Crown Castle Buys Australian Tower Assets

Crown Castle Australia has purchased 140 mobile towers from the local arm of Vodafone for an undisclosed amount - but thought to be in the region of AU$45 million (US$39 million). According to Roger Hawke Crown CastleĆ's managing director, adding the towers to its existing portfolio allows Crown to further support its customers as Crown expands its wireless networks across Australia.

"This is one of the most significant tower purchases Crown Castle has undertaken in Australia since acquiring its platform of tower assets from Cable & Wireless Optus in 2000 and Vodafone in 2001. It increases Crown's portfolio of assets by approximately 10 percent," said Hawke.

Andy Reeves, chief technology officer at Vodafone Australia said, "Vodafone will continue to utilise each transmission site under a leasing arrangement with Crown Castle, and use the proceeds of the sale to re-invest in its national mobile broadband network upgrade,"

In 2000, Crown Castle Australia signed an agreement to purchase over 700 mobile phone towers from Optus plus around 670 towers from Vodafone. In 2007, the company also took 49 towers from Hutchison Australia.

Crown Castle said that this latest acquisition has expanded its footprint to some 1600 sites.

Posted to the site on 25th August 2008