T-Mobile Receives $2 Billion Bid for 7,000 Wireless Towers

T-Mobile USA is looking to sell around 7,000 of its cell phone towers and has attracted a lead bidder willing to pony up more than $2 billion, according to a news report. That bidder is Crown Castle International Corp., which is going up against American Tower Corp. and Global Tower Partners in bids to acquire T-Mobile's towers.

This isn't a done deal, according to unidentified sources who spoke with The Wall Street Journal, but the price is right in line with what analysts estimated the towers would sell for. Parent company Deutsche Telekom made the decision to sell off the 7,000 U.S.-based towers earlier this year in an attempt to raise cash for T-Mobile's operations after AT&T's proposed $39 billion acquisition fell through.


Money generated from the sale will go towards upgrading T-Mobile's network to 4G LTE. T-Mobile previously said it plans to spend $4 billion beefing up its mobile broadband infrastructure. In addition to money received for selling the towers, T-Mobile figures to save billions of dollars annually simply by getting rid of them.