Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite) — U.S. Industry Primer

North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 2022 code: 517112. (The 2017 code was 517312 — the same industry, renumbered; older U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and market-research data often still appear under 517312.) [22]

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1. Overview

This is the business of running the cell networks Americans carry in their pockets. Companies in NAICS 517112 own radio-spectrum licenses and the switching and transmission equipment — cell sites, antennas, core networks — that deliver mobile voice, text, and data, plus newer lines like 5G (fifth-generation wireless) home internet. [22] It is one of the most concentrated large industries in the U.S. economy: the four largest firms collect 96.6% of revenue, and in practice three national carriers — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile — dominate. [1]

An investor cares about this industry for three reasons. It is enormous and non-discretionary — people pay their phone bill before almost anything else, so revenue is unusually recession-resistant. It is a capital machine: carriers spend tens of billions of dollars a year building networks and buying spectrum, then harvest steady cash from a large installed base of subscribers. And it is maturing — nearly every American already has a phone, so growth now comes from taking each other's customers, raising revenue per account, and pushing into adjacent markets (home broadband, satellite-to-phone).

Public-market route: the three national carriers are all large, dividend-paying public companies, and much of the physical infrastructure (cell towers) trades as separate public real-estate companies. Private route: a shrinking set of family- and cooperative-owned regional carriers, wireless internet service providers (WISPs), plus private ownership of towers, fiber backhaul, and spectrum. The public route dominates — there are very few ways to own a facilities-based wireless carrier privately at scale.

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2. What it is and how it's structured

In scope (517112): "facilities-based" wireless carriers — operators that hold the spectrum licenses and own or control the network gear. In industry shorthand these are mobile network operators (MNOs): a company that owns or operates the wireless infrastructure and uses its own licensed spectrum. [22] Their products: cellular voice and mobile data, 5G, wireless internet, paging, and increasingly fixed wireless access (FWA) — home or business broadband delivered over the cellular network instead of a wire. [22]

A typical carrier owns or controls spectrum licenses (the scarce radio frequencies used to transmit), cell sites and antennas, the fiber or microwave "backhaul" linking sites to the core network, and the switching, billing, retail, and customer-service systems — plus wholesale, roaming, enterprise, government, and Internet of Things (IoT) relationships.

Explicitly excluded — this matters for sizing the "wireless market" correctly:

• Satellite operators (NAICS 517410). The "except Satellite" in the name carves out Starlink, HughesNet, and EchoStar's satellite business — even as new direct-to-cell satellite services blur the line (Section 8).
• Wired carriers (NAICS 517111) — fiber, cable, and DSL broadband, including the fiber arms of AT&T and Verizon.
• Telecommunications resellers (NAICS 517121). This is the big one. Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) — companies that sell wireless service but rent capacity on someone else's network rather than owning it — sit here, not in 517112. That includes the fast-growing cable brands Xfinity Mobile (Comcast) and Spectrum Mobile (Charter), which run on Verizon's network. [15] So the wireless market consumers experience is larger than the 517112 revenue line.
• Wireless-service agents (NAICS 517122) — resellers' sales agents and independent dealers.
• Equipment makers (NAICS 334220) — Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung — who build the radios and handsets.
• Cell-tower owners (NAICS 531190, real-estate lessors). The towers themselves are largely owned by separate landlords (Section 4) that lease space to carriers.
• Specialized/other telecom (NAICS 517810) — satellite tracking and related terminal facilities.

Ownership mix: overwhelmingly large, publicly traded corporations. A long tail of regional carriers is family-, cooperative-, or municipally rooted, but that tail is collapsing into the big three (Section 8). Because the largest carriers also run fiber, broadband, enterprise, and media businesses, a company's consolidated revenue is not the same as its wireless-carrier revenue — investors must read segment reporting.

