Mobile World Congress 2026: Towercos take center stage

Towercos have increased their presence at Mobile World Congress in 2026, held March 2–5, reflecting their growing relevance as key infrastructure providers for the industry. Speaking at the conference in Barcelona, Spain, TOTEM CEO Emmanuel Rochas highlighted that towerco ownership of global towers grew from 25% in 2014 to 75% today, as telcos around the world have sought to spinoff infrastructure assets such as fiber networks and mobile towers to reduce debt, improve monetization and attract investment partners.

TOTEM is one such company, spun off by French group Orange in 2021 to operate the telco's 27,000 towers in France and Spain. Although TOTEM remains under the control of its parent company, the carve-out allows the company to operate as an independent wholesale infrastructure provider, while maintaining a guaranteed revenue stream from its anchor tenants, Orange's operations in France and Spain, which are the largest mobile carriers in their respective markets.

Other speakers at the MWC's Tower Summit included representatives from multiple independent towercos such as European market leaders Cellnex Telecom and Vantage Towers (itself a spinoff owned by Vodafone Group), Southeast Asia's EdgePoint Infrastructure, MEA's Helios Towers and TAWAL, Americas towercos Phoenix Tower International and SBA Communications, as well as Telenor spinoff Telenor Towers, which operates in the Nordics. In common across regions were the challenges these companies face in evolving their relationships with mobile network operators (MNOs) beyond that of landlord and tenant.

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Increasing consolidation among MNOs has also reduced the number of core customers available for towercos, as mobile market players in several countries have dropped to three, and in some cases even two. Recent examples include the mergers of Vodafone and Three in the UK, Telecom Argentina and Telefónica in Argentina, and XL Axiata and Smartfren Telecom in Indonesia. The speakers added that towercos have struggled to increase tower tenancy ratios, especially in markets where MNOs still balk at the concept of infrastructure sharing, as they still see coverage as a key competitive differentiator.

For Vincent Cuvillier, chief strategy officer at Cellnex, where 80% of customers are MNOs, the industry needs to expand to other verticals. The towerco's booth at the conference showcased Cellnex's capabilities in security and defense, transportation and indoor coverage of venues and buildings, as well as services for operators. Among the projects highlighted were the migration of Sweden's emergency communications TETRA network to 5G, the rollout of connectivity on the London-Brighton railway, and deploying distributed antenna systems (DAS) in stadiums across Europe, such as Poland's National Stadium in Warsaw.

TOTEM's Rochas also pointed out the towerco's more than 100 non-MNO customers, including local authorities and IoT projects in segments such as agriculture and automotive. According to the executive, TOTEM's external revenue grew 8.8% in 2025 and have a set target of 7% annual growth for the next three years.

Energy resilience

For Cellnex's Cuvillier, separating network and service allows for more investment to increase network resilience, an increasing concern nowadays and another key vertical for the towerco. He cites the Spanish government's decree, which seeks to mandate at least four hours of mobile coverage to 85% of the population in the case of power cuts, following a major blackout in April 2025, as well as other natural disasters that have affected the country's networks in recent years.

According to a survey of 19 global network operator groups and towercos in 76 countries by industry association, and MWC organizer, GSMA, radio access networks represent 87% of energy use for MNOs and towercos, and 69% of energy consumption is dependent on traditional grids powered by non-renewable sources. And of the 200,000 towers covered in survey, 86% of sites were equipped with batteries, 50% with diesel generators and 9% with on-site renewables for backup.

Deploying solar panels or wind farms on-site can be an opportunity for towercos to sell energy to tenants as add-on service, as well as sell back excess to power grid and reduce costs. The investment on batteries can also be monetized, as Caban CIO Ryan Bisch, citing a distributed energy storage project the company developed with Finnish telco Elisa. "We use our batteries to offload the grid in hot peaks and to use more when the grid is underutilized and we actually get paid for it," he said.

Indoor coverage

In-building networks are a key opportunity for independent towercos, as they are ideally suited for the neutral host model — meaning the infrastructure can be used by any operator — and MNOs have been slow to deploy their own small cells in many markets.

This is reflected in small cell and DAS deployment rates across global regions. According to Kagan estimates, while the segment still represented less than 20% of total towers in Latin America and Europe in 2025, in Asia-Pacific small cells have already reached almost 40%, and a whopping 71% in North America.

"MNOs prefer macro sites, not small cells," Cuvillier said, citing Digi Romania as an exception in the European market. For Rochas, mobile networks must be "indoor by design," pointing out that 80% of usage happens indoors and that coverage is likely to worsen as older generation networks are being decommissioned.

"The situation in Europe is that MNO's priorities are on the macro still, deploying 5G, and there is not enough capex to serve all the demand [for indoor coverage]," says Jaime Abril, head of business and product development at Vantage Towers, who sees an increasing willingness from venue owners to pay for the infrastructure to push digital experiences. According to Abril, the Vodafone towerco has more than 1,200 DAS locations across its European footprint in venues such as stadiums, metros, hospitals and shopping malls.

This differs from EdgePoint Infrastructure CEO Suresh Sidhu's experience in Southeast Asia, where small cell deployments tend to be more operator-driven in the region, and the commercial model is more similar to that of macro towers, with an initial anchor tenant and additional tenants coming in later and reducing costs. "In most countries, it's not venue paid. The building manager will sometimes extract the rent even from you. So it's a cost," he says.

Government incentives can also drive indoor coverage, such as in Saudi Arabia, where developers are required to supply indoor equipment and cover the power costs for the infrastructure, according to TAWAL Chief Transformation Officer, Khaled Muhtadi. "With the rollout of massive projects, the government realized that this is going to be a bottleneck for us. So the regulator took a very bold decision where entire passive and active investment is now the responsibility of the developer," he said.

'Sky towers'

Another key topic at MWC this year was the use of satellite connectivity to increase coverage in remote locations. As well as the growing number of direct-to-device (D2D) offerings provided by mobile carriers around the world, in partnership with the likes of SpaceX's Starlink, many players touted the possibilities of effectively using satellites as towers.

Rather than operating as a completely separate network that requires users to roam, the satellite functions as a remote cell tower for the MNO. Companies like Equatys, a joint venture between Viasat and Space42, are proposing a shared, "tower-core-in-the-sky model" specifically designed to lower the cost of entry for MNOs and enable scalable service extension.

Operating as a neutral host or mobile network enabler (MNE), the satellite uses the MNO's own licensed spectrum. This preserves customer sovereignty by keeping the user relationship and data traffic under the MNO's control, addressing a primary industry concern.

The model also serves national interests. By functioning as a simple data relay, the "tower in the sky" ensures sovereign communications for governments and military applications, as traffic does not transit foreign or third-party networks. This provides a secure, domestic coverage solution across a nation's entire territory.

For a deeper overview of non-terrestrial network (NTN) topics at MWC, please refer to this article.

Both Cellnex's Cuvillier and TOTEM's Rochas agree that satellite operators are not viewed as a threat, but an opportunity, as they require land to host their gateway equipment, which towercos can provide. Cellnex, for instance, created Celland in 2024 as a new vehicle to accelerate land acquisitions in its main markets to reduce lease costs for land use rights.

Mobile Investor is a regular feature from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan.