Two of the largest cellular phone carriers are launching a joint effort to build new cell phone towers via Tillman Infrastructure. This deal, headed by both Verizon and AT&T, may mean that property owners who hold a Verizon cell tower lease or a lease to AT&T may be owed more money.

Tillman will be constructing towers and then providing services to the massive cell phone service providers.

Thousands of cell phone towers are built on private property owned by United States citizens. Cell phone tower operators lease this land from property owners. The average yearly lease cost to a cell phone tower operator is about $45,000 per year.

For example, a property owner may own a portion of land that a cell tower must be built upon. A cell phone tower operator will agree to lease land from that private owner and pay them upwards of $45,000 per year to use that land.

Verizon alone owns and operates nearly 1,500 cell towers alone in the United States. Other companies own different fractions of the over 200,000 cell phone towers around the country.

This new agreement between AT&T and Verizon with Tillman Infrastructure will transfer a great deal of leases made by both of the cell phone carriers to Tillman. For example, if a property owner owns land and has a Verizon cell phone tower lease, that Verizon cell phone tower lease may be transferred to Tillman Infrastructure.

The reason this can be alarming is that many lease agreements have clauses in them that require supplemental payments be made to the property owner under certain circumstances. When a Verizon cell phone tower lease or an AT&T cell phone tower lease is transferred to Tillman, that property owner may not be paid the supplemental payments he or she is owed under their original AT&T or Verizon cell phone tower lease agreements.

It is estimated that nine in ten people in the United States own and use a cell phone, about 92%. This has risen substantially since 2004 when about 65% of Americans used a mobile phone.

According to the Pew Research Center, about 68% of Americans currently own a smartphone which has also risen significantly in the last few years. In 2011, only 35% of Americans owned a smartphone.

The rise of smartphone use has indicated a greater demand for cellular connectivity. In the United States, there are roughly 215,000 cell phone towers. In 1985, there were only 900, according to StatisticBrain.

Some of the largest owners of cell phone towers include Crown Castle, American Tower, SBA Communications, United Cellular, Verizon, T-Mobile Towers, Time Warner, Mediacom Communications and Charter Communications.

If a property owner leases his or her property to AT&T or Verizon for use of their property for an AT&T or Verizon cell phone tower, that lease may be changing hands with the new agreement between the two companies and Tillman Infrastructure.

If you are a property owner, you may benefit from speaking to an attorney about your AT&T or Verizon cell phone tower lease to determine if you are owed money.