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3. How big it is

Our federal ground-truth figures come from the 2022 Economic Census:

An HHI (a standard market-concentration score where anything above 2,500 is "highly concentrated") above 3,000, with a top-four share of 96.6%, is about as consolidated as a $280-billion industry gets. [1] The 1,184 firms are real, but the bottom ~1,180 of them split less than 4% of revenue. The figures measure firm receipts — not spectrum holdings, subscribers, network quality, or tower ownership — and an HHI is a concentration signal, not a complete antitrust market definition. [1]

The Small Business Administration's (SBA) size standard here is unusually high — 1,500 employees — reflecting how capital- and labor-heavy even a "small" carrier is; it is a federal-contracting threshold, not a measure of typical company size. [2]

Employment: our federal dataset does not include an official 517112 employment count, so we don't state one as ground truth. A widely cited private estimate puts industry employment near 291,000 in 2024. [4]

Undercount / scope caveat. Wireless is unusually well captured by federal statistics — a handful of giant firms file complete data — so the concentration signal is solid. Three caveats still apply. (1) The $283 billion counts only facilities-based carriers; the MVNO/reseller layer (cable-branded wireless, prepaid resellers) is booked in NAICS 517121, so total consumer wireless spending is higher. (2) The big three are diversified conglomerates — Verizon's total 2025 revenue was $138.2 billion including fiber, business, and media [10] — so any single company's reported revenue is larger than its slice of this NAICS line. (3) The Economic Census is an employer-business program that excludes government-owned networks and most nonemployer/no-payroll operators, so tiny rural WISPs are undercounted — a gap that barely dents the concentration picture but understates the true number of very small operators. [1] For scale on the demand side, U.S. wireless connections reached 579 million (about 1.7 per person), and Americans used 132 trillion megabytes (MB) of mobile data in 2024. [3]

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4. The investable universe

The national facilities-based carriers (the core of 517112). Market values are approximate and move daily; they are shown only for relative scale (mid-2026). [20]

Smaller / diversified public wireless exposure (not pure-plays).

• EchoStar (SATS) — parent of Boost Mobile; its latest filing describes a hybrid MNO/MVNO model rather than a clean fourth national network, and it is now selling core spectrum (Section 8). [24]
• ATN International (ATNI) — rural, remote, wholesale, and international wireless and broadband; useful small-cap exposure but not a pure U.S. carrier. [25]

The infrastructure landlords (adjacent — NAICS 531190, not 517112, but the purest "picks-and-shovels" wireless play). Cell towers are owned mostly by three public real-estate investment trusts (REITs) that lease space to the carriers: American Tower (AMT), with nearly 150,000 sites globally; Crown Castle (CCI), ~40,000 U.S. towers; and SBA Communications (SBAC). Together they hold just under 70% of privately owned U.S. tower sites. [21]

Satellite-to-phone challengers (adjacent — NAICS 517410): AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) and SpaceX's Starlink (private) are building direct-to-handset networks in partnership with carriers (Section 8). [18]

Private and regional owners. Facilities-based regional carriers are nearly extinct and getting fewer: survivors include C Spire (Mississippi, privately held via parent Telapex, now the largest independent), GCI (Alaska), Cellcom (Wisconsin), Union Wireless (Wyoming), Appalachian Wireless (Kentucky, via East Kentucky Network), and Viaero Wireless (Great Plains, family-owned). [19][23] UScellular, long the largest regional player, is being absorbed by T-Mobile; Carolina West sold to Verizon in 2025. [12][19] Bottom line for private investors: direct ownership of a facilities-based carrier is largely off the table; the practical private plays are towers, fiber backhaul, spectrum rights, small-cell sites, and the tiny cooperative/rural carriers and WISPs. Private ownership is far less transparent than public — a buyer must obtain detailed data on subscribers, churn, spectrum, roaming contracts, site leases, debt, and required network investment.

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5. How the money works

Wireless is a high-fixed-cost, high-operating-leverage subscription business. Building and lighting a network costs roughly the same whether it carries 10 million or 40 million customers, so the game is packing more paying subscribers onto expensive infrastructure and keeping them. The metrics owners actually watch:

