The Telecom Tower REITs Data Guide (2026)

Telecom tower REITs are three businesses stacked on the same steel - own the structure, lease the collocation, compound the cash flow through the listed equity - and the telecom-tower-reits data hub covers all three with 22 pooled datasets: 13 primary records plus 9 related cross-listings from ten publishers. The stack runs in four layers, and each layer answers a different question.

The commercial inventory layer is where ownership gets priced. TowerMaps US Cell Tower Database consolidates more than 600,000 antenna sites from several hundred site owners since 1997 - NAD83 decimal-degree coordinates, height AGL, eight structural classes from guyed lattice to rooftop, construction status, collocation availability, zoning, the owning company and its sales agent attached. Rooftops count here, which is precisely where federal registries stop counting. Around it sit the municipal and state permitting inventories surfaced by the two Data.gov catalogs - Data.gov Cell Tower Datasets Catalog and Data.gov Antenna Tower Datasets Catalog - Austin's city-and-county tower points, Los Angeles' small-cell nodes on streetlight poles, Baton Rouge facility points, Connecticut Siting Council rows listing carrier users per docket action, San Francisco's proposed wireless facilities, Loudoun County telecom towers: facility types that never enter a federal filing.

The market layer closes the loop between steel and shareholders. Wireless Infrastructure Association Resource Library publishes the annual aggregates - 158,500 purpose-built US towers, 254,850 macrocell sites, 198,100 outdoor small cells, 830,350 indoor small-cell nodes at end-2025 - with five structure classes separated rather than merged into one fuzzy site count. Wireless Estimator Tower Industry News and Database keeps the ownership league table current: 276 US tower-owning companies holding about 149,196 towers, every count timestamped individually, with American Tower at 42,135, Crown Castle at 40,033 (including roughly 7,200 T-Mobile towers) and SBA Communications at 17,479. SBA Communications Corporate Site - Portfolio and Investor Data contributes the operator's own numbers across 15 country markets - 39,000+ sites owned, more than 50,000 locations managed for other owners. And the equity layer quotes the listed tape for American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI) and SBA Communications (SBAC): quote snapshots, arbitrary-window OHLCV history, dividend streams and nanosecond-stamped tick data.

Measured against the whole catalog of 1,744 datasets, whose mean quality score runs 7.81, this slice averages 7.31 out of 10, held down by the display-dressed quote pages, while 5 of the 13 primaries score 8 or higher. Freshness is the strong suit: nine of the 13 primary products refresh at least once a day.

Thirteen primary products sort into five working families - federal registries, observed global coverage, municipal permitting layers, trade and industry aggregates, and the listed-equity tape. Knowing which family answers your question is half the work; the rows do the rest.

Federal regulatory records

• FCC Open Data Portal - Wireless Datasets - quality 8. About 56 commission-owned published tables, led by ULS 3650 Locations with 54 columns spanning identity, position twice over (native degree-minute-second text plus derived decimal degrees) and engineering fields the structural registries never carry: azimuth, beamwidth, antenna model, radiated power, emission designator. Fixed Broadband Deployment status tables run December 2015 through June 2021; complaint records refresh daily.

Observed global coverage

Municipal permitting layers

• Data.gov Cell Tower Datasets Catalog - quality 7. The "cell tower" slice of the government catalog of catalogs: 46 results, of which the genuinely relevant ones are municipal and state inventories - Austin's UTILITIESCOMMUNICATION_cell_tower point features refreshed February 23, 2026, Los Angeles' streetlight-pole small cells (August 11, 2026), Baton Rouge Telecommunication Facility points (August 4, 2026), Connecticut's Wireless Telecommunication Tower Sites Under Siting Council Jurisdiction (July 17, 2026), one row per Council docket action carrying structure owner, carrier users, tower type and heights.

