After a rough couple of years, the tower industry needed some good news. Speakers on the panel “View from the Top: Examining the Communications Infrastructure and Services Market Outlook in 2025 and Beyond” were happy to oblige. During this week’s NATE UNITE 2025, held in Raleigh, N.C. the panel pointed to several signs that 2025 will be a good year for new tower builds and collocations and possibly 2026 will be even better.
Increase in Engineering Demand Presages Field Services Comeback
Even as Tower Engineering Professionals (TEP), had a down year on the field services side in 2024, according to Andy Haldane, CEO and co-founder of TEP, engineering services began to creep up in February 2024. By the end of the second quarter, engineering services had fully ramped up. A solid second half for engineering services then set the stage for a busy 2025 for field services, according to Haldane.
“We had a really nice Q3 and Q4 in 2024 on the engineering side, which tends to funnel into our field services,” Haldane said. “We do see 2025 being very strong, both on the engineering and the field services side.” Engineering services may taper off in late 2026 but field services should be strong through 2026, he added.
APC Towers has also seen a strong uptick in tower building activity. In fact, it currently has the largest pipeline it has ever had, according to Danny Agresta, president & CEO at APC Towers. “We are actually in a really good position with the opportunities we have to build around the country,” Agresta said. “Between 2025 and 2026, it should be a really good period for the industry, and we’re excited about it.”
In the last six to eight months, TowerCo has seen an influx of new applications and inquiries from the carriers, which will make 2025 a good year and 2026 a “phenomenal” year for the tower industry, according to Todd Boyer, CEO at TowerCo. The tower company’s build-to-suit pipeline has doubled in the last 12 months.
The driver behind the new builds, according to Boyer, is the carriers’ need for additional coverage. “Every time we get a new opportunity to build one of the carriers, it just amazes me how many areas where the carriers still need coverage,” he said.
As a result of the growth in the build-to-suit pipeline, TowerCo has been hiring and training new people. And the number of new builds has also stretched resources and created challenges keeping up with the pace of the deadlines. “There are issues when you’re moving that fast and all carriers are busy,” Boyer said. “There’s gonna be challenges like when parts of the tower are not delivered on time.”
Big Three Carriers All Active
TEP has seen steady workflow with a slight uptick recently from Verizon and T-Mobile. The big surge of engineering activity came from AT&T’s turf vendors, beginning at the front end of last year.
AT&T is building more new sites this year than it has in four years, according to Agresta. Verizon is building more new sites than in seven previous years, and T-Mobile is building more sites than it has in the last four years.
“This year, we are expecting to have all three of the major carriers with their foot on the gas. And that’s good news for everyone,” Agresta said.
For the first time in five years, all three carriers will have new site build plans in the neighborhood between 2,000 and 2,500 sites each, according to Boyer. “DISH Wireless, on the other hand, is focused on getting new subscribers and monetizing their network, but they’re still adding some infill sites,” he said.
Drivers Behind the Buildout
There is more than one driver behind the buildout, which is divided, half and half, between collocations and new builds. For example, the success of T-Mobile and Verizon’s fixed wireless access services is pushing the carriers to add capacity. Verizon has said it is focused on improving the end user experience, according to Boyer, which could mean expansions in coverage or it could be in-fill capacity.
The completion of the C Band spectrum buildout is allowing the carriers to refocus on adding coverage, according to Boyer. “I see during the next three or four years, the carriers are going to be focusing on building a lot more macrocell sites,” he said.
Haldane said the users’ disappointment in the performance of 5G technology should be a factor driving increased tower infrastructure in the future. “Your 5g experience is terrible; it’s worse than your 4G,” he said. “At some level, the carriers have to solve for that to renew the faith of the consumer.”
If demand for data continues to increase in the future, both spectrum allocations and infrastructure builds must keep up with the pace, according to Agresta. “I am keeping my finger on the pulse with the FCC, hoping it will clear some more spectrum, not in the next five years, but hopefully in the next couple years.”
Boyer mentioned AI applications in autonomous vehicles, edge compute, healthcare, wearables, agriculture and manufacturing, which will require massive amounts of high quality data. “For these new applications to come about, we need to build more infrastructure,” he said. “And that’s what keeps me really excited about this industry.”
