns based on those investments. They might be doing spot small cell work; I would not doubt it, but it is not something we have seen as a widespread impact to the business or the industry as a whole. On AT&T and DISH spectrum, we have continuous conversations with AT&T and all of our customers. We are eager for that spectrum to be put to work—it is a good thing for Crown Castle Inc. and for the industry as a whole.

We have ongoing commercial conversations with nothing to share at this time.

Operator: The next question comes from Richard Choe with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Richard Choe: Hi. Chris, a while back you talked about looking at growth opportunities. When should we expect to see the outcome of that—after the close of the transaction and then going forward, or is that something happening now that you can implement sooner? And as a follow-up on the edge data center comment, how meaningful could that be this year and going into next year, and will you need to add more backhaul at your tower sites, or is the current backhaul situation at most of your towers pretty robust?

Chris Hillebrandt: A couple of comments. You see from our guide that it is second-half-loaded growth; we are in the process of developing and starting to build that. Specifically, when we talk to our customers, they are looking to do additional business with us and for ways to partner: new colocations, amendments, expanded service offerings, and many are asking for turnkey-based services versus our current service model. We are starting to talk to folks about new tower builds again, which is exciting. Other things like power-as-a-service or shared generators can help build revenue per tower and profitability for Crown Castle Inc.

Most recently, you may have seen a press release from one of our partners around an edge compute opportunity—making our roughly 40 thousand sites available for colocation with data centers, given many of our sites have existing shelters that can be repurposed. There is a lot in the pipeline, and as our guide shows, this should be more of a second-half series of opportunities. On edge data centers, I would characterize this as a trial phase. We have signed an additional partnership to test the waters. At Mobile World Congress, we saw a lot of interesting edge use cases developing.

Our key is to utilize existing assets to drive new revenue streams with very little capital required—renting real estate is what we do. Most of our sites do have fiber backhaul, so there is ample ability to scale; we have ample fiber, ample power, and space, making speed-to-market attractive.

Operator: The next question comes from Eric Luebchow with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Eric Luebchow: Great, appreciate it. To follow up on Richard's question, you mentioned opportunity for new tower builds, which we have not seen a lot of among the public tower REITs in recent years. What form could that take, how significant could it be, and what kind of returns do you think you could get on that? And a follow-up: you have talked about cost efficiencies through SG&A and gross margins and getting margins up 300 or 400 basis points over some period. Can you confirm that and share anything on cost initiatives we will see after the fiber and small cell deal closes that could close some of the margin gap versus your two tower peers?

Chris Hillebrandt: 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.

Sunit Patel: Thanks. We have already done a fair bit with a roughly 20% reduction in staffing this last quarter. I see two big areas from here. One is buying ground leases at returns that exceed our cost of capital. Our structural costs are higher than peers because they own more of the land under their towers than we do; buying land is a good long-term opportunity and we are executing harder on it. The second is investments in platforms, systems, and automation, which will continue to drive efficiencies over the next few years.

From where we are in 2026 out to 2030, in addition to the reduction we already made, I think we can do well over another 200 basis points in margin improvements.

Operator: The next question comes from Nick Del Deo with MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.

Nick Del Deo: Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe, Sunit, to continue on the land topic: you currently own land at around 30% of your towers. How high do you think that can go over a reasonable time horizon? How would you characterize the level of competition to acquire land and the number of opportunities you are seeing? And should we think of the level of CapEx over the last couple quarters as being reasonable prospectively, or might it go a little higher to the extent that you can get the machine operating efficiently?

Sunit Patel: Great questions. 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.

We will see where we are toward the end of the year from a run-rate production perspective and then determine the next guide, but this year's guide should be adequate to get done what we need to get done.

Operator: The next question comes from Brendan Lynch with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Brendan Lynch: Great, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe to start with satellite deployments, and I agree with your assessment that there is not too much of a risk from direct-to-device to the tower business. But could you comment on the fixed wireless access demand you have had over the years and how that might be at some risk of increased competition from broadband satellite? And related, we have also seen a lot of fiber being rolled out, fiber to the home—how should we think about that as competition that might be a little bit more urban/suburban focused than satellite capacity?