• Subscribers and net adds. The headline number is postpaid phone net additions — new monthly-billed phone lines minus losses. Postpaid customers (billed after use, credit-checked, sticky) are worth far more than prepaid (pay-in-advance, higher churn). In 2025 T-Mobile added ~3.3 million postpaid phone lines and Verizon posted its best-ever quarter with 616,000 in Q4. [8][10]
• Churn. The monthly rate at which customers leave. Small numbers matter enormously at this scale: national postpaid phone churn runs around 0.9% a month (T-Mobile 0.90%, AT&T 0.92% in 2025). [6][9] A tenth of a point is hundreds of thousands of customers.
• ARPU / ARPA — revenue per user / per account. The price side. AT&T reported postpaid phone average revenue per user (ARPU) of $56.64; Verizon and T-Mobile report per-account figures (average revenue per account, ARPA, multiple lines per bill) near $148–149. [6] Carriers grow this by premium plans, added lines, and device insurance.
• Capital intensity and spectrum. The two defining costs. Carriers spend roughly $10–18 billion each per year on network capital expenditure (capex) — Verizon guided $17.5–18.5B for 2025, AT&T's wireless capex ~$10.6B, T-Mobile ~$9.5B. [6][7] Separately, spectrum licenses — the exclusive right to broadcast on specific airwave bands — are the industry's scarcest capital asset, bought at multi-billion-dollar federal auctions and carried as long-lived intangible assets.
• Device financing. Phones are sold on interest-free installment plans, so carriers front the hardware cost and recover it over 2–3 years — a working-capital drag that also locks customers in. Related metrics include customer acquisition cost (CAC) and handset-subsidy payback period.
• Free cash flow and dividends. Once a network is built, incremental subscribers are highly profitable, throwing off large, steady cash flow. The key financial chain is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) converting into free cash flow (FCF) after network investment. Verizon and AT&T are known as high-dividend income stocks; T-Mobile has favored buybacks and growth. This cash-return profile — not rapid growth — is the core investment case.
• Fixed wireless access (FWA), the growth lever. Selling home broadband over spare 5G network capacity turns an already-built network into a second revenue stream at very low marginal cost. It is the fastest-growing product in the industry (Section 6).

The rough economics: charge a large, loyal base ~$50–60 per phone line per month, keep monthly churn under 1%, spend heavily but predictably on the network, and convert the rest to cash and dividends. A carrier can still earn poor returns if new customers require expensive rural coverage or if promotions erode revenue per account.

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6. What drives demand

• Subscriber saturation. Penetration is effectively complete (1.7 connections per person [3]), so net new phone customers is nearly a zero-sum fight — growth is mostly share-shifting, added lines per household, and connected devices.
• Data consumption and 5G. Even without new customers, data use is exploding — up 32 trillion MB in a single year, to 132 trillion MB in 2024 — as video, streaming, cloud, AI (artificial-intelligence) applications, and 5G devices (now ~259 million connections, nearly half the total) proliferate. [3] Rising usage supports higher-tier plans.
• Fixed wireless access. The clearest growth driver. 5G home internet reached ~12 million U.S. subscribers, with 99% of new home-broadband signups in the survey period choosing a 5G-based service. [3] T-Mobile ended 2025 with ~8.5 million FWA customers (target 12 million by 2028); Verizon had 5.7 million (target 8–9 million); AT&T is ramping and analysts see it with the most untapped capacity. [11]
• Device upgrade cycles. New handsets (and satellite-capable or AI phones) drive equipment revenue and prompt plan switching.
• Enterprise, government, and IoT. Fleet tracking, industrial sensors, logistics, healthcare, utilities, public safety, and private wireless networks add lines beyond phones.
• Convergence / bundling. Carriers increasingly sell wireless + home broadband together to cut churn — the strategic logic behind Verizon's and AT&T's fiber pushes and the cable companies' move into mobile.

Editor's judgment: future growth is more likely to come from data usage, FWA, enterprise services, and better monetization than from a large rise in basic phone penetration.