• Data.gov Antenna Tower Datasets Catalog - quality 7. The companion "antenna tower" query returns eight matching datasets from roughly 552,271 indexed - and the skew is the value: San Francisco's existing and proposed commercial wireless facility sets, LA small cells, Connecticut Siting Council towers and antennas, Loudoun County telecom tower points. Permitting authorities publishing their own registers, including rooftops and pole attachments that never enter a federal filing.

Trade and industry aggregates

• Wireless Infrastructure Association Resource Library - quality 7. One aggregate row per year-end edition separates five structure classes cleanly - purpose-built towers, macrocell sites, outdoor small cells, indoor nodes, network investment - so a towers-versus-nodes buildout ratio is a division, not a research project. The document stream timestamps when the industry said things: policy positions, workforce funding, research drops, a dated event ledger you can join against the annual numbers.

• Wireless Estimator Tower Industry News and Database - quality 7. The ranked register analysts actually model: 276 firms owning or controlling roughly 149,196 towers, every row carrying its rank within an owner-type filter, portfolio notes where they matter, a tower count, and a per-company timestamp recording when that figure was last revised. Utilities and railways classify alongside pure-play telecom owners, filterable across all three.

• SBA Communications Corporate Site - Portfolio and Investor Data - quality 7. Three families: a markets inventory walking SBA's footprint region by region through 15 country markets from the United States to Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa and Tanzania; a milestones timeline running from 1989 with portfolio totals pinned to each marker - crossing 27,000 towers when SBA joined the S&P 500, arriving at today's 39,000+; and original research including 'The Independent Tower Industry in Africa' (2024) and the 2025 Latin American Telecommunications Tower Study in English and Spanish editions.

Commercial site inventory

• TowerMaps US Cell Tower Database - quality 6, and unique here. One row per physical structure with the attribute groups riding along: where (NAD83 decimal-degree coordinates ahead of any street address), what (site class and height AGL - a 190-foot guyed mast and a 62-foot rooftop install are different animals wearing the same keys), whether it can earn (construction status and availability separate leasable steel from proposals) and who owns it (the company of record, sales agent attached). More than 600,000 sites assembled since 1997, issued as dated quarterly cuts.

The listed-equity tape for AMT, CCI and SBAC

• Polygon.io Stocks and Options Market Data API - quality 8. Now operating under the name Massive: one consolidated feed over the entire US market with the three pure-play tower REITs addressable like any other name. Four shapes of the same tape - OHLCV aggregates at any multiplier from tick to day stamped with open, high, low, close, volume, VWAP and transaction count; tick-level trades and quotes with nanosecond SIP, participant and TRF timestamps; a reference layer resolving the symbol universe; and corporate actions covering splits plus the dividend stream that defines a REIT's economics. Depth runs to 20+ years on stocks and 1.67M+ options contracts since 2014.

• Nasdaq Listed Quote Pages for Tower REITs (AMT/CCI/SBAC) - quality 7. Server-rendered market-activity pages for AMT (NYSE), CCI (NYSE) and SBAC (NASDAQ-GS) covering price, historical OHLCV tables, earnings dates, short interest and analyst ratings across 1D to multi-year ranges.

Nine recurring jobs define how teams work these records. Each maps to named products in the catalog, and each one starts with a sample cut to scope:

1. Run collocation screens before anyone drives to the site. Filter TowerMaps US Cell Tower Database on construction status and site availability - leasable steel versus proposals - inside a corridor or radius, with height bands and structural classes attached to every candidate.

1. Backtest tower REIT strategies. Drive them off AMT, CCI and SBAC with OHLCV history at any window and tick-to-day aggregates, 20+ years deep on stocks, from Nasdaq Data API (Quote and Historical Data) and Polygon.io Stocks and Options Market Data API.

1. Model tower REIT income streams. Pull dividend fields for the three tickers alongside the corporate-actions layer - splits plus distributions - remembering the listing-board fact: dividend headers resolve for NASDAQ-listed SBAC and refuse NYSE-listed AMT and CCI, so Yahoo Finance Quote Pages for Tower REITs (AMT/CCI/SBAC) carries those payouts.