And to the extent satellite networks are going to need to connect to terrestrial networks, is there any upside potential from satellite operators deploying at some terrestrial sites?

Chris Hillebrandt: Starting with fixed wireless, the premise at the start was really about excess capacity being soaked up and monetized by operators. With data growth now on a 30%+ CAGR, it is clear this is a new line of business and it is driving incremental activity in terms of densification and capacity in 5G networks as operators push this to grow top line. Our portfolio skews more toward suburban and urban. Replicating the capacity that a terrestrial network has to service that customer from a broadband perspective via satellite seems highly problematic compared to very rural customers.

Satellite coverage areas are much larger than terrestrial cell coverage areas, so I do not see satellite going after the urban customer anytime soon—more the rural customer, the person on a boat, or a farmer in the field. On fiber to the home, Wi-Fi offload has been great for operators, but we do not see Wi-Fi creating a new business model that materially reduces capacity needs across our portfolio beyond what is already occurring. If operators could have shifted huge amounts off their networks economically, they likely would have already. As for satellite operators needing terrestrial sites, good news is Crown Castle Inc. is open for business.

To the extent a satellite operator decides to build terrestrial infrastructure, we would be eager to offer our towers and rooftops. I have not seen indications they will, but the opportunity exists.

Operator: The next question comes from Analyst with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Thank you. Appreciate the extra color on the DISH litigation. In a theoretical scenario where outcomes move in your favor, how should we think about recoveries? Are we thinking potentially a primary one-time cash proceed, or could there be something more structural? How do we think that could ultimately flow through? Any context?

Chris Hillebrandt: Let me start by reiterating that we are aggressively taking every action to compel DISH to fulfill its obligations—legally and from a lobbying and public interest perspective. I have been frequently in D.C. meeting with members of the administration, Congress, the FCC, and others. Hats off to the WIA; they have compellingly laid out why it is not in the public interest to allow DISH to walk away without paying their bills. I am hopeful for action, although we do not have specific knowledge of how this will unfold. Legally, we feel very good about our lawsuits, including disputing force majeure claims.

I have cautioned that a legal outcome will take at least a year, so timing to resolution is uncertain. Any government intervention or negotiated settlement would be ad hoc and also take time. We are doing everything we can to drive a favorable outcome for shareholders; we feel we are in a good position, but the timing and form of any recovery remain unknown.

Operator: The next question comes from David Barden with New Street Research. Please go ahead.

David Barden: Hey, thanks. Two questions. First, with respect to the upper C-band auction coming in 2027, based on your conversations with carriers, what is the base case for deployment timing, especially given the FAA altimeter interference discussions around 4.2 to 4.4 GHz? Will this drive growth in 2027, 2028, 2029, or later? Second, on the edge data center topic we have been discussing for a long time, how does the business model look—who owns the shed, what zoning is required, how political could it be to get a data center plugged into a local community that uses a lot of power, who owns the servers—how does it work?

Chris Hillebrandt: On upper C-band, it is hard to give an estimate of when it will be put into service. The good news is we have agreements in place with our customers that enable capacity loading at sites; it will not require a lot of work for us to partner on deployment as rapidly as they choose. There is growing excitement in D.C. among senior members of Congress and the administration around emerging 6G and the spectrum being put into play starting in 2027 to enable U.S. leadership. How that manifests and specific use cases, I cannot say, but there will be a lot of push to enable it and provide funding and spectrum.

We are optimistic about what it means for the industry and our long-term outlook. Sunit, on the edge data center model?

Sunit Patel: Sure. 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 Hillebrandt: From my experience building networks and data centers, there is often a NIMBY reaction around large data centers due to power and cooling requirements. One advantage of edge is much smaller installations, so you typically do not see the same community pushback. You also get redundancy by distributing edge compute across multiple locations, in addition to the low-latency benefits.

