Methodology & data

Every record on TowerCensus comes from the FCC's public ASR database — the federal registry of antenna structures that require registration (generally structures taller than ~200 ft / 60 m, or near airport approaches). We ingest the FCC's complete weekly bulk file (r_tower.zip) and publish one page per registration: 197,703 structures at the last refresh.

Fields shown per structure: registered heights (overall above ground, support structure, above mean sea level, ground elevation), decimal coordinates converted from the FCC's degrees-minutes-seconds, construction / issue / dismantle dates, FAA study number and circular, painting/lighting and marking specifications, address fields, and the registered owner entity.

Owner roll-ups group registrations by the FCC's stable licensee identity, so an owner's portfolio page aggregates all of its registrations even when entity names vary across filings. Corporate families with multiple licensee IDs appear as separate owners, exactly as registered.

Status and structure-type values are the FCC's raw codes, decoded using the FCC's own code tables (status: Constructed, Granted, Canceled, Dismantled, Terminated and others; structure type: the Form 854 list, such as guyed tower, lattice tower and monopole) and shown as raw codes otherwise. Many older registrations carry the FCC's general "TOWER" code, which does not record whether a tower is guyed, lattice or a monopole; those are labeled as type not specified. Aggregate statistics (counts, averages, height records) are precomputed from the full table on every refresh.

Completeness gate: structures missing coordinates or a registered height are excluded from search indexing and sitemaps, though their pages remain reachable.

The ASR is not a census of every cell site — structures below the registration threshold (most rooftop small cells and short monopoles) are absent unless voluntarily registered. Counts here are counts of registrable structures.

Ownership reflects the registered owner of the structure, not the carriers leasing space on it. Registered heights are as filed; they can lag physical modifications until the owner amends the registration.

Underlying FCC data is public domain. TowerCensus pages, aggregations and the owner graph may be cited freely with attribution to "TowerCensus (towercensus.com)". For bulk or API access, contact kenny@hyder.me.

Machine-readable summaries: /llms.txt · /ai.txt · sitemaps at /sitemap-index.xml.