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7. Regulation

The industry is federally licensed and overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

• Spectrum licensing. Carriers can't operate without FCC spectrum licenses, awarded mainly through competitive auctions; licenses can also be bought, sold, partitioned, or leased in secondary markets, subject to review. The FCC's authority to run auctions lapsed in March 2023 and was restored in July 2025 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which also directs a pipeline of at least 800 megahertz (MHz) of new commercial spectrum. [16] The first auction in four years — AWS-3 (Auction 113) of mid-band 5G spectrum — concluded in June 2026 with more than $3.5 billion in winning bids, with proceeds funding the "rip-and-replace" program that removes Chinese-made (Huawei, ZTE) gear from U.S. networks. [16]
• Merger review. The FCC and Department of Justice (DOJ) jointly clear or block deals, and have grown wary: the DOJ has publicly called the industry an "oligopoly" after "a decades-long trend toward consolidation-by-acquisition." [12] This is the central regulatory risk to further deals (Section 8).
• Net neutrality. In January 2025 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC's 2024 net-neutrality rules, holding that broadband is a lightly regulated "information service" (Title I), not a common-carrier "telecommunications service" (Title II) — a ruling enabled by the Supreme Court's 2024 Loper Bright decision curbing agency deference. [17] Federally, mobile broadband is now lightly regulated, though some states (California, Washington, New York) keep their own rules. [17]
• Public-interest and consumer obligations. Carriers also carry enhanced-911 (E911) location and routing duties; must protect customer proprietary network information (CPNI) under federal privacy rules; contribute to (and can draw from) the Universal Service Fund (USF), which subsidizes high-cost rural areas, low-income users, rural healthcare, and schools; face foreign-ownership review under Section 310(b)(4) of the Communications Act; must clear environmental and historic-preservation review (National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA; National Historic Preservation Act, NHPA) plus state and local permitting to build towers and small cells; and report coverage into the FCC's Broadband Data Collection (BDC), where submitted maps can be challenged. [23]

Regulation is a two-way force: it raises barriers to entry, but it also subsidizes rural networks, makes spectrum available, and protects incumbent asset values. Changes in spectrum policy, subsidy formulas, foreign-ownership review, or merger standards can materially move investment returns. [23]

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8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The defining story is relentless consolidation from four national carriers toward three — and possibly fewer facilities-based competitors.

• The 2020 T-Mobile / Sprint merger collapsed four nationals into three and created a scale competitor that has since led on growth. [8]
• T-Mobile's ~$4.4 billion acquisition of UScellular (completed 2025) absorbs the largest regional carrier's customers and ~30% of its spectrum, plus long-term tower leases — opposed by rivals and unions as further entrenching the big three. [7][12]
• EchoStar / Dish, licensed as the intended fourth national network, gave up and is selling core spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX and retreating toward a hybrid MNO/MVNO marketing model — removing the one policy-backed attempt to add a fourth competitor. Its default on tower leases in early 2026 also rattled the tower REITs. [8][13][14][21]
• Regional carriers are nearly extinct — Carolina West sold to Verizon, and survivors like C Spire and GCI are sub-scale and struggling to keep pace on technology. [19]

Two forces cut the other way, injecting fresh competition:

• Cable MVNOs. Comcast's Xfinity Mobile, Charter's Spectrum Mobile, and Optimum Mobile — reselling Verizon's network — took ~45% of all industry postpaid phone net additions in 2025, more than any single facilities-based carrier, having added 20+ million lines since 2017. [15] They compete on price and bundling but don't own networks (they sit in NAICS 517121), so they depend on wholesale deals with the very carriers they undercut.
• Direct-to-cell satellite. T-Mobile's T-Satellite (with SpaceX's Starlink) launched commercially in July 2025, and AST SpaceMobile signed Verizon for a 2026 U.S. launch. [18] These fill coverage gaps today, but a satellite that reaches ordinary phones is a long-run structural wildcard for the terrestrial model.

Net effect: fewer network owners, more resale-based and satellite-based competition layered on top of them. [23]

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9. Risks

• Regulatory / antitrust. Further consolidation faces a skeptical DOJ and FCC; blocked deals or forced divestitures would reshape strategy. [12]
• Price competition and churn. A saturated market means growth by discounting; aggressive cable-MVNO pricing pressures ARPU and can lift churn. [15]
• Capital intensity. Perpetual network spending plus multi-billion-dollar spectrum auctions consume cash; a carrier that under-invests loses network-quality-driven customers, while over-paying for spectrum strains the balance sheet. [16]
• Debt and interest rates. The big carriers carry very large debt loads to fund networks and spectrum; higher rates raise refinancing costs and pressure dividends.
• Technology disruption. Direct-to-cell satellite, fiber, Wi-Fi, and — longer term — 6G could erode the value of terrestrial coverage or spectrum positions. [18]
• Concentration risk for the ecosystem. Tower REITs, MVNOs, and suppliers all depend on a handful of carrier customers; EchoStar's lease default showed how one big tenant's trouble ripples outward. [21]
• Operational and liability risk. Outages, storms, cyberattacks, equipment shortages, and vendor dependence can damage a carrier's reputation and finances; failures involving CPNI, E911, or robocalls carry regulatory penalties. [23]
• Technology obsolescence and stranded assets. Retiring older networks (3G/4G) and spectrum re-farming impose transition costs.
• Rural economics. Low density, difficult terrain, high backhaul costs, and dependence on USF support make rural networks structurally hard to run profitably. [23]

