Good and Bad for 2025

Rather than the usual brag-fest, here’s what actually happened in 2025—the good, the bad, and the stuff that keeps me up at night.

The Bad!

Two of our clients had leases terminated by the Big 3 this year. In both cases we had advised them termination was unlikely—and with the same facts, I’d probably say the same thing today. The rent wasn’t extraordinary and the escalations were only slightly above average. Cold comfort to those landowners, but those losses weigh on me more than any win does.

I want to be careful not to overstate this, but I do think it may be the beginning of a trend worth watching. T-Mobile disclosed in their Q4 2025 earnings a $450 million network restructuring charge tied to what they’re calling a “customer-driven coverage” model—evaluating every tower site for traffic and value, keeping what’s performing, and terminating sites with limited traffic or high costs. (Remember, the lease is just one relatively small part of the operating expense for a cell site.)

What does this mean for landowners? If your site is busy and your lease is reasonably priced, you’re almost certainly fine. If your site is in a lower-traffic area or your rent is higher than average or what a carrier would tolerate for a marginal location, it’s worth paying attention. The carriers have always had termination rights—what may be changing is how systematically they’re now exercising them.

We also lost some longtime clients this year. The best part of this job is the people—from every corner of the country, with stories I’d never hear otherwise. It’s a privilege to start working with their kids. It’s also a heavy reminder that we’ve been at this long enough to watch the first generation pass on.

On the business side, I misjudged wireless capex. Things looked slow coming out of 2024, and I assumed that would carry through. I was wrong—last year was still busy- mostly due to Verizon. (Worth noting: it wasn’t busy for the 20,000-plus industry people who lost their jobs this year.)

I also wish we’d made more headway for landowners in areas without zoning. The build-to-suit tower companies have been brutally effective at driving down rates in areas with multiple available site candidates. In those markets, it still comes down to one question: Is your site unique, or are you just one of multiple options?

A specific warning on AI and lease valuations.

AI came up constantly this year, and I want to be direct about it—not because I think it’s going to replace what we do, but because it’s actively misleading landowners about valuations right now.

For general information about how cell tower leases work, AI has gotten reasonably useful. But the moment a landowner asks what their lease is worth, the answers range from unhelpful to dangerous. The reason isn’t that AI is bad at math—it’s that the underlying data simply isn’t there. Further, AI can’t tell you whether your property is the only option or one of many for the tower company. Lease rates are private, hyper-local, and shaped by factors that never appear in any public dataset. AI fills that gap with confidence it hasn’t earned. HINT: Your lease isn’t worth $2,400/month, and most leases do not deserve to have revenue sharing.  

We lost count of how many landowners came to us this year with AI-generated counteroffers that tower companies laughed at—not because the landowners were naive, but because they’d been given authoritative-sounding numbers with no basis in reality. If you’re using AI to get a general sense of how this industry works, fine. To help with understanding the lease language?  Great.  But if you’re using it to value your specific lease, please talk to someone with actual market data first. 

The Good!

We closed more deals in 2025 than in any prior year. Total dollar value was below some peak years, but across consulting and brokerage, it was a high-water mark.

We secured some remarkable rates—north of $15,000/month—for clients with truly unique sites. People always ask if that’s sustainable. The carriers didn’t blink at renewal, which tells you everything. A good site is still a good site. That hasn’t changed in 27 years.

We also saw a big jump in due diligence work on tower portfolios—more towers and search rings evaluated for clients than any year in our history. Whether it’s projecting lease-up, evaluating portfolio quality, or untangling messy site-level paperwork, people are realizing they need an actual human eye on these assets. 

This was our 22nd year as Steel in the Air. I used to wonder when I’d have to pivot as the industry matured. I’m not wondering anymore—I’ll be retiring from this business. We kept taking real positions along the way—on the blog, on LinkedIn. We weren’t always right, but we were honest. The people who pushed back made us sharper, and that back-and-forth is why we have the vantage point we do.

Looking ahead.

2025 reminded me there’s no substitute for experience—and that after 22 years, we can still be wrong. The industry is chasing efficiency and automation. We’re staying in the messy, human work of helping clients make better decisions than they can get anywhere else.

If you’re staring at a renewal, evaluating a portfolio, or just trying to figure out if an offer is legit—give us a shout.