1. Size US market share and M&A consolidation. Set Wireless Estimator Tower Industry News and Database's 276-company register - American Tower 42,135, Crown Castle 40,033, SBA Communications 17,479 - beside Wireless Infrastructure Association Resource Library's 158,500 purpose-built towers and 254,850 macrocell sites at end-2025.

1. Diligence SBA's international footprint. Work from SBA Communications Corporate Site - Portfolio and Investor Data: 15 country markets across Latin America and Africa, 39,000+ owned sites, 50,000+ managed locations, milestone totals pinned to each marker since 1989.

1. Ship cell-tower geolocation features. Build on OpenCellID's fourteen documented columns - identity stack, evidence stack, provenance timestamps - with derived cuts riding along on request: country naming attached, wide pivots per radio standard, structure-cluster keys for tower-level questions.

1. Run municipal siting and small-cell density analysis. Pull the permitting inventories behind both Data.gov catalogs: Austin tower points, LA streetlight-pole small cells, Connecticut Siting Council dockets with carrier users per action, San Francisco proposed facilities, Loudoun County towers.

One product goes record-level on structures; everything else counts from above. That gap decides what each layer can answer.

The regulatory layer describes filings, not steel: 1.09 million determinations include rooftops, water tanks and every structure that ever needed an FAA ruling, while the working population of purpose-built towers is roughly 158,500. Treat the registry as a vertical fingerprint per filing - position, heights, registrant, treatment, dates - rather than a census of towers.

Record-level depth on actual assets lives in exactly one place: TowerMaps, one row per physical structure with owner-level attributes. It is also where the pool stops short - no source carries carrier tenancy, because carriers keep collocation confidential; TowerMaps excludes it explicitly, and the closest signals are Connecticut Siting Council rows listing carrier users per docket action and OpenCellID observations proving which structures carry live radios.

The market layer inverts the pattern: depth is measured in time, not rows. Quote snapshots are moments, OHLCV bars run any window you name, tick-level trades and quotes reach 20+ years back on stocks, and dividend streams define the REIT economics - so the constraint is never coverage of the three tickers, only resolution and horizon.

Four working styles explain most of the demand against this pool, and their queries differ more than their sources do.

Investors & Quant Researchers assemble the listed tape and the infrastructure signal around it. Multi-year OHLCV and short-interest series come from Nasdaq Listed Quote Pages for Tower REITs (AMT/CCI/SBAC), per-ticker valuation multiples, forward dividends and analyst targets from Yahoo Finance Quote Pages for Tower REITs (AMT/CCI/SBAC), options-implied moves around earnings windows from Polygon.io Stocks and Options Market Data API. The infrastructure layer doubles as alternative data: registration activity in the federal registry precedes disclosed builds, so new-filing velocity becomes a leading indicator for revenue-bearing steel. See investors & quants × telecom tower REITs.

Market Researchers & Consultants benchmark markets for client decks. WIA's year-end aggregates set the headline, Wireless Estimator's 276-row register supplies the ownership league table, and TowerMaps US Cell Tower Database benchmarks density and ownership concentration by state and structural class. See market researchers × telecom tower REITs.

Sales & Growth Teams work it from the tenant side: which structures are collocation-available, which owners hold the corridor, which carriers show up in Siting Council dockets. Site-attribute completeness decides whether a call opens with a question or a claim - see sales & growth teams × telecom tower REITs.

A working stack layers seven moves in order, and the order matters because each step sets up the next join:

1. Add the asset spine. Bring in TowerMaps US Cell Tower Database one row per structure - coordinates, class, height, construction status, availability, owner - and join to the registry on registration numbers where they exist. This is where rooftops enter the picture.

1. Join ground truth. Sync OpenCellID and track daily diffs; unit empty on GSM and CDMA tells you the parse worked. Cluster observations onto structure keys and you have occupancy evidence without tenancy records.

1. Layer permitting reality. Add the municipal inventories behind the two Data.gov catalogs for facility types federal filings never capture - streetlight poles, rooftop installs, county rights-of-way - each publisher on its own refresh rhythm.

