- Crown Castle says terrestrial wireless networks are essential for mobile phone services despite the rush to jump on the satellite bandwagon
- D2D satellite services face indoor coverage and capacity limits, CEO Christian Hillabrant told investment analysts
- The tower company is embroiled in a legal battle with Dish, whose 5G network gear remains on Crown’s structures
Citing the topic du jour of satellites potentially replacing terrestrial networks, Crown Castle President and CEO Christian Hillabrant laid out all the reasons ground-based towers are still going to be an essential part of the mobile phone service landscape for the foreseeable future.
Hillabrant didn’t name SpaceX’s Starlink in prepared remarks during the company’s Q2 earnings call this week, but when asked if Crown has had any discussions with them, he said he had nothing to share and he doesn’t know their long-term plans.
If they decide for some reason that a terrestrial network is something they want to pursue, “we stand ready,” he said. “But let’s see where they end up.”
Challenges with satellites
Before he took that question, he described why satellites alone aren’t able to displace terrestrial-based mobile networks. For one, satellites generally require a clear line of sight to the sky and provide weaker coverage indoors and inside vehicles, which is where about 90% of mobile usage occurs.
For another, satellite operators have significantly less spectrum. Direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services generally have access to only tens of megahertz of spectrum, while each major U.S. wireless carrier controls hundreds of megahertz.
Lastly, a typical satellite beam covers about 100 square miles to 600 square miles versus roughly 3 square miles to 20 square miles for a terrestrial cell site, requiring substantially more users to share the same spectrum resources. That means for every megahertz of spectrum, terrestrial cell sites can support 30x more users, he said.
“More importantly, as satellite operators seek to improve capacity, mobility and indoor performance, we believe terrestrial infrastructure will become an increasingly important complement to satellite networks,” he said.
Crown Castle can more seriously focus on the tower business now that it’s sold both its fiber and small cell businesses to Zayo Group and EQT, respectively. That netted about $8.4 billion in proceeds. It’s now the only publicly traded pure-play tower operator in the U.S.
The tower company ended the second quarter of 2026 with net income of $94 million compared to $291 million for the second quarter 2025. Capital expenditures were $59 million compared to $40 million in cap ex in Q2 2025.
Crown Castle and Dish drama
During AT&T’s Q2 earnings call this week, the carrier said its $23 billion purchase of EchoStar 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum is expected to close by the end of July. That was good news for Crown because the funding of a $2.4 billion escrow account is tied to that transaction being closed. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stipulated the $2.4 billion escrow account as a condition of Dish spectrum transfers.
Last year, Crown Castle filed suit against Dish and EchoStar and canceled its contract with Dish based on non-payment, saying it was owed $3.5 billion dollars for its role in the deployment of Dish’s 5G network.
EchoStar has said it was decommissioning the network, but as part of its prepackaged bankruptcy, it proposed to conduct an auction of the network assets, with EchoStar acting as a stalking horse bidder.
Hillabrant was asked who now owns those 5G network assets given the current situation. He said that is something to be determined along with a number of issues related to the bankruptcy itself.
“But as far as we've seen, they've abandoned it,” he said. “Although we've requested for them to take it down, [they] have not acted to this point.”
He confirmed that the lawsuit Crown filed last year has been suspended pending the outcome of the bankruptcy proceeding.
As for who will get paid via the $2.4 billion escrow account, he said it’s not clear who will actually come forward to make claims and that’s still a work in progress. “I think it’s a little premature to say exactly what will be yielded out of this,” he said.
Ultimately, it requires a court judgment or negotiation with Dish to unlock the funds that are being dispersed. “We continue to pursue both in combination, both as a claimant on the fund and then also in court as part of the bankruptcy proceeding,” he said.
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