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10. How to invest and the outlook

Public routes.

• The carriers themselves — Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), T-Mobile (TMUS) — are the direct plays. Broadly: VZ and T are income/dividend stories with modest growth and heavy debt; TMUS is the growth-and-buyback story. [10][20] When analyzing a specific name, separate service-revenue growth from one-off equipment sales; watch ARPU/ARPA, churn, net adds, and FWA adds; and check capex, spectrum commitments, lease and debt maturities, EBITDA-to-FCF conversion, enterprise value / EBITDA, FCF yield, and dividend coverage. A high dividend yield is not attractive if debt service and spectrum payments consume the cash. At the industry level the thesis is durable cash flows from a concentrated, non-discretionary market.
• Infrastructure ("picks and shovels") — the tower REITs American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI), and SBA Communications (SBAC) let you own the physical wireless backbone and collect long-term lease income without carrier-level price wars — though they carry their own tenant-concentration and interest-rate risks. [21]
• Smaller / satellite optionality — EchoStar (SATS) and ATN International (ATNI) offer non-pure-play exposure; AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is a higher-risk bet on direct-to-cell. [18][24][25]
• Broad exposure — telecom-sector and dividend index funds hold the carriers and towers together.

Private routes are limited: the small remaining pool of regional/cooperative carriers and WISPs, plus private ownership of towers, fiber backhaul, small-cell sites, and spectrum. Direct private ownership of a national-scale facilities-based carrier is effectively unavailable. Underwrite the customer base and the physical network separately, and press on: how much spectrum is owned vs. leased vs. dependent on roaming; what coverage must still be built and at what capex; whether site leases, fiber routes, and backhaul contracts are transferable; churn, CAC, ARPU, and FWA economics; dependence on USF or other subsidies; and whether there is a credible exit to a national carrier or infrastructure fund.

Near-term drivers to watch (forward-looking). Fixed wireless access is the swing factor — if carriers hit their 2028 FWA targets, wireless meaningfully expands into the home-broadband market. [11] The reopened spectrum-auction pipeline will shape who has the capacity to compete in the 5G-to-6G transition. [16] Regulators' posture toward the T-Mobile/UScellular deal and the EchoStar spectrum sales will set the ceiling on further consolidation. [12][14] And the pace of direct-to-cell satellite is the long-run structural question: complementary revenue today, potential disruptor tomorrow. [18]