1. Benchmark against the aggregates. Refresh Wireless Infrastructure Association Resource Library's year-end edition once a cycle - five structure classes, cleanly separated - and keep Wireless Estimator Tower Industry News and Database's per-company timestamps intact so consolidation trends stay dated rather than anecdotal. Cross-check SBA's 39,000+/50,000+ split whenever international scope enters the model.

1. Close the loop with the tape. Wire quote, OHLCV and dividend views for AMT, CCI and SBAC from Nasdaq Data API (Quote and Historical Data), add tick-level and corporate-actions depth via Polygon.io Stocks and Options Market Data API, and use Yahoo Finance Quote Pages for Tower REITs (AMT/CCI/SBAC) for valuation multiples, forward dividends and analyst targets on the NYSE names.

These figures are worth quoting from the current catalog, as of August 2026:

What does Datadory deliver for telecom tower REITs?

Twenty-two pooled datasets spanning thirteen primary records and nine related cross-listings: the federal tower registry at 1.09 million determinations, TowerMaps' 600,000+ owned sites, millions of observed cells worldwide, dozens of municipal and state permitting layers, WIA's 158,500-tower industry count, a 276-company ownership register, and quote, dividend, OHLCV and tick-level market data for AMT, CCI and SBAC. How many cell towers are there in the United States?

It depends on the definition. The Wireless Infrastructure Association counted 158,500 purpose-built towers and 254,850 macrocell sites at end-2025, alongside 198,100 outdoor small cells and 830,350 indoor nodes. Wireless Estimator ranks 276 US tower-owning companies holding about 149,196 towers as of July 1, 2026 - American Tower at 42,135, Crown Castle at 40,033, SBA Communications at 17,479. The federal registry's 1.09 million determinations count filings, not steel. Does any telecom tower REITs dataset include carrier tenants on each tower?

No source carries full tenancy, because carriers keep collocation confidential. TowerMaps excludes it explicitly, and the registry files carry registrant entities rather than collocating carriers. The closest signals are Connecticut Siting Council rows listing carrier users per docket action, spectrum-manager lease registrations, and OpenCellID observations proving which structures carry live radios. Which dataset should anchor a national tower inventory?

Start with the FCC's Antenna Structure Registration - roughly 8.7 million positional rows behind 1.09 million determinations back to 1990, with coordinates, heights and owners - then join TowerMaps' 600,000+ consolidated physical sites on registration numbers and coordinates. The registry gives you every filing; TowerMaps gives you leasable steel with owner attributes and rooftops the registry undercounts. Where can I get stock and dividend data for American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA Communications?

Datadory delivers all three views of the tape: quote snapshots with bid/ask and volume, OHLCV history at any window you name, and dividend fields from the Nasdaq-based product; tick-level trades, VWAP-stamped aggregates and corporate actions from Polygon.io (Massive), 20+ years deep; and valuation multiples, forward dividends and analyst targets from Yahoo Finance's statistics pages. Dividend headers resolve for NASDAQ-listed SBAC and refuse NYSE-listed AMT and CCI. How fresh is telecom tower REITs data?

Yes. Name the states, counties, height bands, structural classes, registrants or tickers you care about and the sample arrives cut to exactly that scope in the documented field shape. Derived cuts ride along on request - country naming attached, pivots per radio standard, structure-cluster keys - and the recurring feed follows the same structure, so anything prototyped on the sample survives delivery intact. How does Datadory deliver telecom tower REITs data?

Three pages extend this guide:

1. telecom-tower-reits data hub - the full catalog of 22 pooled Telecom Tower REITs datasets with field dictionaries, coverage notes and sample rows for every record in this guide.

1. best telecom tower REITs datasets - the ranked board, with the reasoning behind every placement and the scores beside each name.

1. data scientists - the pipeline-oriented view: typed schemas, delivered extracts and the joins that hold, from ASR determinations to tick-level bars.