Crown Castle Is Becoming a Stable, Slow-Growing US Tower Firm

Crown Castle has pursued a different growth strategy than its two largest competitors by focusing solely on the US infrastructure market. This focus led to a decade of building fiber networks and promoting small cells to wireless carriers as a way to differentiate its core tower business. However, with carrier consolidation and major players like AT&T and Verizon developing extensive fiber networks of their own, this strategy hasn't panned out. Crown has, wisely, in our view, decided to sell its fiber business. After the sale closes, the firm will use most of its cash flow to fund the dividend, largely forgoing major growth investments.