Base case: a mature, essential, capital-intensive industry with modest underlying growth, where scaled operators generate durable cash flow if they hold pricing discipline, control promotions, and monetize enterprise and FWA demand. Bull case: disciplined consolidation, higher data monetization, and lower unit network costs. Bear case: a price war, expensive spectrum, weak consumer spending, rising leverage, and disruptive satellite or fiber alternatives. Growth increasingly comes from selling more services (home internet, satellite backup, bundles) to a fixed pool of subscribers rather than from adding new phone customers.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms, NAICS 517112 (Wireless Telecommunications Carriers except Satellite). 2025. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022
2. U.S. Small Business Administration. Table of Small Business Size Standards (NAICS 517112 — 1,500 employees). 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
3. CTIA. 2025 Annual Wireless Industry Survey Highlights. 2025. https://www.ctia.org/news/2025-annual-survey-highlights
4. IBISWorld. Wireless Telecommunications Carriers in the US — Employment Statistics. 2024. https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/employment/wireless-telecommunications-carriers/1267/
5. Statista. Largest U.S. Network Operators by Market Share, 2025. 2025. https://www.statista.com/statistics/199359/market-share-of-wireless-carriers-in-the-us-by-subscriptions/
6. TelecomLead. T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon Q3 2025 Results: Revenue, ARPU, Capex, Subscribers. 2025. https://telecomlead.com/5g/t-mobile-att-and-verizon-q3-2025-results-comparison-of-revenue-arpu-capex-subscribers-5g-and-fiber-strategy-123293
7. RCR Wireless News. Q1 2025 Reveals Diverging Strategies Among US Carriers. 2025. https://www.rcrwireless.com/20250501/business/q1-2025-us-carriers
8. T-Mobile US. Q2/Q4 2025 Earnings and Newsroom Releases. 2025–2026. https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/q2
9. AT&T Inc. Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Financial Results / 2025 Annual Report. 2026. https://investors.att.com/financial-reports/annual-reports/2025
10. Verizon Communications. 2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K. 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/732712/000073271226000015/a2025_aronform10-k.pdf
11. Wireless Infrastructure Association / CompareInternet / TelecomLead. Fixed Wireless Access Subscriber Data, 2025. 2025. https://wia.org/the-fixed-wireless-network-opportunity-update/
12. DataCenterDynamics. EchoStar, CWA Push Case to Oppose $4.4bn T-Mobile / UScellular Deal. 2025. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/echostar-cwa-push-case-to-oppose-44bn-t-mobile-uscellular-deal/
13. Mobile Internet Resource Center. Late 2025 Cellular Update: EchoStar / Dish Bowing Out, Starlink Mulls Becoming a Cell Carrier. 2025. https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/late-2025-cellular-mobile-internet-update-major-changes-echostar-dish-bowing-out-starlink-mulls-becoming-a-cell-carrier-5g-advances-and-4g-retirements-accelerate/
14. Broadband Breakfast. AT&T to DOJ: EchoStar Spectrum Deal Won't Harm Competition. 2025. https://broadbandbreakfast.com/at-t-to-doj-echostar-spectrum-deal-wont-harm-competition/
15. Verdict / Yahoo Finance. US Cable MVNOs: Sticking the Free-to-Paid Landing Is Mission Critical. 2025. https://www.verdict.co.uk/us-cable-mnvos-mission-critical/
16. TelecomLead / Federal Communications Commission / Phillips Lytle LLP. FCC Auction Authority Restored (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) and AWS-3 Auction 113. 2025–2026. https://telecomlead.com/5g/fcc-aws-3-spectrum-auction-raises-over-3-5-bn-reviving-u-s-spectrum-strategy-and-strengthening-5g-and-6g-leadership-126389
17. Congressional Research Service / NPR / Gibson Dunn. Sixth Circuit Strikes Down FCC Net Neutrality Order (Loper Bright). 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11264
18. AST SpaceMobile SEC filings / NewSpace Tracker. Direct-to-Cell Satellite: Starlink–T-Mobile T-Satellite and AST SpaceMobile–Verizon. 2025–2026. https://newspacetracker.com/articles/direct-to-smartphone-satellites/
19. Fierce Network / Light Reading. Regional Carriers Near Extinction; Carolina West Sells to Verizon. 2025–2026. https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/regional-carriers-have-gone-way-buffalo-moore
20. CompaniesMarketCap / Macrotrends. Market Capitalization — Verizon (VZ), T-Mobile US (TMUS), AT&T (T), mid-2026. 2026. https://companiesmarketcap.com/telecommunication/largest-telecommunication-companies-by-market-cap/
21. Mordor Intelligence / The Motley Fool / American Tower. U.S. Telecom Tower Market and Tower REITs (AMT, CCI, SBAC). 2026. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/united-states-telecom-towers-market
22. U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 NAICS Definition — 517112 Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite). 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=517112&input=517112&year=2022
23. Federal Communications Commission. 2024 Communications Marketplace Report (spectrum, foreign ownership, E911, CPNI, Universal Service Fund, Broadband Data Collection). 2024. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-136A1.pdf
24. EchoStar Corporation. Form 10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2025. 2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=EchoStar&type=10-K
25. ATN International, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K. 2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=ATNI&type=10-K