Operator: The next question comes from Batya Levi with UBS. Please go ahead.

Batya Levi: Great, thank you. Looking at your renewal cycle, it looks like you have a big one coming up with one of your tenants in 2028. When do those discussions typically begin and how would you approach such a renewal with potential competition from private companies, carrier-owned deployments, or maybe even satellite coverage? What elements of a new contract would be of utmost importance—contract length, escalator, etc.? And would you have a preference to do renewals in parts or as a whole?

Sunit Patel: Thank you for the question. We typically do not get into specific customer discussions, but over any five- or ten-year period, with the three big carriers, we will have one or two where we are renegotiating—either because it is a new agreement (our agreements are long term, 10 to 15 years) or because they want to occupy more space on a tower given deployment of new spectrum bands. Negotiations depend on needs at the time. We have agreements with all clients and work on them on a timely basis. As to doing renewals in parts or in whole, it depends on the situation and what the carrier wants to do.

Sometimes you do the whole thing; sometimes you do interim arrangements while working on the whole.

Operator: The next question comes from Brandon Nispel with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Brandon Nispel: Yes, thanks for taking the question. On capital allocation and specifically your dividend framework, the payout ratio is going to be extremely high at 90%. Pre-deal, we were probably expecting the payout ratio to be much lower and work its way up. With where the stock is, it seems more accretive if you were to cut the dividend and buy back stock, especially as we forecast AFFO growth next year assuming you delever. Can you talk about the decision to keep the dividend at current levels?

Sunit Patel: Sure, thank you. This received a lot of discussion and deliberation with the team, the Board, and the Finance Committee. When we first announced the capital allocation framework, people worried about scenarios like DISH. We thought through these, and we came out reiterating that the dividend would stay where it is. We believe we can grow AFFO well, so over the next couple of years we will get to the point where the dividend payout is within our targeted range. In the short term, we are paying down a lot of debt to remain investment-grade and we are buying back $1 billion of shares, which should help return capital and drive AFFO per-share growth.

We contemplated these trade-offs more than a year ago.

Operator: Our final question comes from Michael Ian Rollins with Citi. Please go ahead.

Michael Ian Rollins: Thanks, and good afternoon. Two topics. First, if you were a private company, what could Crown Castle Inc. do differently that is difficult as a public company, operationally or strategically? Any other considerations as you think about where it is best for Crown Castle Inc. to operate, public versus private markets? Second, going back to contract terms, when you look at cohorts of towers and vintages, is there a significant number of towers that could have a materially positive or negative mark-to-market that investors should be mindful of?

Sunit Patel: Great questions. On private versus public, the goals Chris articulated would not change: improving customer experience and satisfaction, cycle times, operating efficiently, and driving productivity. Opportunities to put money to work—buying ground leases and investing in platforms and systems for efficiency—would not change. The only real change in a private company is how much leverage you might take and what you do with cash—paying dividends, paying down debt, or distributions to shareholders. Operationally, we would not do anything differently.

Chris Hillebrandt: I just came from leading a private tower company in Europe, and there are not a lot of differences. You still pay dividends even as a private company. We should always be guided by what is in the best interest of shareholders. A take-private would be an expensive possibility, but we would do what is in shareholders' best interests. Public and private operators face the same pressures to drive efficiency and returns and to service the customer. The main differentiation is in valuation in public versus private markets, not in operational advantages.

Sunit Patel: On repricing and mark-to-market, we have several levers with clients. If they want more space on an existing tower beyond what is contracted, how we charge for that; if they want to add new towers, the pricing for that—sometimes average cost over tower, sometimes market-specific pricing. Escalators are another lever. Depending on the client, history, competition, commitments they are making on new towers or more space, we craft win-win commercial outcomes. There is not a single cohort that we would flag as having a materially negative or positive mark-to-market en masse; it is managed through ongoing commercial engagements.

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